Voice Recognition Calling Issue

[MuseChaser]

I've got a 2013 base manual FR-S w/ the base head unit, and an LG VX-8300 phone. The phone and the BT audio functions are both paired successfully, but the actual functionality is pretty random; hit or miss. Most of the time, the BT audio plays fine, but sometimes it doesn't unless I push the "end" button on the phone to reset it. The calling functions are similarly sketchy.. most of the time it works, but not always. I've read the manual for the head unit a bunch of times, but maybe I'm not patient enough.

A question - is there anyway to get the voice command prompts from the LG vx8300 to be heard through the car audio? I.E., when I say, "Call home," the phone responds with, "Did you say 'Home?'" at which point I have to say "Yes," then the phone will dial. When I'm driving, I can't hear the phone respond to me, so I have to look at the phone's display to see its response. Can those voice prompts be sent to the car audio like the rest of the call somehow? Once the call connects, it works great through the head unit.

The process of making a call is anything OTHER than hands free. This is what I have to do..

NOT Using Voice Recognition:

1. Press "Call"
2. Use the large knob and speed dial/radio buttons to eventually select the number I want to call, requiring a good deal of looking at the radio display.
3. When I finally have the number pulled up, press "Call" again to actually make the call.
4. Glance at my phone to see if the call is really going through. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes it works.
5. Enjoy (or hate) the call.
6. Press end after the call is over, then glance at the phone to make sure it's really hung up, and not just transferred the sound back to the phone.

USING Voice Regognition:

1. Press and HOLD "Call" until the screen displays "Voice Recognition"
2. Say "Call Parole Officer" or whoever I'm trying to reach.
3. Look at phone to see how it responds; usually it responds by showing three incorrect choices. Try again till it finally guesses correctly.
4. When I SEE that the phone has it right, I say, "Yes"
5. Look at phone to see if it's actually dialing.
6. Finish as above.

Sooo... can ANYONE tell me how all that is any safer or easier or less distracting than just holding the phone up to my @#$# ear and making a @#$#$ call?!?!? Note how many more steps there are above, and how many times I have to take my eyes off the road.

OR.. better yet.. can anyone give me any tips to make this work better? I've GOTTA be missing something. This sure seems less reliable and much less safe than just using the phone. Gotta love the nanny state.

Best to all...

Barry

[MisterSheep]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

OR.. better yet.. can anyone give me any tips to make this work better?

Answer to the above is to get a new headunit. These headunits suck so much as I hate mine, they make me frustrated.

I would browse the forums and look for recomendations on new headunits.

[Tcoat]

The 14 HU voice commands work like a charm. I use it all the time and only ever had it stumble once. Have to do up the window if on the highway though or it can't understand.
You can probably pick up a 14 HU for a song on here if you look hard enough.

[MuseChaser]

I'm going to necro my own thread...

Still have the 2013 FRS, with the standard Scion/Pioneer stock audio system, toyota part no. PT546-00130. Read the manual completely. It doesn't even MENTION the "Voice Command" function of the call button, so proudly engraved on the faceplate.

Just gave up and bought a Moto G7 smartphone. It's paired no problem, contacts imported, and supports OPP and PBAP bluetooth profiles. Made a couple calls successfully, but can't begin to figure out the voice recognition. When I do a long press of the "Call" button on the head unit, the screen shows "Voice Recognition," but nothing happens when I say anything. Should it? No mention of anything in the manual at all.

An issue with the phone? I don't have "Google Assistant" active on the phone, nor have I given it permission to access my contacts, web history, underwear drawer, and my DNA profile.. and really, REALLY don't want to. I'm already mad that I can't even save my contacts locally... it gives me my choice of saving to a google account or a google account. GRrrrrrrrrrr.

Soo.. for all you of you Android smartphone whizzes out there... here's the questions..

1. How do I get voice recognition to work? It used to, as described in my post four years ago, work at at least a very rudimentary level with my LG VX8300 clamshell phone.

2. IS there a way to text via voice commands and have texts read back to me, preferably through the car audio, via voice command, on a Moto G7 (not the G7 Play, or G7 Power... this is the full G7 variant).... preferably without having to donate my personal information and activities to the fine folks at Google?

3. Is there a way to save my contacts, i.e., telephone numbers, on my telephone, locally, for just ME to use, instead of @#$@#ER@# Google?!?!

I've been fighting joining the ranks of smartphone owners for many years. I wish I had held out longer. So far, so bad.

[Ultramaroon]

I still have a dumb phone and only call a few different people. I just have those memorized.


1. press button.
2. say "dial one two three four five six seven eight nine zero"
3. listen to the confirmation
4. say "dial," or stay silent if wrong.


works 8/10

[MuseChaser]

Hmmm... Maybe I've been saying "Call".. and I need to say "Dial?" Could it really be that simple?

I miss my dumb phone.. a LOT. It still works great, and is sitting in a dark drawer being neglected. Maybe I'll just give this to my wife... she loves this crap... and go back to my PHONE.

Thanks for the reply.

edit... OK.. I was wrong. After some more frustrated searching, I found that the manual does, indeed, "mention" the voice recognition function.. it says, in its entirety and I quote,

"When you connect the cellular phone corresponding to the voice recognition featurem if you press and hold until you hear a beep, the voice recognition function is activated."

Well... THAT certainly clears that up...

Maybe I'm being too hard on the head unit, and the problem lays more with how exactly I'm supposed to have the phone itself setup and the verbiage IT requires. Good thing it doesn't come with any documentation at all. Fun.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

Well... THAT certainly clears that up...

When I press the button, hints for the command verbiage are displayed. Does yours work the same way?
Smart phones sound like shit compared to the shitty way decent cell phones sound compared to land lines. I'm still resisting.

[MuseChaser]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

When I press the button, hints for the command verbiage are displayed. Does yours work the same way?
Smart phones sound like shit compared to the shitty way decent cell phones sound compared to land lines. I'm still resisting.

When I pressed it earlier tonight, all it showed was "Voice Recognition".. nothing else. I hadn't used it with my other phone in so long (since it never worked well enough to be useful) that I don't remember if it showed any other displayed hints or not.

And.. yes.. absolutely. Smart phones, at best, are small things that do a GREAT many things, but all worse than the devices that are designed to do each one of those things well. They are terrible phones compared to real phones, terrible cameras compared to best DSLRs out there w/ good glass, LOUSY for email and websurfing (and they've ruined the web because now websites are designed FOR mobile device surfing instead of content-rich, well-formatted sites for display on.. ummm.. displays), LOUSY for watching movies (really? a 6" screen?), LOUSY for listening to music (yeah... that's a GREAT sounding headphone amp.... right....). As a culture, we've come to value convenience over quality and over privacy.

I don't. And yet... here I am. I had false hopes that I could lock this thing down, ignore the Google spawn, and just use it as a phone, use Firefox to get my email and do some research when traveling, and use it handsfree in my car. That would have been fine... except that saving my phone numbers requires a Google account, and using the hands free functions seem to require activation Google Assistant ... which requires giving Google access to everything I do.

Google should be banned from the planet.

[Mr.ac]

Dude, did anyone tell you or... did you read the manual that it only works with iPhones?