Can't get Soundabout to play my phone calls

I downloaded the trail of Soundabout in order to be able to play my phone calls through my bluetooth speaker. However, my phone calls are still being played through the internal speaker of my phone, not through the external bluetooth speaker, although my music is being played though my external speaker - in other words everything is still behaving as it did before I downloaded Soundabout. Is there some configuration option I'm supposed to change in order to get Soundabout to start working properly?

Dave

Worse still, I've now discovered that I can no longer play my phone calls through my wired headset, with Soundabout installed, so I've had to uninstall it. Please could you tell me what I was doing wrong, as I would like to get it working properly if it is possible to do so.

Bluetooth speaker for phone calls:
Bluetooth speaker is probably a media A2DP speaker. Bluetooth has to be two way (microphone) for Android to allow it to work with phone calls. The Android audio policy manager won't allow it.
https://soundabout.forumotion.com/t9-phone-call-audio-to-bluetooth-media-a2dp

Wired Headset for phone calls:
Does the wired headset have a microphone installed?
If you put the "Headset toggle" widget on the home screen does the widget change its text to ON when you plug in the headset?

SoundAbout wrote:Bluetooth speaker for phone calls:
Bluetooth speaker is probably a media A2DP speaker.  Bluetooth has to be two way (microphone) for Android to allow it to work with phone calls.  The Android audio policy manager won't allow it.
https://soundabout.forumotion.com/t9-phone-call-audio-to-bluetooth-media-a2dp

It would be helpful if you could make it clear on your Google Play page that when it comes to phone calls, you can only support Bluetooth speakers that have built-in microphones. It's all about setting people's expectations correctly - if I hadn't thought wrongly that I would be able to have that functionality, I wouldn't have been disappointed when I discovered I wouldn't have it after all.

SoundAbout wrote:
Wired Headset for phone calls:
Does the wired headset have a microphone installed?  
If you put the "Headset toggle" widget on the home screen does the widget change its text to ON when you plug in the headset?

Yes and yes.

I've now realised that the reason it wasn't playing through the headset was because I had set the phone call audio settings in Soundabout to "Speaker", which seems to be the only way I can get it to play through any sort of speaker when the headset is not attached. It's annoying to have to remember to manually change the setting back to "let app decide" every time I plug my headset in, and then to change it back to "Speaker" whenever I unplug my headset. Is there no way of getting it to automatically use the headset when the headset is plugged in, and to automatically use the internal speaker when then headset isn't plugged in, rather than having to manually change the settings every time I plug the headset in or unplug it? (When my headset isn't plugged in, the "Let app decide" setting plays the sound so quietly I can barely hear it, which is why I was interested in your app.)



On a slightly different topic:  I use "Alarm Clock Xtreme Free" to play music to wake me up in the mornings, but annoyingly, the alarm music plays both out of my external Bluetooth speaker and out of internal speaker, simultaneously - and as the two speakers are out of synch, it sounds very odd. Is there any way to use the settings in Soundabout to make the alarm only play through the external one, when connected? (The internal speaker isn't loud enough to wake me, and anyway, the sound quality is far better on the external one.)

Dave

Bluetooth speaker for phone calls:
The Google Play page limits the space we have to list the features. I cut some stuff out to add to #2 on the description list.

Wired Headset for phone calls:
I am working out ways to made the app check if a headset is plugged in for more situations. I don't know if that is in Beta yet.
Try the latest version:
https://soundabout.forumotion.com/f8-download-beta-versions

Alarm Clock Xtreme Free:
Various phones can handle notifications and alarms differently. The app that plays the alarm sound can force it to through the speaker.
Try SoundAbout's "Notification behavior" / "Notifications to speaker" un-checked.

SoundAbout wrote:Wired Headset for phone calls:
I am working out ways to made the app check if a headset is plugged in for more situations.  I don't know if that is in Beta yet.  
Try the latest version:
https://soundabout.forumotion.com/f8-download-beta-versions

My phone won't let me install it, so I'll wait for the new release of your software to go live - presumably it will automatically install itself when it does, but please could you post back here then so that I'll know to try the new settings.

SoundAbout wrote:Alarm Clock Xtreme Free:
Various phones can handle notifications and alarms differently.  The app that plays the alarm sound can force it to through the speaker.  
Try SoundAbout's "Notification behavior" / "Notifications to speaker" un-checked.

That works great - thanks.

To install Beta versions, you may have to go into phone settings, find Security and then allow Unknown sources.

SoundAbout wrote:To install Beta versions, you may have to go into phone settings,  find Security and then allow Unknown sources.

Too scary for me. I don't want to make myself more open to hackers and viruses. I'll wait for the full release. Thanks though. But as I said, please could you post back when the full release goes live?

OK. One thing you could try is check Unknown sources, install an app, then un-check unknown sources afterward.

I just released 2.5.6.1 to Production. It should be updated in Google play in a couple hours.

Hi,
I realize that I'm probably wasting my time, but is there any way to get the phone to use an external BT speaker for audio output?
It's extremely annoying having music playing through a BT speaker, only to receive a phone call and have this only coming out through the phone speaker.
If I use a cabled speaker the phone audio cuts into the speaker fine, but not with a BT speaker, which seems unnecessarily complex.
Seems like I need the app to tell the phone that it's outputting to a mono BT device, but then re-route the signal to my BT speaker - to a novice that seems like it should be doable!  

legin01 wrote:Hi,
I realize that I'm probably wasting my time, but is there any way to get the phone to use an external BT speaker for audio output?
It's extremely annoying having music playing through a BT speaker, only to receive a phone call and have this only coming out through the phone speaker.
If I use a cabled speaker the phone audio cuts into the speaker fine, but not with a BT speaker, which seems unnecessarily complex.
Seems like I need the app to tell the phone that it's outputting to a mono BT device, but then re-route the signal to my BT speaker - to a novice that seems like it should be doable!  

No,  Android's audio policy manager shuts off any Bluetooth A2DP (media) connection during a phone call.  I've searched for a way around it before.

It seems to be working as I want now, thanks - although I can't see any way of looking up what version I have?

The best way is to go into phone setting, Manage apps, find SoundAbout, click on it. The version should be in that screen.

Okay - I'm on the latest version. I've found another frustrating glitch though. If someone rings me while my Bluetooth speaker is switched on, then the phone receiver is silent and I can't hear a word they say until I remember to press the Speaker icon in my phone app. Sometimes the caller has rung off by the time I've remembered to do that, and even if they haven't, it's very embarrassing. Would it be possible for a future version of your app to work around this undesirable behaviour as well? If the phone's speaker MUST be switched on when a Bluetooth speaker is active, then it should surely be possible for Soundabout to anticipate this and switch it on automatically when a Bluetooth speaker is active?

Are you saying you want the phone to automatically switch to speakerphone mode when a phone call comes in while a Bluetooth A2DP speaker is connected?

Yes, because the phone is unusable otherwise, unless one switches to that noise manually.

Oh, so your built-in ear speaker doesn't work?

Not when it's connected to the Bluetooth speaker - it works when it isn't.

I wonder if that speaker is connecting as both media and phone, even though it doesn't have a built-in microphone in the speaker.

1) Go into phone settings.
2) Find Bluetooth. Click on it.
3) If Bluetooth is OFF, you may have to turn it on.
4) Click on the settings icon for the Bluetooth speaker device. (you may have to long press it in some phones)
5) The next screen may have settings for "phone audio", "media audio", or both.
6) If it has "phone audio" and it is checked, un-check it and then back out.

Hi - it doesn't have phone audio as an option. It has media audio but that isn't checked.

That's strange that the media audio box isn't checked? Does it still play music through the Bluetooth speaker?

It's checked when the speaker's switched on, unchecked otherwise.

Oh, so it is checked when connected. The strange part is why your A2DP connection is interfering with the built-in ear speaker during a phone call.

It wasn't before I installed Soundabout though.