Question Some questions about sending notifications from my phone to an earbud via Bluetooth

[TheBigGuy]

I have a Motorola moto g stylus (XT2115DL) phone that has Bluetooth that I never used.

I'd like to be able to hear the notifications in an earbud during the day so I don't miss them if I am in a different room away from the phone.

So I have some basic questions about if and how I can accomplish that.

1. Can I do that with this phone at all?

2. What kind of (practical) range can I expect from Bluetooth. Technically it's about 1,000 meters I guess, which is far more than I need, but practically how much range? Can it cover an entire house of 1,500 sf with two floors?

3. My understanding is that there are earbuds that can be set up to read the notification text. I already have an app on the phone that reads them. Can I use that app to read them so that the earbud plays the voice reading them, or does that capability have to be built into the earbud system? Since my phone already reads them I guess all I need is to transmit the audio output from the phone and that should do it. Can I do that? Should be able to right because that's the same output as music and music is one of the things these earbuds were invented for... to send the music from your phone to your ear.

Sorry, just have no experience with this. Ideally I just want a cheapo single rechargeable earbud that will be able to receive the notifications in voice from the phone.

Thanks for any help!

 

[VidJunky]

Welcome to Android Central forums.

I'm not very familiar with Moto devices but I do this on my Samsung device so I cannot say for sure if it will work for you. A quick search however did turn up this for moto devices;

To get your phone notifications read aloud through your earbuds on a Motorola phone, you need to enable the "Spoken notifications" feature within your Google Assistant settings, which can be accessed by going to your phone settings, then "Connected devices," selecting your earbuds, and turning on the "Spoken notifications" option; you can also activate Google Assistant on your earbuds and say "Read my notifications" to hear them aloud. [1, 2, 3]
Key steps: [1, 2, 3]

• Open your phone settings: Go to your phone's settings menu. [1, 2, 3]
• Access Connected devices: Navigate to "Connected devices" or a similar option depending on your phone model. [1, 3, 4]
• Select your earbuds: Choose your connected earbuds from the list. [1, 3, 5]
• Enable Spoken notifications: Toggle the "Spoken notifications" option to on. [1, 3, 5]

Alternative method: [1, 6, 7]

• Activate Google Assistant: Press the designated button on your earbuds to activate Google Assistant. [1, 6, 7]
• Say "Read my notifications": Once activated, simply say "Read my notifications" to hear your unread notifications. [1, 3, 6]

As for range, I use mine at work for this same thing, and I can reliably get about 100 meters. beyond that it depends if there is a wall between me and the phone and whether I left the phone on top of something or in my toolbox drawer. I would estimate in the worst place I get 35 meters. That's in a drawer, through 2 walls.

I don't know your app, so you would have to test to get the answer to your last question, but perhaps the instructions provided above will negate this question and make it moot.

Let us know what you find.

 

[TheBigGuy]

Hi VidJunky and thanks for your reply!​

I think my phone may have those settings that enable it to read notifications.

But I use an app that has really powerful features for doing that and I would prefer to have the notifications read by that app. So I'll see if I can set it up so that works. It should be doable. If you can transmit music, I don't see why you can't transmit any audio the phone can generate.

I was mainly interested in the range question and your answer was very helpful with that. I think even 35 meters is probably about enough to cover most of the house. The main purpose is so that I don't have to carry the phone around the house when I am working in other rooms. This way I will never miss a notification.

I don't care how good it sounds so I don't need a fancy pair of buds.... I think I'll start with some cheap ones to see if I can get it to work. Then I might buy a little better ones because the cheap ones probably don't hold a charge as well.

Thanks again for your helpful reply!

 

[VidJunky]

You probably don't need the most expensive earbuds to do everything you want but be aware that some options may not be available on very low end models. Definitely read the reviews and try searching YouTube for more information.

In the meantime, I don't know why you're set on the app you've picked, but your question got me wondering so I did some brief searches and found several threads here and there talking about earbuds that will read notifications out loud and found more than a couple on Reddit. Some threads like this one,

https://www.reddit.com/r/Earbuds/comments/1egc3v3/are_there_any_wireless_earbuds_that_will_read

, include app recommendations as well.

Good luck and best wishes.