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Bad audio prompts on mobile

dnel
over 3 years ago

Hello!

Does anyone else also have these issues?

Main issue:

When connected to mobile, my lap audio prompts are badly formatted. Each digit is read separately, with no pauses. For example, for lap 11: 13:33, it will read "lap one one one three three three", instead of "lap eleven, thirteen thirtythree". This can be quite confusing if I'm not paying full attention, especially since there is no pause between the lap number, minutes, and seconds.

It seems to read the seconds as expected while the minute value is still 0. I get lap 1: 0:28 as "lap one twentyeight", but I get lap 1: 1:28 as "lap one one two eight".

When connected directly to the watch, the audio prompts are formatted as expected.

This issue was introduced within a year ago I believe, but I can't say exactly when or which update.

Secondary issues, possibly related:

1)

The language of the phone audio prompts does not respect the setting on the watch. My watch is set to English - US, while the phone prompts are british. While this is not problematic for me in itself, I think this phenomenom was introduced at the same time as the bad formatting.

2)

When I have heart rate zone prompts enabled, the phone reads the absolute heart rate instead of the heart rate zone. (Meaning "heart rate 130" instead of "heart rate zone 2.5".) This issue is older than the other ones I've mentioned. I have had the issue on and off (mostly on) since I go my watch 2.5 years ago. This also works correctly when using audio from the watch.

  • +1 over 3 years ago

    What phone are you using – Android or iOS?

    On Android phones this is a problem with the phone manufacturers implementation of 'Speech Services by Google' (recently renamed from Google Text to Speech). Sometimes a restart of the phone after a 'Speech Services by Google' update cures it. When I encountered this problem earlier this year (2021) I ended up changing the default text-to-speech engine. No problems since.

    Language and dialect for audio prompts via the phone are controlled by the setting in Garmin Connect Mobile. Language and dialect set on the watch only affect audio prompts when headphones are connected directly to the watch. Two separate but interlinked systems.

    For the heart rate zone audio prompts, check what you have set in Garmin Connect Mobile. When using audio prompts via the phone the settings in Garmin Connect Mobile appear to take priority.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Scillonian

    Thanks a lot! This helped me!

    I use Andorid, Sony Xperia 5 II. I was not aware that a common text to speech engine is used, and I had also missed the audio prompt settings in the Connect app.

    My phone was using "Speech services by Google". I installed a different TTS engine, and that solved the number formatting issue! The problem now is that the voice sounds like a Harry Potter narrator or something, but I may try to find an engine that I like better. :P

    It is a bit strange that the app's audio prompt settings are placed in the device settings in the app, while at the same time it is not reflecting the settings done on the watch. Actually, the settings done on the watch are partly reflected in the app: I can enable or disable the heart rate prompt from my watch, and that setting is synced to the app. The same is not happening with the type of heart rate notfication. My heart rate notifications are also coming every minute, as per the setting on my watch, while the setting in the app still says 3 minutes. So in that case it is respecting watch setting, but not visually displaying it correctly in the app. The syncing of these settings seems a bit shoddily implemented.

    As a final note, I am left wondering if Garmin could not make every TTS engine work well, simply by asking the engine to read the text "thirtythree" instead of "33", like I assume it is doing.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to dnel

    I'm having the exact same symptoms.
    Using Android, vsn 11 on a Motorola Edge

    The factory default TTS app is 'Speech Services by Google' as mentioned by Scillonian

    I talked to Motorola customer service. After about an hour on the phone with them we concluded that even though I could successfully download and run a different speech to text app (Speechify and others) the design of the phone/OS did NOT allow me to replace 'Speech Services by Google' as the default TTS engine. 

    Bottom line: No way to fix the bad audio prompts. Gotta learn to live with it.

    Please add to this thread if any of you had better luck changing the default TTS on your Android phone. Thx. 

    FWIW, in my particular case, if the 10s of seconds digit is 'zero', the audio prompt is good.
    If the 10s of seconds digit is anything other than zero, the audio prompt is bad.

    Example:
    LAP ONE, TWENTY-ONE, OH SEVEN (good)
    LAP ONE, TWO ONE ONE SEVEN (bad)

    :