S-voice problems

[randun]

Just a quick 2 cents worth ... and a possible answer.

I was going nuts with S-Voice on my new T-mob S-4. Wouldn't recognize my Wife's name no matter HOW I said it. Totally garbled virtually everything else. I was beside myself since I do a LOT of driving and had come to rely on the voice function in my S2, where it worked PERFECTLY. (I use a Plantronics Bluetooth in ear headset.)
Since I'm rooted, I "Froze" it in Titanium backup so that the default Voice search in Android 4.2.2 would become active.
STILL wasn't right. Really bad, and now wouldn't speak in my ear, only through the phone's speaker at a very low level, almost un-hearable in a quiet room, certainly no good for the car!
NOW I was mad (well, my Mom would say I'm not a dog so I must be ANGRY... LOL!).
I un-Froze it and tried again. No Joy.
After scouring the net, I found the answer (well, worked for me, VMMV) - Just go to Settings --> App Manager --> ALL Apps --> Scroll down and click on S-Voice --> Clear Data.
It resets it back to default, you have to agree to the License, etc, but after that it started to work FLAWLESSLY!!!

Hope this helps some other poor soul!
PuterPro

I saw this fix on another forum as well. Tried it & still got no network connections.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 4

 

[kellerbl]

I tried this resetting of S Voice and it still correctly repeats the name back to me and proceeds to tell me there are 8 or 9 entries that match the name and it gives me a 3 entry list to choose from with names that match either the first or last name, but not both even though there is clearly one or more entries that match both first and last names. This makes the phone useless for making calls via Bluetooth while driving since I always end up needing to use my hands to make the call.

 

[lbuszkie]

I can't even get my phone to unlock with the voice command. I keep re setting it and it says it doesn't recognize my voice. Any advice? I just got the phone-is this a glitch in general or should I take it back to the store?

It doesn't really do anything by voice. And I really miss the slide screens for the phone calls to scroll from recently called to phone book and back that I had in my old galaxy nexus. Driving me nuts not to have those!!!

 

[carltonzone]

I thought I was the only one that noticed this. I previously had a Galaxy S2, and upgraded to the S4.

My Galaxy S2 was nearly perfect in recognizing my speech to do text entry. It was very operable in a wide variety of environments. But when I got my Galaxy S4, that went completely down the crapper. Voice recognition for text entry is horrible. If you are in a perfectly quiet environment with the right acoustics, it works like a champ. But if you are in a noisy room, in a car with the windows down, or in any outside area with loud background noise, the Galaxy S4 won't even come close to interpreting what you are speaking.

I don't know what they did different, but something is definitely different. I have no idea how you can go this far backwards on a device that is 2 generations newer. The only thing I can think of is that they may have ruined the text-to-speech capability by tweaking and improving the noise-canceling microphone. There couldn't possibly be any other explanation.

I haven't called into Samsung for technical support about this, for fear that they will tell me there's nothing that can be done about it. But I think I will write an "official" blog post about this on my blog site and see how many people find the article.

 

[texasowl]

Have you tried Dragon yet and if so, what do you think of it?

 

[scaglifr]

I don't use s-voice I use Google now way better and faster.

Apologies if stupid question ( android newby ) : how did you substitute the google now voice recog (which seems far better than s voice) for s-voice in the driving mode of the S4 ?

Cheers,

F

 

[nickgalaxys4]

I have still to find a way to replace s-voice for google now. I do not think you can on the GS4

Apologies if stupid question ( android newby ) : how did you substitute the google now voice recog (which seems far better than s voice) for s-voice in the driving mode of the S4 ?

Cheers,

F

 

[Edcoopdeville]

I was excited about getting my SGS4 until I tried voice calling on it. It seems like every time I tell it to call someone it comes back and tells me how many entries I have that contain that name. I don't care about that, and I never had this problem with my old Droid Razr. And when it does find the exact match (which most of the time it doesn't), it takes so long to find and reply back to me that sometimes I think it's not doing anything, then all of a sudden the lady's voice comes back says it's calling the number or it didn't find it. Is there any way we can get Samsung to do something about this? I don't want (or need) my phone to tell me I have a text message or ask me if I want it to read it to me. Now if the voice dialing worked , then I might not mind this feature, but since it doesn't, having my phone telling me I have a text message and telling me how entries I have with the same name just frustrates me even more. It's like this phone is trying to do too much and it's not doing a good job of it AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Ed Cooper]

I found this in another post on this site titled:

Replace S Voice with Google Now when activating thru headphones
http://forums.androidcentral.com/sp...ogle-now-when-activating-thru-headphones.html

The post said:
You just have to disable S voice; the phone will then default to Google Now. To do this:

Go to "settings" -> "more" tab -> "Application Manager" -> swipe over to select "All" -> click "S Voice" -> click "Force stop" -> click "Disable"

Your phone should now default to Google Now

 

[sidney1991]

After reading the responses here I was able to get my s4 to recognize a few names in my contacts. I cleared out the default number and just made Seperate entries for cell numbers or home numbers. So now I can just say text "husband cell".
But I have found another strange problem with s voice. I ask it to navigate to a city and it will open Google maps but then I have to physically enter the destination. The voice responds with "I will navigate to Ventura California", Google maps opens, and then nothing. I thought it would then give the directions to the destination I asked for. That's not exactly a hands free help while in the car. It actually takes less time to just open the app on my phone. Is that how is supposed to work?

 

[RockyMehta]

Voice command on the Note 3 is horrible. I am coming from a Nokia 920 and it generations ahead of this mess.

 

[Tyrone Ford]

Yeah I too am having trouble with S Voice, it used to update my Facebook for me now it is saying I need some active code and reckons I am not logged into Twitter when actually I am

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

One thing about disabling S Voice: if it is disabled, Voice control in Settings > My device > Call settings > Answering/ending calls is not available (it doesn't appear on the settings screen). I'm trying out using it to answer calls, so I have to keep S Voice enabled. Even with it disabled, however, I didn't find that Google Now automatically replaced it in, say, the Phone app: when I tapped on the microphone icon with S Voice disabled, nothing happened at all.

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

Picking this up again to report that after the 4.3 update:

• S Voice does much better at recognizing names in my address book.
• Disabling it (now called "turn off") still does not put Google Now in its place, e.g., in the Phone app (when I tap the mic icon, I get an error message that the app is disabled).
• However, even with S Voice disabled I can still use Voice control to answer the phone.

 

[sam kim2]

I switched recently from an old iPhone 4. Both S-voice and google now seem better than iPhone at recognizing names. But neither allow you to make a call on your earphone mic while the phone is in your pocket. You're forced to take it out of your pocket, at which point you might as well use your finger. I'm surprised android users seem mostly happy to live without this very basic very useful feature.

 

[AndroidArmageddon]

SHI☆tVoice has been a horrible experience for me on the S4. Jist updated to 4.3 and it still sucks like a vaccum.

First off, out of the box it doesn't work at all if you use a security code or password and you tell your call accessories in settings to allow bluetooth bypass.

Even when your phone is unlocked and you do manage to launch it , it doesn't recognize anything you say and you end up wanting to throw your s4 out the window on the highway.

I've also tried the Google search by setting it as the default. It's not much better but I would take it over sVoice in a blink.

I found that Dragon is the most reliable way to get voice commands working on my s4. It seems to be the only program that understands me and it will work with a pin code sitting on top and locking my device. After the first call however it's a cap shoot if you can make another call handsfree not sure if it's a BT issue but even if i hit hang up on my jawbone era I can maybe 50% of the time to get a second call out hands free. It's as if the phone doesn't release the blue tooth connection to dragon .

anyway I'm very interested in hearing if anyone else has success on their s4 with voice commands and hands free dialling.

Should I just switch to Siri?

 

[hersheyberr]

Trying to use Samsung Galaxy S4 hands-free with Pioneer radio that worked fine with my prior HTC EVO 4G. I've tried most everything suggested in this forum including: replaced completely useless S-Voice by disabling it, Google Voice works great from phone but from Bluetooth the Voice Dialer asks me to select (not say) 1 for Mobile, 2 for Home etc. It will not accept a voice command of "mobile", or "home", or "1" or "2", etc. It does accept a voiced "Cancel". How can I make the BT voice dialer work like the native phone dialer, which accepts voiced "call carol's mobile" just fine?

 

[Rene Amaro]

what is so frustrating is that when I had a blackberry there was a tutorial it to train the phone to your own speech these new phones don't have such a thing my blackberry never missed a contact. Why don't they do the same with the new s4 again?

 

[Sheila1965]

My husband's name is Shawn. whoever programmed the names S-voice recognizes apparently thinks that everyone with that name spells it "Sean". Consequently it can't find his name in the contacts list. I tried tye phonetic workaround but it still doesn't work for me. The voice dial on my first Galaxy phone worked really well. This is so disappointing!

 

[Tapio Valli]

I use the phonetic name solution. All my contacts are on Google and I just add that field to regular contacts. To get the required phonetic name I try calling using S Voice first.