Android Auto issues with voice commands

Apps & Core Settings
31

See these posts - you’ll have likely already see some of them - I have removed superfluous comments from the quotes. Also I haven’t compiled a detailed chart of the issues, but if you go through those posts you’ll see I’ve covered a pretty comprehensive spread of all the standard things you’d want to use and functions you’d want available. But as I have said previously I’m not an expert with Android, so there might be some settings or such I am missing at a deep level in the OS - but I do think that’s unlikely.

25 September 2025 (from BraxTech Forum)

2 October 2025

3 October 2025

4 October 2025 (from BraxTech Forum)

4 October 2025

7 October 2025

9 October 2025

9 October 2025

[quote=“mycenius, post:22, topic:6860, full:true”]

@rik a further update. Bear in mind with what I say here this is just what I found and I may have missed something that changes things - but anyway… Connected A34 to wi-fi and tested - partial functionality (e.g. it would read out the weather). So definitely needed internet to for digital assistant to work at all, HOWEVER…

…it still wouldn’t work for reading out SMS messages, nor could I get any STT working. In fact for the former (just to read out text messages) it said you needed to go into Digital Assistant Settings and allow personal items, but when I tried to do that on the phone (in settings) it said no connection available - despite having an active connection to the internet. It was clearly trying to launch something (plain grey/silver page - my suspicion is a webpage with the frame/border disabled) - presumably from Google server. So…

My conclusion is it’s trying to access something in your Google Account online where the Digital Assistant Settings and Permissions, and possible dictionary and similar, are stored. Forcing you to have an active signed in connection to use it. Or at least to set it up. BUT that still leaves me stumped over people who say they have used the Google Apps, but not signed in and locked them down with no internet access - including [Google] maps - so I can only assume they are not using any TTS (except perhaps for map directions) and especially no STT at all?

So at this stage my summary is (and probably needs more testing by someone else with a more technical knowledge of Android than I do to confirm these assumptions) that for Google Digital Assistant (incl. Google Speech Recognition & Synthesis app) to work it needs:

  1. An active internet connection (it may do some things offline, but initial set up and some functions, like some TTS and especially all STT, will always need it, it seems) - this is probably due to both the device alone won’t have the processor grunt to do all the speech processing work, but also #2 below,
  2. It would seem it needs you to be actively logged into a Google Account on the device (or something akin to this) - otherwise it can’t access key things like your personal settings and permissions, and language dictionaries and whatever… While some of this may be for valid technical reasons it’s likely also a hook to ensure you can never use it offline, and without being connected to G, for tracking purposes. I can’t see any other reason for the result I repeatedly saw this afternoon with it trying to open a page and saying no connection available.
  3. It needs some unique features that some apps (FOSS, etc) will probably never have so won’t work with it regardless. Likely because they don’t have the necessary included functionality; and/or lack some sort of proprietary code or connectivity built in - similar to how Organic Maps in iOS has no option for STT input. Most map apps have some TTS support it seems, even if via third party TTS, but that’s all you will get (I’d suspect like iOS in Android G DA just won’t work regardless as TTS with open source maps apps).

:thinking: :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
So, in conclusion, basically you won’t get STT functionality, so no voice search functions in maps, phone contacts and similar, no sending SMS messages by voice (or reading them), etc. I think in all reality it may require someone backwards engineering the whole thing and how it works, and fully developing something to talk to the AA units in vehicles - and that may be a challenge if there is some proprietary stuff in there (let alone the time and effort involved).

:face_with_diagonal_mouth:
My last thing will be to remove the voice stub(s) and try Google Speech Recognition & Synthesis - mostly to see if I can get FOSS maps working better, and possibly installing base Google App (I believe it’s got G Search built in as part of the functionality for AA) makes basic phone calls work and other apps work and the apps and screen navigation more stable - if not then it’s likely FOSS type apps just aren’t going to work with it full stop.
:man_shrugging:

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EDIT: Adding this here as I am currently at my 3 consecutive posts limit on this thread.

@rik just a further quick update - continue to have ongoing problems with AA with just basic stuff (playing music or podcasts). Intermittently get errors on connection, probably about a third of the time and sometimes requires 3 or more connection attempts (with USB cable) for AA to start correctly - some of the failed attempts result in a red AA Connection Failure warning screen on the phone. When it does connect about another third of the times it starts playing media for a couple of seconds then freezes and locks up, again resulting in a failure and need to disconnect then reconnect. This is without even doing anything special (like phone calls or text messages in or out), or using maps - just basic navigation or playing maps.

So overall I am finding 50% of times you connect it fails, completely, because of one error or another - so it’s highly unstable running on only the stubs and FOSS type apps. At least in my vehicle and phone combination.

18 October 2025

21 October 2025

25 October 2025

…at least without a Google Account active on the device - the odd app may work in it’s basic form, like maps and media players, but not everything nor full functions.