S Voice can't find some names in Contacts

[Dave-in-Decatur]

Like most people, I'm fairly underwhelmed with S Voice, though I gather it's an improvement over what was on the S3. I find that it has a terrifically hard time recognizing some names. Specifically, it can't find the first name of my wife or either of our daughters in Contacts! It gets most other names just fine (John, Nancy, Susan...). Just not the people I most want to text! I say, "Text Sharon," and "Text Sharon" appears in the little bubble onscreen, and then it says, "sharon is not in your Address Book" (its bubble shows "sharon" lowercased like that). Our daughters have somewhat uncommon (but not unheard-of) first names, and I'd make allowances for that -- except that when I tell it to text our very unusual last name, it pulls up 6 people in Contacts with that name ... starting with my wife and daughters! (Note that it's not the first 6 people in Contacts with our last name; it's my wife, our daughters, my sister, and two of my nieces. None of the men. I'd suspect prejudice, but it doesn't pull up all of the women either.)

I don't expect anyone here can tell me how to fix this. (If you've got a similar experience, it'd be nice to know I'm not alone; of course, I'm not trying to start a 20-page thread .) I guess I'm just venting a frustration with this still half-baked app.

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

Thanks, EM. I bookmarked your Google Now guide, and definitely plan to look it over. One question: If I use Google Now on a regular basis, how much of my information will Google creepily collect and use for its own non-not-evil purposes?

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

So, I did a little testing. I'm going to start a new thread on Google Now. Back to the original topic, though, I tried Google Voice Search and was able to both text and call my wife and one of our daughters, who has an uncommon name, without a hitch. Dead simple. AFAIK, I did not activate anything creepy in the process--I didn't turn on Google Now as such. However, after the texts were sent I got a long screen of articles and ads that I guess were supposed to be related to what I said. Useless and annoying. +0.75.

 

[albertdc]

Dave - I'm in the same boat. S-voice won't recognize my brother or wife but will recognize other names in my contacts. It drives me crazy that it says "Rick D...." is not in your address book. It says it back to me perfectly, yet doesn't find it! It will even say his name as an option if I only say the last name, but won't find it.
I had a S3 and the S voice worked flawlessly. I remember trying out the S4 S-voice apk on it, and quickly got rid of it. I'm bummed they haven't improved it since March.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

 

[therealjoeblow]

Go into your contacts, find the contact you're having trouble with, edit mode, menu button, add a field, select 'phonetic name' and give it a phonetic/common spelling. That will help svoice and Google Now find uncommonly spelled names.

I know it's a pita, my shatty old blackberries way back 5 years ago never had any problems ever with my wife and daughter's names (European spelling of common names) but modern android phones with light years of advances in tech can't get it right.

Cheers

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk 2

 

[albertdc]

Tried that - didn't work. It's odd in that it will say the name back perfectly. It was also pull the contact up if I say "look up ....." (... = the name). But if ask to call or message him, then it won't find it.

I'm wondering about getting the s-voice apk from the s3 and putting on the s4. Anyone tried that?

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

Man, that is weird. I tried "Look up Sharon" just now, and sure enough, it found my wife. Also worked for one of our daughters, but not the other.

Thanks for your suggestion, therealjoeblow, but I can't see having to add a dummy entry to my contacts just to get S Voice to work right. And what would I use for a phonetic spelling of "Sharon"? Is there a more obvious way to spell it?

albertdc, you might give Voice Search a try. It seems to do a Web search at the same time it composes a text message, but it does find even our daughter with the least common name.

 

[albertdc]

Hey Dave
In case your interested, I got the S3 version of S-voice onto S4, replacing the native app. It works perfectly! I no longer have trouble with it finding my contacts and placing the call or text.
See my thread here if you are interested in trying it.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=312192
Anyone have S3 s-voice apk?


Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Edcoopdeville]

Is Samsung aware of the problems that people are having with S-Voice??? It makes you wonder if they even tested this feature before they released it. Because I never had this problem with the same contacts that came from my Driod Razr using the very same Bluetooth device. When I press/activate my Bluetooth (especially when I'm driving) I don't want my phone to tell me I have a new text message, and I don't want it to tell me how many contacts I have with similar names, I just want it to find the person I asked it to and that's it!!! Like I said, I never had this problem with any of my prior smartphones!!!

 

[Ed Cooper]

In another thread it said to simply disable S-Voice, which will cause your phone to default to Google Now and that should resolve your voice dialing issue. Which I did and after disabling S-Voice I have not had any problems with voice dialing.

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 and that should resolve your voice dialing issue.

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

Just picking this up again to say that after the 4.3 update, S Voice is working much better at identifying names in my Contacts. OTOH, its voice is much more robotic and unpleasant. In any case, I've started using Google Now, which can do more and better, it seems. But S Voice might be worth another look after the update.

 

[Roman Klin]

Hi All, could you please help me with another S Voice problem. I am using an S VOICE 11.2.1.0.25140(r1) on my SGS 4 Active for month with no problem. But yesterday S Voice lost some contacts. After I spoke the name of contact "S Voice" recognize it correctly but answer is "the contact not found in your address book". This problem appear only for particular contacts...

I already tried to reset settings of S Voice, reinstalled it but problem have not been solved.

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

This sounds like the same problem I had at the start of this thread. I wonder if somehow the 4.3 update broke yours while it fixed mine.

Honestly, I'd recommend ditching S Voice and using Google Search. For me, it works flawlessly at finding people in my Contacts.

 

[Roman Klin]

Thanks, but I'm from Russia and Google Search doesn't support voice command in Russian.
Who has other ideas?

 

[sam kim2]

Both the S-voice and Google Now are better at recognizing names than my previous (non-Siri) iPhone 4. But is no one else bothered by the fact that you can't make a call by voice command to your earphone mic while the phone is in your pocket? Since I'm forced to fish the phone out of my pocket and look at the screen, I'd much rather find names and make calls with my finger.

 

[Linda McDonald]

S Voice would not recognize my sister's name Her last name is Fike. I ended up going into edit contact, another field, phonetic name and spelled it 'fic' It wouldn't work if I spelled it fik, fyke, fyke. So silly! S Voice thought I was using a vulgar word! LOL Just got to work with it.

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

Have you tried using Google Search? You don't have to enable Google Now for it to find names in contacts, and I've found that it does much better than S Voice (though S Voice did get better for me in the Android 4.3 update).

 

[usfgrad]

I just bought my GS4 about 4 days ago. My sister has a common name but spelled differently and S voice would not recognize her name. I added her name phonetically as suggested and also added her name as it is spelled to my dictionary (I basically just sent my sister a text with her name and asked to add it to my dictionary, since I couldn't figure out how to do it any other way). Now S Voice works perfect. I still have to have all of my contacts transferred over and am hoping this method will work for the rest of them.

 

[trucky]

S Voice would not recognize my sister's name Her last name is Fike. I ended up going into edit contact, another field, phonetic name and spelled it 'fic' It wouldn't work if I spelled it fik, fyke, fyke. So silly! S Voice thought I was using a vulgar word! LOL Just got to work with it.

You shouldn't cuss like that. This is a public forum...

 

[KhaosByKaye]

The problem is if you have your contacts are joined with others social sites like tango or Google or with anything it doesn't recognize the joined contacts. Ex: Bob is in your contacts. Tango sends a notificatioion recognizing Bobs number. You join the contacts Together s voice will not recognize the two together. Unjoin them and both will be recognized. Lmk if I helped.