ZW2 Call Audio won't switch to Car and now is gone

[imarek3]

Got the update for my watch and I was able to use it to answer calls on my watch. I noticed that when I got into my car, that the bluetooth wasn't connecting to my phone because the call audio was still connected to my watch. I turned off the call audio in the bluetooth settings for the connection to my watch on the phone. Now I don't have the option to turn Call Audio back on for the watch, even when the phone is not connected to the car. My phone is an AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note 5.

My wife's Samsung Gear 2 Neo allows her to take phone calls on her watch and when she gets in the car, bluetooth in the car is used to take calls. It is handy to be able to answer the phone if you are busy dong something and your phone is a few feet away.

I would like to be able to answer calls from my watch if needed and then use the bluetooth in the car to use the phone. Any ideas on how to fix this, I tried factory resetting the watch and it did not make any difference. I think Google messed this one up.

 

[shschampion]

Same problem here... since the update yesterday using the watch in the car has become a clumsy and inconvenient operation. Prior to the update the Bluetooth phone-watch link handled notifications and the phone-car_radio link handled handsfree calling. With the update it seems like a lot of messing about will be required (maybe using NFC or Tasker).

Ideally, it would be nice to be able to use the watch for hands free when away form the car (Car Radio Bluetooth goes off with the ignition) but the watch audio function is more of a novelty than anything.... so I would settle for going back to the functionality of before the update! I don't want to be using an old version of the software though. Partly to benefit from any security updates, but also the new gestures seem like they will be handy.

Sorry not to be much use to you in my answer, but at least we can commiserate with each other while someone figures out a way to set up the watch in this scenario. I'm sure we are not the only people using a car radio/built in car function/handsfree unit/satnav for hands free in a car!

 

[Cant Miss]

On the watch... go to settings/Bluetooth and toggle off 'play phone audio on watch'.

 

[shschampion]

Well that's a good start! Thanks for pointing it out. That makes the phone Audio option go away in the Bluetooth options for the watch on the phone too... so it looks as if that pretty much puts things back to how the were before the update.

I can live without the ability to make calls on the watch (but I'd still be interested to know if anybody figures out how to have my cake AND eat it).

 

[shschampion]

Well that's a good start! Thanks for pointing it out. That makes the phone Audio option go away in the Bluetooth options for the watch on the phone too... so it looks as if that pretty much puts things back to how the were before the update.

I can live without the ability to make calls on the watch (but I'd still be interested to know if anybody figures out how to have my cake AND eat it).

 

[Cant Miss]

If you have Android Auto it's not an issue. Plugging in tells Android to make the change. But with standard BT I think you're stuck with the watch having the hands free profile connected as long as it is turned on and in range.

 

[shschampion]

That sounds right. I don't believe Tasker has any functions more fine gained than connect/disconnect Bluetooth device. If it were possible to disconnect just the audio from Tasker then something with NFC tags or power cord detection might work.

Thanks

 

[Cant Miss]

I think you'll need something running on the watch for this. The watch is already connected with another profile. And if 'phone audio on watch' is turned on, it instructs the phone to connect to hands free profile. My experience is that disconnecting the watch HF profile on the phone just results in it reconnecting a moment later.

 

[migs]

After the marshmallow update for the watch, I had noticed the same Bluetooth pairing issue in my Prius

I found a somewhat of a quick work around for this issue, when I get into my car I hold the Asus zenwatch power button until the watch restarts. While the watch is restarting my Note 4 smartphone automatically connects to my car audio and I can now make phone calls using my car's Bluetooth instead of the watch's speaker. The whole restart takes listen less than 1 minute. Once I've gotten out of my car the watch will still works to make phone calls

 

[shschampion]

How devious! Whatever made you think of doing that? I am impressed! I shall have to give that a try. Thanks

 

[boufa]

This is an interesting solution, but the problem happens with all types of bluetooth devices. I would love a button on my home screen that allows me to change the bluetooth source. It can be done, because I can do it by walking through the menu's and doing it manually. I might play with tasker and see what I can come up with. When I sit down in my car, if I am on a call, I want to be able to say hang on a second, push the button on my phone and it changes the conversation to the car.

What ticks me off, is that I sold my zen1 for a zen2 so I could use the speaker phone part. I can see in some cases the way I use my phone it would be handy. But now I have it off in the bluetooth settings because it want to be the only bluetooth device I use, or I have to jump up and down, and push 20 buttons to make the others work... each time.

 

[shschampion]

Please let us know here if you come up with something using Tasker. I have used Tasker a lot on my phone but have not done much with my watch yet. Looking at Autowear I could not see anything that looked like it would alter the Settings/Bluetooth/Play Phone Audio option on the watch.

Tasker at the Phone will let you connect/disconnect a particular Bluetooth device, but it seems to me that something a bit more subtle might be required if the audio is to be switched from one hands free device to another without disrupting whatever mechanism routes notifications from the phone to the watch - but maybe that is not affected in the way I imagine.

It does rather seem as if the Zenwatch 2's speaker function is something that is not properly supported by Wear.

Clearly some playing about is required. Please be sure to report back and I will do the same...

 

[shschampion]

It is looking quite promising...

If I sit in the car with the radio on (A cheap £50.00 JVC radio with Bluetooth) I seem to be able to choose audio via the watch or via the radio, albeit not seamlessly DURING a call.

The watch connection (find my watch, get watch battery status, get watch memory status) still seems to work when the audio is going through the car radio - so it seems that at least some of my worst fears were unfounded. Switching form one Bluetooth "headset" to another is something that can be quite well accomplished with NFC tags or simple Tasker profiles. We I am still not QUITE home and dry yet... because I still have to make sure that the media audio does not get messed up. Media audio (i.e. SatNav instructions) need to stay with the phone's own speaker as routing them via the car radio does not work well. The car radio's media audio Bluetooth is designed for music from a phone rather than a short interruption to car radio audio for periodic SatNav announcements.

To keep some perspective.... I think that, probably, NOT using the watch for phone audio at all is the MOST seamless option for most people because the phone to car radio connection happens whenever the radio is powered on and there is no need for ANY intervention. However, since I use an NFC tag to start my navigation and separate traffic camera apps on the phone there would not really be an extra step required there, at lest for the "getting in car" scenario. Not sure I want to add an NFC tag or Tasker profile for the "getting out of car" scenario. It is a pity that Tasker cannot tell the difference between my home charger and my car charger... because I don't think the car radio Bluetooth presence/absence will work as a trigger when the phone is connected to the watch and not looking around for Bluetooth.

That's my 2 cents worth for now.

 

[shschampion]

... (duplication)

 

[shschampion]

> My experience is that disconnecting the watch HF profile on the phone just results in it reconnecting a moment later.

... but not, it seems, if it connects to another device AFAIKS

 

[menachem bernath]

after the 1.4 update my normal bluetooth stopped work it keep sending the audio to he watch i tried connecting the bluetooth to the watch with no change i think you need to turn off watch audio this is just a idea this did work for me and yes there a a quick toggle in the top of the watch were do not disturb is to turn audio on and off

 

[shschampion]

UPDATE: After much playing around, the following methods seem to work quite well:

1) NFC tags in the car - one by the car-mount bracket to connect to the radio and a second on the door to connect to the watch. A it "manual", but reliable. If you forget to reconnect to the watch when leaving the car, you can always connect in Bluetooth settings (although I think my phone seems to connect to the watch sometimes when the car radio turns off anyway).

2) USB to 3.5mm Audio adapter cable. My phone (Samsung S3 Neo) sees this as a "Desktop Dock". A tasker task can be used to switch all sorts of things on connect/disconnect. Buetooth connection via the Tasker "Bluetooth Swiss Army Knife" plug-in So far, it work quite well. I have just insulated the unused 3.5mm jack plug. Bluetooth media audio still works. There did seem to be some spurious connecting of the phone to the car radio media audio (as well as phone audio) but I think I had something set wrongly as it now works.

The second option is the closest that I have come to a completely automatic solution to watch/car switchover.

 

[Old Stoneface]

FWIW...

Received my ZenWatch 2 on Wednesday. Paired it with my Motorola Moto G, Gen. 1. My Plantronics Explorer 50 Bluetooth earpiece still worked. The next morning the watch wanted to do an update, which I let proceed. I haven't checked the earpiece again, but the Jabra Cruiser speakerphone in the car is working correctly.

I've seen reference to "turn phone audio off" for the watch. Haven't been able to find that setting anywhere.

Jim

 

[shschampion]

Jim: Settings, Bluetooth, Play phone audio on watch.

I believe that turning this OFF will ensure the watch never tries to grab BT audio away from other devices. Initial experiments that I did immediately after the update would seem to indicate that other watch functions continue to work as expected.

(Settings, About, Versions, says Android Wear 1.4.0.2633150 on my Zenwatch 2)

From what I have read while Googling to understand this problem I gather that different manufacturer's phones handle Bluetooth pairing better than others. One comment specifically said that Samsung (i.e. my phone) in particular is not so good at acting on a newly turned on device "advertising" its presence. Apparently how Bluetooth is designed to work and how it is implemented by different phone manufacturers are different things.

So, Jim, maybe your phone is just better behaved?

 

[Old Stoneface]

Jim: Settings, Bluetooth, Play phone audio on watch.
...
So, Jim, maybe your phone is just better behaved?

More likely it's because that setting is turned off, on my watch

Thanks for the pointer!

Jim