Help Ok Google doesn't pause or stop music

[Crodley]

Hi all,

My elderly parents got a Droid Maxx from Verizon a year ago and quickly got into a dispute with them. They stopped paying the bill and their account was closed. I noticed they still had the phone lying around. They are the epitome of non-techies. There really isn't any way for them to understand how to open apps or figure out any apps.

But I thought, hey, they have WIFI, I could try to turn this into a simple mock Amazon Echo. I got velcro and velcroed it to the wall, and added them to my Google Play Music family plan. I enabled Google Voice so works anywhere. I then printed out a bunch of Ok Google commands for them to say to the device.

Here's my problem: When playing a song in Google Play Music, saying "Ok Google, stop music." Does nothing.
Well, actually it just does a google search for the words "stop music" The same with Next Song or Previous song.

I've read some articles saying these commands should work. Does anyone know why they don't? Is that a limitation of the phone itself? A limit of the Android version? (4.4.4)

It might seem minor, but it's kind of a deal breaker with my parents, they would have a hard time trying to wake the phone, find the music app and hit stop to stop playing the music.

Thanks in advance!

Crodley

 

[Crodley]

Awww I hate when I stump people.

 

[doogald]

I haven't used voice commands much - and never for music control.

Are you using Motorola's touchless controls (which are launched by the phrase, "OK Google Now" and set up using settings / touchless control) or are you using Google's "OK Google" service? (They are different; if Motorola's cannot handle your request directly, it passes the voice command off as a search to Google.)

Touchless controls are always listening, but OK Google I believe will not wake a sleeping Droid Maxx. This is a list of the commands that came with touchless control when the phone shipped, which doesn't include Google Play Music controls (with the exception of picking a song to play):

https://motorola-global-portal.cust...495/p/30,6720,8882/action/auth#voice_commands

This was the updated list of commands that came with the 2nd gen Moto X and Droid Turbo, which I think also work with the Droid Maxx:

https://motorola-global-portal.cust...prod_answer_detail/a_id/101031/p/30,6720,9197


The Maxx is no longer my main phone, and I'm not going to have time to play around with this until after Christmas. So, unless somebody else can figure out if there is a way to make this work, hold tight for a few days?

 

[Crodley]

Yeah, it's not a Christmas present just something I thought I would work on. No, this is just using "OK, Google" The "OK, Google" does work when the phone is asleep as long as it's plugged in, which it will be always. Yeah, I don't see any music controls that would help me with Motorola's touchless controls so I didn't enable it.

Thanks for the links and information!