Bluetooth and Aux jack

[chadder44]

Hi everyone,

I am in the process of installing an 8" Galaxy tab 3 in my car. Of course, nothing is going as smoothly as planned but it's actually been fun troubleshooting so far. I've been slowly learning Tasker for all my automation needs. I have it set to turn on bluetooth, wifi, sync, and car home ultra upon receiving power, and obviously turn off those options (along with the screen) upon losing power. My original plan was to use the Aux jack for all my media, but I'm really liking the ability to change tracks and see song data from my head unit via bluetooth. The only problem with this is watching videos. While watching video from sources like Netflix and HBO GO, the BT audio is not always in sync. It works perfect over Aux out.

So here's my issue:

MY Galaxy Tab 3 will not play audio over bluetooth while the 3.5mm headset plug is connected. Since my tablet is mounted in my dash, manually plugging in the cable when I want to watch a movie is not practical, plus I want everything to be automated and seamless, if possible. I found a widget that manually overrides the headset jack, which works perfectly, but I can't figure out how to have Tasker press the widget toggle for me, for instance, when bluetooth is connected. Tasker has the ability to control shortcuts, but as far as I know, not the ability to control a widget. I found a Chinese app that supposedly turns widgets into shortcuts, but it didn't seem to work on my HF toggle widget. Next, I read online about an another app which also seems to manually force bluetooth when the Aux jack is plugged in. This works great but it gives me the opposite problem, the Aux jack no longer works. My workaround so far is to set up Tasker to load this app when bluetooth is connected, and close it when bluetooth isn't connected. The drawback of this is that the app screen pops up for a second, (I added a task to "go home" after loading it), which is sort of annoying. Also, sometimes it seems that the app still has to be manually ""minimized". I guess my question is, can anyone tell me a better way of doing this? Is there a way for me to have Tasker control HF toggle widget instead of using the app ? Or is there a way for Tasker to run the app in the background without opening it to the foreground first?

Thanks for your help.

 

[codesplice]

Sounds like a fun project! I'd love to see some pictures of your install and progress!

I haven't had a chance to play with it a whole lot, but I believe that the AutoVoice Tasker plugin includes the ability to manage the audio routing. Maybe you could use it to switch between line out and the Bluetooth connection?

 

[Rukbat]

While watching video from sources like Netflix and HBO GO, the BT audio is not always in sync. It works perfect over Aux out.

Just so you know, digital audio and digital video have different delays, and if that's not taken into acco8nt by the device, there's going to be a lack of sync. You can see that on some of the older cable TV boxes. If you have a really old box and a newer one in your house it can drive you nuts. Watching on one box looks fine, watching on the other box and the sound either comes first (no correction in the box) or the sound comes after the video (overcorrection in the box).

And some cable companies aren't aware of the reason it happens, but their solution happens to be the right one - replace the old box wwith a new one. (And scrap the old box - which they do - because it's no longer compatible with 2014.)

Bluetooth introduces its own delays. The video codec introduces different ones. The phone is normally set up to sync the video delay with the normal audio channel delay and using Bluetooth changes the timing just enough to be annoying. (And you can't fix it without redesigning the phone or somehow introducing a negative delay in the Bluetooth receiver.)

 

[chadder44]

Thanks for the replies. This is strange, but somehow everything magically started working with "Sound About" last night exactly how I needed it to. When I initially tested the app, sound would output through the speaker instead of the aux jack when bluetooth was disconnected. However, last night it started using the AUX jack automatically, without me needed to use tasker or anything. I must have changed something, but I dont know what exactly. For now I'll just consider myself lucky. I'll take a few pictures tonight when I get everything finalized. Thanks again.