Android Auto and Poweramp - Settings or Issues?

[J. Incendiis]

Good day everyone! Many thanks for reading and many thanks for any assistance.

I just purchased a 2021 Toyota Corolla Hybrid and have been setting up Android Auto. For reference I have a Samsung Galaxy S10 with the latest version of Android Auto and Poweramp. I have an extensive underground heavy metal collection. So far there are no significant complaints with the player after some tweaking but I am wondering if anyone can help me with the following:

1. A rewind/fast forward function or seeker bar? I cannot seem to get this to display. Holding down the prev/next buttons does not navigate/scroll through the song. I have played around with the seeker bar options but nothing seems to show up. Is there something I am missing?

2. Regarding Google Assistant for voice commands:

 a. Has anyone had any luck with getting some accuracy with Google Assistant? Even simple commands like "Play Iron Maiden" or "Play [Album]" do not yield positive results. For instance:

   - Asking it to "Play 'The Spell of Retribution' album" will provide an error.

   - Adding "...by The Chasm" will provide an error.

   - Asking it to "Play The Chasm" will create a playlist with 3+ tracks, the first three are by The Chasm, are clearly alphabetized, and the next songs are by a completely different artist but are clearly in an alphabetized pattern following the previous three tracks.

   - The above "artist" request provides a similar result with other artists, such as Judas Priest (i.e. if you were thinking this was because the artist has "The" in their name).

   - There is no luck at all when it comes to unique artist names like Acerus, or Zemial as speech-to-text does not accurately record it in order to begin a search (Zemial was logged as "The Mile"... I do not have a German accent but that might make logical sense... lol)

 b. I'm curious to know if this is an issue with Poweramp or Google Assistant (unfortunately I cannot test with other devices as Google Assistant is specifically linked to service provides like YouTube or Spotify, and I have no intention of paying for either of those two)?

 

For fun times, the most hilarious thing I encountered so far trying to get Google Assistant to recognize more types of commands was when I asked it to play the "Christcrushing Hammerchainsaw" album (lol, yes I know...). I instead received a playlist of songs where the first word in the song title was "Chainsaw"... this yielded like 7 tracks (lol, yes I know) but immediately at the end of those first 7 tracks the playlist continued with songs beginning with the word "Challenge" because alphabetically it goes CHAI... CHAL... This does indicate some sort of alphabetized priority - I am wondering if any of the app settings might fix issues like this?

[MotleyG]

The Android Auto interface has several limitations in order to maintain its’ safe use design. I don’t believe there is any form of FF/Rew or seek at available. As you have also noticed, the voice command interface is also somewhat limited. This isn’t really something that Poweramp can address, the same limitations exist with any other AA compatible app.

[andrewilley]

I'm honestly not entirely surprised that Google voice recognition failed with "Christcrushing Hammerchainsaw", or several of the other examples you give.  I'm afraid it's not a Poweramp issue though, it would be the same for any other audio app because Google Assistant tries to reconcile/interpret the content of what it hears before it passes what it considers to be the right words on to the destination app.

There is also no long-press facility, nor any fast-forward/rewind facility in the Android Auto touch interface. The buttons you see are what you get. PA may add a couple more (or make them configurable) in the future, but the interface is pretty strictly limited to avoid driver distraction. You may find that any physical (e.g. steering wheel remote) buttons might accept long-press operation though - mine does on my Hyundai, and I can get FFwd and Rewind that way.

Andre

[J. Incendiis]

Thank you both! I appreciate it!

Even if there were no workarounds, oh well, I'll manage. I understand the need for driver focus. Unfortunately the steering wheel controls do not allow for FF/REW by way of hold.

Thanks anyways!

Cheers

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, J. Incendiis said:

Unfortunately the steering wheel controls do not allow for FF/REW by way of hold.

Oh well, it was worth a try. It would be down to the headunit design anyway. This is what my Hyundai Android Auto headunit sends when you hold down the ">" (forward) and then "<" (back) steering wheel buttons, and how Poweramp reacts:

==================
15:28:40.879 PSMediaButtonReceiver android.intent.action.MEDIA_BUTTON
KEYCODE_MEDIA_NEXT ACTION_DOWN A2dpOn isAvrcp flags=0x4 playerState=1
==================
15:28:41.373 PSMediaButtonReceiver android.intent.action.MEDIA_BUTTON
KEYCODE_MEDIA_NEXT ACTION_DOWN A2dpOn isAvrcp flags=0x84 playerState=1
==================
15:28:41.378 PlayerService BEGIN_FAST_FORWARD
from PSMediaButtonReceiver
==================
15:28:44.364 PSMediaButtonReceiver android.intent.action.MEDIA_BUTTON
KEYCODE_MEDIA_NEXT ACTION_UP A2dpOn isAvrcp flags=0x4 playerState=1
==================
15:28:44.369 PlayerService END_FAST_FORWARD
from PSMediaButtonReceiver


==================
15:28:47.485 PSMediaButtonReceiver android.intent.action.MEDIA_BUTTON
KEYCODE_MEDIA_PREVIOUS ACTION_DOWN A2dpOn isAvrcp flags=0x4 playerState=1
==================
15:28:47.986 PSMediaButtonReceiver android.intent.action.MEDIA_BUTTON
KEYCODE_MEDIA_PREVIOUS ACTION_DOWN A2dpOn isAvrcp flags=0x84 playerState=1
==================
15:28:47.990 PlayerService BEGIN_REWIND
from PSMediaButtonReceiver
==================
15:28:51.057 PSMediaButtonReceiver android.intent.action.MEDIA_BUTTON
KEYCODE_MEDIA_PREVIOUS ACTION_UP A2dpOn isAvrcp flags=0x4 playerState=1
==================
15:28:51.060 PlayerService END_FAST_FORWARD
from PSMediaButtonReceiver

(I think that last entry is a logging error, PA should be indicating "PlayerService END_REWIND")

Andre