Help Voice Dialing Not Working on the Sprint Hero

[t1jordan]

I usually drop my phones all the time. I have not dropped this one yet. Im wondering how it will handle falling in the street. Anyone dropped there phone yet?

 

[Edaze55]

I usually drop my phones all the time. I have not dropped this one yet. Im wondering how it will handle falling in the street. Anyone dropped there phone yet?

I wouldnt recommened it, and this is certainly not something I will be testing.

I would think that the possibility of being dropped is something that gets factored in when designing a handset because sometimes, things just happen.

 

[derspiess]

If the voice dialer does not work with bluetooth then hands free operations while driving a car are an issue.

Yep, it's been a big issue for me already. While I would never go back to my Moto Q9c, it & WinMo handled voice dialing like a champ. Took me a little bit of time to get accustomed to the necessary button pushes on the headset + how the commands needed to be structured, but it worked.

I'm surprised that for such an otherwise polished product, the voice dialer is absolute garbage. This is one thing that is absolutely essential IMO if you're not going to include a physical keyboard.

I do love this phone, but if I can't do voice dialing either from a headset or directly through the handset, it's useless to me when I'm in the car.

 

[Tikerz]

I find that if I haven't used it in a while it will be slow to respond the first time. But then every time it works fast and accurately.

 

[greatdane]

I think I can help. First time I have ever posted on a forum. I love the Hero, but the voice dial is a MUST for me. I have had it for about 10 days, and the voice dial has been sucking big time. NEVER WORKS.
I had the same problem as everyone when I pushed the small green button with the telephone on it; up popped the window. I took it to Sprint on the 3rd day and the guy basically showed me that I had fat fingers and I was pushing the MENU button the same time as the small green button causing the popup. You need to be really careful to just pushtthe small green button and not the menu rocker behind it at the same time.

NUMBER 2: My voice dial was recognizing the number when I would say "dial so and so" about 1 out of 100 times. While reading this forum I got even madder because I have been trying every kind of voice, speed, inflection etc. to no avail.

HOWEVER, just now I tried something new. I held the phone to my face as if I was making a call and said "call so and so' from my phone book in a fairly normal voice tone and speed. WORKED PERFECTLY. I then tried it about 20 times in a row using 20 different names from my phone book and then using "dial such and such" numbers. WORKED PERFECTLY 20 times in a row.

I am now going to bed and not try this again, because if it does not work I will throw the phone off the deck. If anyone tries this and it works, please post so I can feel good about myself.

 

[greatdane]

Just read my post from a minute ago and decided I better make my post a bit more clear.

To make the voice dial work, HOLD THE HERO TO YOUR EAR LIKE YOU ARE IN A CONVERSATION. DO NOT HAVE THE SPEAKER FACING YOU. HOLD IT LIKE YOU WOULD IF YOU WERE TALKING ON THE PHONE.

I just tried it again 3 MORE times (I said I was going to bed, but my post was bothering me, so I tried this method again) and once again, it pulled the 3 names from my phone book perfectly. Try it in a normal voice with moderate speed with the phone up to your ear like you are on the phone.

I am so happy I may have a cookie before going to bed. Once again, if someone tries this and it works, please post. My labrador is asleep and I need some positive feedback; too scared to wake my wife.

 

[meangreengdub]

Ya, I just tried it by pressing the Green Phone button and it worked like a charm. Really weird that pressing the Voice Dial icon it doesn't work very well but just long pressing the phone button works awesome.

ALTHOUGH, I did notice one thing... every time I press and hold the green phone button to do a voice command, my calendar pops up, anyone else??

 

[yolo]

I went to the Sprint store yesterday. The rep had a hero and his voice dialing did not work either. It worked twice when I first got the phone and was pretty good then- I have tried everything - voice times out or has to be force quit and TopVoice Control app Says Recoginizer limit - too many items. Shame I really need it.

 

[andy22]

I am so late on this but so what the problem persists.

It is one thing to bash the hero and have no working solutions or attempts to contribute to the flow of info. That would be trolling or just people who expect a phone without issues. Both unacceptable.

Then there are the people who exclaim how much they love their hero but admit it has a couple flaws. These people do not try to ruin your phone they simply are identifying issues that the community can attempt to fix. As momentum picks up for this OS we will not be waiting for Sprint or HTC to fix our issues because we will have programmers who just do this for fun, XDA for instance. Rooting will be step one most likely.

So when someone comes on here and identifies an issue don't be so quick to banish them from your kingdom. And the voice dialer has problems. It is on there as an advertised process but it does not work properly so it was identified. The Bluetooth problem with the ROM has stopped me from adding my headphones to this phone for the short term. I know that a fix will come along with out update. The Droid is a 2.0 phone but so will ours be. Level playing ground once again. Guess what, there will be a 3.0 OS in the next year no doubt and that will fix all the issues in the 2.0. The more this phone can do the more we will push into the ceiling and find the problems. The Hero 2 will be pure win.

 

[romeosidvicious]

I have mine working most of the time by using it like a phone and speaking slowly, in a normal tone, while driving. It still takes forever to look up a number and I am usually ready to give up by the time it pops up asking me which number I want to call. It gets "Call Name X" but missed "on mobile" every time. Sometimes it still thinks I said "Dial" and comes up with a list of phone numbers. It's still broken. When I get in the car I switch to a screen that has my favorites widget on it and a couple of flicks and I am talking. Much easier and less distracting. I still want it to work right or at least as good as my TP did.

 

[andib]

I can't get mine to work no matter WHERE I hold the phone. Am holding my breath for the 2.1 update - and BOY am I turning a dark shade of blue!

 

[DuchessLynne]

I had gotten the voice dialer to work, but it never seemed to bring up the right name. And to get it to work, I can be about a foot from the phone when I'm talking in a normal voice. I just discovered that it wants the last name, first name--apparently the way my contacts are filed--which I find very strange. So, searching for John Doe would bring up people with the last name Johns, Johnson, etc., but no John Doe. Asking for Doe John brings up John Doe. Very strange!

 

[KusH]

WOW holding it up to your ear like your talking WORKS EVERYTIMe! Just long hold the call button. hold it up to you ear like your talking and say in a normal tone what you want and it should work! Maybe it uses vibrations or something :/ At any rate I hope it gets refined in 2.1!!!!

 

[zx12richard]

Phone voice for people or numbers sucks bad. But the Google inet search is awesome. Found rumplestiltskin. Oly Oly oxin free. And supercalifragalistiexpoallidoses. Or however its said. LOL

 

[drmegabyte]

Any changes to the voice dailer in 2.1? Does it work better? Suck just as bad? ;-)

 

[bluenblnde]

Answering someone with what amounts to "Shut Up!" isn't going to solve the problems with the things that do suck about the phone. Sometimes solutions are posted, like the broken internal messaging app, and sometimes there isn't an obvious solution, like the present thread and people commiserate over their shared issues. And sometimes we just whine about what we don't like. I want to the voice dialer to work and it doesn't. It's broken. I will voice my feelings about this on this and other forums because the more voices that are out there the faster it will get fixed. I don't want to dial the numbers by hand. I WANT THE ADVERTISED FEATURES TO WORK.

Not just what this person said but also that fact that we want the feature that will save us time and also with the no texting, its safer to call someone if you can just voice dial than finger dial. So, hopefully they will fix this problem.

 

[alex51]

Vlingo Voice app.from market works reasonably well,but still an important thing to remember is to have little or no background noise and speak into the ph. same as on a regular call.