Getting navigation to do what the phone does with car bluetooth

Hi there.

I have the pro version

I am trying to use my new Droid Maxx (Verizon) with my 2013 Subaru Outback stereo. I am able to sync the phone and media. The phone cuts into any audio source I am listening to, and works great. The media audio goes to the bluetooth input on the stereo, and I have no problem streaming music from the phone. I can also hear navigation instructions when the stereo input is set to bluetooth audio.

What I want is to be able to listen to other inputs (radio and ipod) and have the phone google navigation turn by turn instructions cut into the music like my phone calls do.

I opened the SoundAbout setup and went to TTS setup. I changed audio output to bluetooth mono, and I changed the TTS engine to SoundAbout. The navigation instructions still only come over the bluetooth channel, and if it is not set to that input, I hear nothing. I tried to add delay and to limit utterances, but it didn't make a difference.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Josh

Try the latest Beta here:
https://soundabout.forumotion.com/f8-download-beta-versions

What Navigation app are you using? Some don't use TTS for all their directions.

I am using the blue triangle app which I think is the google maps. Not only couldn't I get the navigation to come through the phone channel, but I had to uninstall the app because I was getting double navigation instructions for everything. Are you suggesting the latest beta might be better?

Josh

Yes, I think the latest Beta will be better.

The only way for SoundAbout TTS to switch audio for a navigation app is to accept direction text through SoundAbout TTS, switch the audio, and then forward the direction text to the "real" TTS engine which will now play the audio through the newly switch audio output.

Google Maps navigation tries to get a lot (if not all) of the directions at the beginning of the trip. I assume it is saving the resulting audio as audio files to be used later, when you are close to that point in the trip. It does this to increase performance (in case you lose 3G..etc). Allowing Google maps to play the directions from an audio file will not work when you want to switch audio right before the directions are played (Google maps doesn't send a event right before playing the save audio) . This is why SoundAbout has the "max utterance" setting. You can set it to 2 so that SoundAbout TTS will play those two directions right away and not send back any recorded audio to Google maps. The assumption is that the first direction or two are needed right now while the rest are probably for later in the trip.

On top of that, you are getting the double voice, because some directions (in navigation apps like Google Maps) will have their own pre-recorded generic directions ("turn ahead", "Head west"...etc). These pre-recorded directions don't need to be sent through Text-To-Speech. What happens is that Google maps will ask for directions to be transcribed into audio (which SoundAbout TTS does), but still plays the pre-recorded audio when it thinks it is needed during the trip.

The directions for Navigation audio to Bluetooth are here:
https://soundabout.forumotion.com/t202-navigation-text-to-speech-audio-to-various-outputs-bluetooth-mono-in-car

I've gotten rid of the double voice (pre-recorded audio) issue using these directions:
https://soundabout.forumotion.com/t201-get-rid-of-double-voice-when-using-google-navigation-and-soundabout-tts

Examples of other navigation apps that request TTS for all directions (nothing pre-recorded) that will work much better with SoundAbout TTS:
https://soundabout.forumotion.com/t418-using-google-navigation-waze-or-co-pilot-and-even-ivona-for-the-voices