[Q] Car Mode? - Moto X Q&A

I used Tasker to put the Moto X into Car Mode until I get the official car dock. Unfortunately, all I get is the Clock Daydream. If I tap the screen, I can see the Car Mode notification and can dismiss Car Mode. I was hoping there was at least some minimal UI as I have seen with other Android devices.
Has anyone else seen this, or have I messed up something?
EDIT: It seems that if I install a Car Dock App like Car Home Ultra, the Car Mode works as expected. Perhaps I was presuming that there was a built-in Car Mode app.
Does anyone have recommendations for a good Car Dock app that works well with the Moto X, since we already have Driving Mode and really good voice control?

Hey there, I was wondering the same thing. Does Moto X's Car mode do anything special on its own? Does it read out messages or anything?

Car home ultra seems to be about the best app that I've found so far. I really liked the car home app that came with some of the previous generation moto phones, but they were part of blur that they got rid of.
What the car mode does is that it sends a trigger to the OS, and depending on what you have installed, it can do various things. It The Motorola assist app enables the reading text messages aloud, but if you use something like tasker, you could probably set it up to do it without using assist.
Personally, I use Tasker in combination with Car Home Ultra, and an app called Media Utilities. I have it set so that when it is triggered, it'll launch into car mode, and launch shuttle plus media player and begin playing a song. I think I also have it set to enable GPS and disable WiFi and set the volume or something. The reason that I use the Media Utilities app is that it works better with 3rd party music players. The built in functions seem to only trigger Google Play Music.

The Horak said:
Hey there, I was wondering the same thing. Does Moto X's Car mode do anything special on its own? Does it read out messages or anything?
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Click to collapse
Enabling the dock mode as if it were a standard hardware dock (dock event broadcast) doesn't seem to do much outside of enabling rotation in the launcher. Enabling via the UiModeManager doesn't do anything from what I can tell.

I was wondering the same thing about car mode... loving Car Home Ultra except for one thing, maybe someone has a fix:
Is there a way (Besides the patch they advertise in Car Home Ultra) to get the Home button to go to CHU instead of the normal Homescreen when in Car Mode?
I've been fiddling with Tasker for a while and can't seem to get anything to work...
any ideas?
otherwise CHU is a great app! loving the dock (just got it yesterday!)
EDIT:: here's a sweet Xposed module that fixes the home-button issue: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2361166
if you don't have root, maybe this tasker profile will fix it for you!:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/related/1ax0bw/fix_for_broken_car_mode_in_42/

axly said:
I used Tasker to put the Moto X into Car Mode until I get the official car dock. Unfortunately, all I get is the Clock Daydream. If I tap the screen, I can see the Car Mode notification and can dismiss Car Mode. I was hoping there was at least some minimal UI as I have seen with other Android devices.
Has anyone else seen this, or have I messed up something?
EDIT: It seems that if I install a Car Dock App like Car Home Ultra, the Car Mode works as expected. Perhaps I was presuming that there was a built-in Car Mode app.
Does anyone have recommendations for a good Car Dock app that works well with the Moto X, since we already have Driving Mode and really good voice control?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you do this? I tried using Tasker, but did not see any Car Mode or Dock apps.

kjl512 said:
How did you do this? I tried using Tasker, but did not see any Car Mode or Dock apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Display > Car Mode.
In Jelly Bean (Maybe ICS), Android stopped bringing you to the car mode app when pressing the Home button while Car Mode was active. For me that all but eliminated all benefits of using Car Mode. Most everything I would have done from a Car Mode app I can do with Touchless Controls, and with Moto X's superior voice recognition this works pretty well for me. Sure, there are plenty of things that you can't do with Touchless Controls, but for me it's an improvement over using a Car Mode app.

Related

[Q] Car Dock / Bluetooth Media Volume lock / Dock spoofing?

I'm running Froyo/CM6, by the way.
In short, anytime the phone is put into the car dock, the bluetooth media volume is set to max. If I have it connected and playing as I insert it, it's fine unttil the next track plays. I have even deleted the actual car home launcher app from the phone, although the phone still detects it has been inserted into the car dock (icon in notification.) Even selecting this icon and exiting car mode still leaves me with the same issue - volume on BT audio constantly being reset to max.
This does NOT happen on the desk dock, that works flawlessly.
Is there a way to somehow keep the phone from detecting being inserted into the car dock? Or somehow "spoofing" the dock so it thinks it's a desk dock? I haven't looked into the pins on the two docks, since I think there are 4 contacts on the phone, and only 3 pins on each dock.. so maybe one triggers normal and one triggers desk? Will get back to you all on this. But in the meantime ... help!
Thanks in advance!
Just checked, same number of pins. Although something occured to me which I will test in a bit ... perhaps there's a magnet in the base of the desk dock, which is how it knows which is which ... ?
***PROBLEM (sort of) SOLVED!!!***
No magnets involved, but when looking at the car dock, if you cover the second / middle pin with something non-conductive so the contacts on the phone don't touch that single pin when it's inserted, the phone still charges but does NOT know it's in the car dock, therefore it doesn't go all goofy with the audio volumes.
Downside is that it doesn't automatically open up whatever Car Home app you may want, but at the cost of one whole extra click .. ? Fine by me.
Photo to illustrate, maybe this will help someone sometime.
Having exactly the same issue, going nuts trying to solve it. Will try this, thanks for the tip.
Just my 2 cents :
You can try an app such as "tasker" to modify your N1 behaviour when it detects it's inserted into the car dock, and set up the volume you need.
dmsr66 said:
Just my 2 cents :
You can try an app such as "tasker" to modify your N1 behaviour when it detects it's inserted into the car dock, and set up the volume you need.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the bump here, but I'm having the exact same issue and for some reason changing the media volume does NOTHING for me. At any level it's full blast aside from 0 where it mutes.

Please someone answer this.

I use to have a droid 2 and I used it with the car dock with out any problems at all, My car had the aux input for the audio cable from the dock, so when ever my phone would ring or I would make a call, it would go through the cars speakers, Ok so now I have the D3 and the new D3 car dock, same car. Here's the problem, when ever the phone is in the car dock and you place or receive a call, by default the phone switches to speaker phone, and when in speaker phone mode it will not play through the speakers, and yes I can just hit the speaker phone button on the dial pad to turn the speaker off and then it will play through the cars speakers but I really dont like having to do this every . time,I NEVER had to do this with my D2. I have tried other car dock apps to see if this would go away but it don't. Any help or thought would be great.
stephendowney said:
I use to have a droid 2 and I used it with the car dock with out any problems at all, My car had the aux input for the audio cable from the dock, so when ever my phone would ring or I would make a call, it would go through the cars speakers, Ok so now I have the D3 and the new D3 car dock, same car. Here's the problem, when ever the phone is in the car dock and you place or receive a call, by default the phone switches to speaker phone, and when in speaker phone mode it will not play through the speakers, and yes I can just hit the speaker phone button on the dial pad to turn the speaker off and then it will play through the cars speakers but I really dont like having to do this every . time,I NEVER had to do this with my D2. I have tried other car dock apps to see if this would go away but it don't. Any help or thought would be great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry man, but I've dug through and have not found any settings pertaining to that. It may be an automatic feature that has not been developed into an adjustable setting in Android 2.3.4 (Since its a new Car Dock App)
However, this may help you out.
http://ig88.cwfk.net/?page_id=96
It's a third party app that might work.
Actually, I think I found something pertaining to it.
In here: http://static.googleusercontent.com...lp/hc/pdfs/mobile/AndroidUsersGuide-2.3.4.pdf
On page 333.
Not sure yet if it applies to our Droid 3 completely, but it might. I don't have an AUX in port in my car to test it out at the moment.
Edit: It appears Motorola/Verizon left out the "Dock" settings under the general settings menu. Unless, it shows up when docked - idk yet.
If it doesn't, I'd try going into applications, "all" applications, select cardock or car home app, and clear data. This may restore the question that it supposedly asks you when you connect to the dock for the first time.
I found the problem and the solution.
Without any setting to change and all the apps I tried did not help, I decided to take a look at the dock and by that I mean take it apart and see whats going on inside. What I found was that where the usb car charger attached there was a circuit board, I am not an electronics guy but I figured that was whats causing the phone to automatic go in to speaker phone when connected to the dock, and I was right. That was the problem, and now for the solution, I had a car dock for a droid x handy so I took it apart as well, and I found that it did not have the circuit board, it was just a straight through put, from the usb connection on one end to the micro usb on the other end, the end that sticks up in the car dock that the phone connects to. So with a little bit of modification and I do mean little, I was able to swap them out, and now all is well again. Pretty ****ty that MOTO would do this and not give an option to change it in the setting though.

[Q] A few issues

I had some questions maybe someone here can clear up:
1. Volume limit warning. Is there a way to turn this off? I didn't see a feature for it. I use my bluetooth in my car and I turn it to max, but I have to turn it up every time I get in the car.
2. 611, When dialing any Vzw customer service #, The dialer takes you into an app instead. Is there a way to disable this? I don't like the fact that Vzw is so integrated into this phone.
3. Auto launching a website when plugged in to the computer. Is there a way to disable this?
Bonus Question: Streaming "High" from play music still sounds bad: Is this a Moto X thing or google thing? Even when "Keeping" the music, it still sounds pretty terrible. I mean, it's able to be listened to, but It's not near the quality of the music on my USB stick (Which I also downloaded from Google Play)
tirionfive said:
I had some questions maybe someone here can clear up:
1. Volume limit warning. Is there a way to turn this off? I didn't see a feature for it. I use my bluetooth in my car and I turn it to max, but I have to turn it up every time I get in the car.
2. 611, When dialing any Vzw customer service #, The dialer takes you into an app instead. Is there a way to disable this? I don't like the fact that Vzw is so integrated into this phone.
3. Auto launching a website when plugged in to the computer. Is there a way to disable this?
Bonus Question: Streaming "High" from play music still sounds bad: Is this a Moto X thing or google thing? Even when "Keeping" the music, it still sounds pretty terrible. I mean, it's able to be listened to, but It's not near the quality of the music on my USB stick (Which I also downloaded from Google Play)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On number 3. Have you tried streaming at low quality on your mobile data? If so you need to clear the music that has been cached already on the device. And then you need to switch the setting to high quality and that should do it. Cause if you had the "low quality setting" and streamed it before you switched it to "high"... the music cached in low quality already therefore needing to be cleared. You can go to settings while you are on the music app and clear the stored music cached.. Hope it helps..
Sent from my VZW Moto X using xda app-developers app
tirionfive said:
I had some questions maybe someone here can clear up:
1. Volume limit warning. Is there a way to turn this off? I didn't see a feature for it. I use my bluetooth in my car and I turn it to max, but I have to turn it up every time I get in the car.
2. 611, When dialing any Vzw customer service #, The dialer takes you into an app instead. Is there a way to disable this? I don't like the fact that Vzw is so integrated into this phone.
3. Auto launching a website when plugged in to the computer. Is there a way to disable this?
Bonus Question: Streaming "High" from play music still sounds bad: Is this a Moto X thing or google thing? Even when "Keeping" the music, it still sounds pretty terrible. I mean, it's able to be listened to, but It's not near the quality of the music on my USB stick (Which I also downloaded from Google Play)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
to turn off the website from popping up, plug the phone in, go to your bottom right notification bar. you will see a little phone looking thing with maybe a motorola logo. right click. go to "when device connects" then click "do nothing"
the volume limit is a known issue in 4.2 and I haven't seen a fix for it besides in custom roms. It may get fixed in 4.3 updated. As for noise quality. try using a different equalized like viper4android. here is a link to a post about it. seems to give better audio quality.http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2457564
my .flac files sound pretty decent. I found the Moto X doesn't always do justice to tracks 240kbps or less, as opposed to iphone 5 where they sounded fine.

[Q] Car Mode as default launcher when in car

Hi guys, I'm probably being a bit dim so hopefully someone can help. I can get my XZ to launch the Car Mode app when I connect to my car's Bluetooth but how do I get it to be in proper car state, where Car Mode (or some other car dock app) can be set as the default launcher while connected to that BT device, so if I am in Maps and I press home it will take me back to Car Mode instead of my normal home screen?
I believe this is something that Google took out of android in 4.3 it used to do it in older android versions.
Sent from my C6603 using Tapatalk
After a bit of digging I found CarHome Ultra which rather cleverly uses a patch to act as your default launcher, passing you through to your normal default launcher when not in car mode and its car launcher when in your car. Seems good so far but I think I need to do a bit of tinkering to stop it entering car mode when I just put it in my charging dock at home.

Wow. Moto Assist car mode sucks... Better off with tasker?

So i thought it'd be pretty cool to have my X start to play music automatically when in my car... It has failed. Sometimes it will work once i start driving, but if I stop anywhere and turn off my car and go again, it won't play unless I manually do it. Ive tried clearing Moto assist data, but no go. Would tasker be better as I'd like music to play every time a BT connection is made to this certain head unit. Thanks
Not a fan of the car mode either. It said I was still in car mode almost 20 minutes after having parked and turned off my car. As a result it started reading me my text messages when I didn't want to. Needless to say, I turned it off.
Judging by the massive amount of replies, I'm guessing this is a non issue for most. However, in case anyone finds this in the future, I fixed my issue by disabling moto from learning Bluetooth devices. Now it starts just when I start driving. I'm guessing the issue lies in moto trying to communicate with my head unit.
I've found that car mode is less reliable on lollipop. On KitKat, Google play music would open and music would start every time. With lollipop, IF Google play music opens, it never starts playing. This is all with the phone plugged into power and the aux in cable prior to moving.
yup, that is why i use the app 'trigger' instead. I have it set to open music, and play when i connect to my cars bluetooth.

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