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S Voice with Bluetooth Earpiece

Quadlegend

Newbie
Nov 17, 2013
10
0
I use a Blueant bluetooth earpice with my Samsung Galaxy S4. Because of my disability, i can not use my hands so i rely heavily on voice control.

When i want to make a call, i press the main function button on my earpiece against my headrest and say 'phone commands'...this activates S Voice on my GS4.

First problem: By default, the 'talk back' feature is disabled. How do i have this ON all the time? I can't view my phone because it stays in my pocket!

Second problem: Say for example i say 'Call Dad'...S voice then prompts me by saying 'confirm call to Dad' - the problem is, it won't hear my voice until i press the little mic icon at the bottom of the screen...which i can't do. Is there a way to auto activate the mic without having to touch the screen?

BTW I really don't like s voice...if you can recommend something better i'm all ears!

Thanks.
 
I'm sorry, but those are the only easy solutions I had to suggest. I think you already know what my last suggestion is...factory reset. If you choose to do that, I highly recommend App List Backup: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.punsoftware.backup
This will make restoring your apps easier and also allow you to load them one at a time so you can discover if an app did happen to be the true cause of your S Voice issues. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

Oh, and I know this goes without saying, but make sure you back up anything you want to keep (photos, music, docs) to your SD card before resetting.
 
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I use a Blueant bluetooth earpice with my Samsung Galaxy S4. Because of my disability, i can not use my hands so i rely heavily on voice control.

When i want to make a call, i press the main function button on my earpiece against my headrest and say 'phone commands'...this activates S Voice on my GS4.

First problem: By default, the 'talk back' feature is disabled. How do i have this ON all the time? I can't view my phone because it stays in my pocket!

Second problem: Say for example i say 'Call Dad'...S voice then prompts me by saying 'confirm call to Dad' - the problem is, it won't hear my voice until i press the little mic icon at the bottom of the screen...which i can't do. Is there a way to auto activate the mic without having to touch the screen?

BTW I really don't like s voice...if you can recommend something better i'm all ears!

Thanks.

It sounds like S Voice on your GS4 is different than the one on my Note 3 running Android 4.3. I use a Plantronics Voyager and a long press brings up S Voice with ding letting me know it's ready. I say "Call Dad", it says "Call Dad?", I say "yes" and it dials.

That said, I'm about to try Google Now again. For a long time it would randomly dial anyone but who I said to dial. I haven't seen any complaints about it lately so I'm hoping they finally got it fixed.
 
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Jim, it's not different, it's just glitching. After it asks him for a response, it just stops, and that's the problem. It doesn't go to the next step where he can respond without him physically touching his phone, which he can't do. I had the same problem, but solved it by getting rid of an accessibility setting. He, however, doesn't have the same setting problem I had and yet is still having a problem with S Voice. If anyone else has some suggestions, please weigh in.
 
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Thank you so much for all your help so far. I too have been hearing that Google Now is better and that i should give it a try instead of S Voice...but i wouldn't have a clue how to do it :) Do you know how i can 'disable' s voice and use google now? I went to download google now but i couldn't find it!

Mhynek, you're correct...resetting my phone is a daunting prospect, but if all else fails i suppose i won't have a choice:)
 
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Thanks Mhynek.

Since i can't seem to fix this S Voice stuff, does anyone know how i can move over to Google Now? I.e. get rid of S voice?

You can turn off S Voice in Manage Apps. I just did that to try Google Now and it still got every name I tried to dial wrong. S Voice almost always gets them right so I turned it back on.

Let me know if anyone has better luck with it.
 
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It works pretty darn well. Only quirks I have is that in Drive Mode (comes on automatically when connected to BT) it sometimes mistakes things I say mixed with ambient sounds as the activating phrase and thinks I want to have it do something and beeps in my ear. It also won't read out texts from Chomp SMS, but that isn't a big loss to me as I don't do a lot of texting anyway. No matter what Dragon is far superior to that steaming pile named S-Voice.
 
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