Cortana over bluetooth

[CuddleBunni]

So I've been tinkering with Cortana and I like it a lot so far. I did have a few convenience questions:

1. When I use Cortana while the phone is connected to bluetooth in my Mazda CX-5 it pauses for a moment, brings up the voice call screen with my phone's number in it then beeps to notify me that I can talk. This process takes about 3-5 seconds and the mic in my car isn't as good as the one in the phone so she has a harder time figuring out what I am saying. I doubt it, but is there a way to force her to use the phone's mic instead?

2. Along the same lines as the previous question, it would be great if I could talk to Cortana in the car while the phone is still in my pocket. I tried calling back the number that she calls me with and only get my voicemail... Any thoughts?

For now I'll deal with activating her from the phone and waiting for her to call my car... At least until Windows in the Car is available or I have a few hundred bucks to replace the dash computer with a custom windows 8 pc.

 

[Guytronic]

Hmmm...
This would be great to expand on.
I know MSFT is dabbling in the automobile interface business again.
Wonder if Cortana might be a player in that?

Thinking about...probably.

 

[mikemeltz]

I have the same issue with my Audi A5 so Cortana is not working when connect via Bluetooth in the car, all other functions work fine.

 

[camaroz1985]

Didn't work with the aftermarket headunit in my truck either (Kenwood), but did work with the bluetooth headset in my motorcycle helmet (Cardo).

 

[CuddleBunni]

It does work for me, there is just a long delay as the phone appears to call itself through the car system. It isn't very slick, but the fact that it works at all is impressive for a beta.

 

[DalekSnare]

My car system insists on using its own useless voice commands so I just start Cortana the usual way (it helps that the phone is in a dock).

 

[Joel S79]

This is mostly dependent on the headunit, and not the phone. First, IIRC when it connects via voice, the Bluetooth protocol makes it use the mic of the headunit. You can try ticking the box in the advanced bluetooth settings to help with it understanding you, but you might be stuck. One thing to tinker with is the volume of the stereo mic, if the gain is too high, it might distort your voice, so try turning it down (this is usually done when you're talking). The mic in my car is horrible, conversations with the previous system were mostly me cursing. My gain isn't that high and yesterday I was able to control Cortana speaking in a normal tone of voice while doing 70 on the highway.

As far as controlling Cortana, the head unit has to support passing the voice commands. Some do so when you activate the voice, you can tell it something like "voice commands" and it'll switch to the phone's voice command, other's don't, and that's a shortcoming of the headunit. Nothing you can do aside from get a new headunit.

 

[rickhan]

With WP8.1, Cortana/voice commands are failing when connected to Bluetooth. Happening with my BlueAnt ST3 and My Camry 2007. Both worked perfectly before upgrading to WP8.1
It appears that both the microphone and speaker volume are way too low. Cortana cannot understand any of my commands, although she hears something.
If I manually dial and use the Bluetooth, both speaker and possibly mic volume is unusably low, with the Bluetooth accessory vol turned to max.
Lost Bluetooth use with my 920 on both my Bluetooth devices. No more hands free usage.

 

[TrueMetalGeek]

We have "U-Connect" in our Dodge vehicle and it isn't all that great. Too many instructions spoken every time you get a simple text message.

Well I happen to have aftermarket Pioneer Premier head units in my older vehicles that have Bluetooth.
I've been using the Bluetooth for phone calls and music playback for months. (No audio delay either like our U-Connect).

Anyway I recently got the Nokia Icon and then 8.1 with Cortland wow is the Bluetooth interface so much better!
Better than our U-Connect and better than the glitchy Bluetooth functionality of my Samsung S4 I was using.

The Nokia and Cortana properly pause my music or video playback and the prompt to listen and reply to text messages is much quicker than the U-Connect in the Dodge.
And if you manually enter something in the text message box Cortana knows to stay silent and not interrupt your music etc.

Here's a demo of me using it.

 

[sinime]

Mine seems to work just fine (Lumia in a 2012 VW Golf). Although, to activate Cortana, I have to press/hold the search button. The audio in the car will cut off for a second or 2, then I hear the sound that Cortana is ready for me to talk.

 

[Splacknuk]

I posted in another thread...

I can use Cortana over the bluetooth connection in the car (2013 Escape with Ford/Microsoft Sync), but only if I start her up by pressing the button on the phone. I was not able to activate her using the vehicle steering wheel controls or voice controls.

 

[TrueMetalGeek]

I tried Cortana in our Dodge vehicle with the U-Connect.
Luckily the U-Connect voice does not notify me of my text messages like with my android phone and instead just lets Cortana do it.
The only bad thing is there is a few second delay. Which is always there on this silly Dodge U-Connect thing.
When I play anything audio, it is a second or two delayed before you hear it.
Whereas with the aftermarket Pioneer Premier stereo in my older cars the audio has no delay.
On the Dodge U-Connect I am missing the first part of whatever Cortana says but get just enough to interact and successfully listen to and reply to text messages.

Luckily that Dodge with the factory U-Connect is my wife's daily driver, not mine.
I'd have ripped it out and put an aftermarket head unit by now.

 

[Joe920]

So I've been tinkering with Cortana and I like it a lot so far. I did have a few convenience questions:

1. When I use Cortana while the phone is connected to bluetooth in my Mazda CX-5 it pauses for a moment, brings up the voice call screen with my phone's number in it then beeps to notify me that I can talk.

There seem to be some problems with at least the Lumia 1020 and bluetooth. Which phone do you have? Example: Nokia Drive used to announce directions through the same profile / channel (?) as music, but now in WP8.1 for every street name it activates the 'call' profile, which as you say takes a couple seconds. Volume is also very uneven. Hope they fix it soon.

 

[adamx98]

Thanks man, this was awesome.. especially the video review. Exactly what I was looking for.

I realize it's like 2 months after your post, but would you mind sharing the model number of that head unit? I'm a big fan of Pioneer's products, but had read some posts here that made it seem like they didn't "play nice" with WP8.1. I'm looking to replace an old dying head unit in my daily driver and this is EXACTLY the behavior I'm looking to get out of an upgrade!

Much appreciated!

 

[Sabir Mayo]

Better off using in car.

 

[Joe920]

I set up a poll asking users whether voice prompts are working well in WP10, so if you can please participate:
http://forums.windowscentral.com/wi...well-over-your-cars-bluetooth-connection.html