Can SA help with google now not playing well with an A2DP car stereo?

Google now (or any kind of voice control) has never worked for me across 7-8 phones and two cars when there is a2dp streaming in the mix. I finally figured out that it works fine if media streaming is disabled, but that means I have to choose between needing voice control or listening to music. Digging through BT settings is too sow, and there are no widgets i can find that will toggle BT media. Can Soundabout help me somehow?

My current car has its own voice control system, so there is no "bluetooth" button

A2DP = media streaming (one way - high quality)

SCO (mono) = phone call streaming (two way)

Google Now (voice recognition) has issues when an A2DP Bluetooth media device is connected to the phone. The voice command doesn't work. This has been the case for a while.

SoundAbout can't help that issue.

I was testing this today and found that if I enable stream audio to Bluetooth (Mono), I can get Google Now to accept input from the Mono mic. However, it doesn't go into permanently listen mode to listen for the hot word, I have to manually push the mic button on the Google Now floating bar. Now if I can only find an app that would intercept the button push on the Bluetooth headset (redial) and pipe it to triggering Google Now, that would be perfect.

For some reason, when Bluetooth is connected, the Google Now "OK Google" listener shuts off.

I've tried capturing the Bluetooth button. It seems to "mean" different things on various phones and versions of Android. It tends to open the voice dialer and not Google Now.

By switching "Media audio" to Bluetooth mono, the mic and the audio output will go to the Bluetooth headset. If you don't care about the audio output, you can switch the "Media audio" setting to "Let app decide" and then go into "Bluetooth behavior" and check the "(Mono) Microphone override" setting.

This will use the Bluetooth headset microphone, but not the Bluetooth headset speaker. Because it is not using the Bluetooth headset speaker, Google Now will listen for commands.

I can say "OK Google", listen to the response from the phone speaker (if voice is set to all responses). When it is finished, I can say "OK Google" again and say another command.

I tried that and while it works, it's not fully functional. If you ask Google Now to send a text message, it's an interactive conversation and not hearing the response makes it unusable.

If I uninstall SoundAbout and install Bluetooth Launch then set the action for Bluetooth action to "com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox.VoiceSearchActivity" it allows me to trigger Google Now by pressing the "Answer" button on the Bluetooth headset. At that point, Google Now is fully interactive.

That solution works for Google Now very well, but it doesn't work for other apps like Waze or Google Maps to give directions.

Right now, if I were to redirect all audio to Bluetooth Mono in SA but not the mic, it defeats Bluetooth Launch from triggering SCO protocol for Google Now.

Would be great if SA can implement something like Bluetooth Launch to trigger Google Now for interactive mode over SCO then once that is done, flip to routing A2DP over Bluetooth Mono just for audio out but leaving the mic alone. If it senses a call come in, it should give up control of Bluetooth and let the call go over the regular phone mode for calls on SCO.

I will have to check this out.

I know the "Google Now listener" used to have an issue when any Bluetooth device was connected, even Bluetooth A2DP.  It seems to work now.

Bluetooth A2DP can't be routed over Bluetooth mono; they are separate.  The headset would have to support both Bluetooth (HSP or HFP) for phone calls and support Bluetooth A2DP for media.   That being said, you can still listen to voice (and sometimes media) over the Bluetooth mono (phone) connection.  The audio is not as good, but it can work. That's what the app is doing when you set the "media audio" to Bluetooth mono.   When you switch to Bluetooth A2DP, it just means that the audio can be higher quality and in stereo.  A2DP is not two way, so it can not be used during voice commands.  If you wanted to use Bluetooth for voice command, and have the response come back using Bluetooth A2DP, you are correct in saying that I would have to disconnect the Bluetooth mono voice connection and then turn on the Bluetooth A2DP connection.  The trick is being able to get notified when the person giving the command is finished talking before switching over to Bluetooth A2DP.

You probably noticed the MANY different actions you choose (in Bluetooth Launch) from when pressing the Bluetooth headset button.  Then you look at the comments and can see how hard it is to get something like this working for the majority of phones/Android versions.

Thanks for the effort on this. I'm just baffled that this direct use case is not handled by Android natively. I mean as lame as an iPhone is, it just... works. You know what I mean?

If you control both the hardware and the software then you don't have the compatibility issues. You add to that, the layers(Samsung TouchWiz, HTC Sense, Moto Blur) that the manufacturers put on Android and more of these issues occur.

Another new problem is the manufacturers trying to appease corporations...
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/03/04/samsung-adds-security-layer-to-android-to-gain-enterprise-credibility

That's true and it's also where Google's lack of clear direction for Android is troubling. With Blackberry on the way out, one would think Google would spend the time to tie into enterprise market space. Consumer space is great, but the cash cows tend to be enterprises. I see many of these layers from 3rd party manufacturers going by the way sides if Google would implement for of the functionality in the core itself. There's a reason why many 3rd party manufacturers are integrating with iPhones instead of Android because of that fragmentation. Anyways, we're getting off on a tangent here