iPhone 4 - Voice Control

Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Snorting his way across the USA
Ok I found the root cause of a very bizarre, weird problem. Twice so far I was riding down the road on my bike listening to Pandora when inexplicably the volume shot way up almost splitting my eardrums, and I had to manually turn the sound down. Well today my phone started wiggling out again tuning Pandora off this time, and I pulled it out of my pocket and noticed that "voice control" had been activated and it was trying to do something.

There are a lot of road noises out there plus me screaming at the crazy drivers and cussing every time I hit a pothole and rack my nards. When I got back, I poured through every setting I could find, but nothing came up related to "voice control."

How do I turn that s**t off?
 
You using a Bluetooth headset?

Stop hitting the call button. ;)

None of the voice commands changes volume that I know of, though. It's likely you're also hitting the volume control on the headset or phone.

Or sweating into them and shorting them out.

Headset have a lock feature for its buttons?

If not BT headset it can also happen if home button is held down on iPhone. Put it in a case with a button guard. ;)
 
Sac Arrow said:
Ok I found the root cause of a very bizarre, weird problem. Twice so far I was riding down the road on my bike listening to Pandora when inexplicably the volume shot way up almost splitting my eardrums, and I had to manually turn the sound down. Well today my phone started wiggling out again tuning Pandora off this time, and I pulled it out of my pocket and noticed that "voice control" had been activated and it was trying to do something.

There are a lot of road noises out there plus me screaming at the crazy drivers and cussing every time I hit a pothole and rack my nards. When I got back, I poured through every setting I could find, but nothing came up related to "voice control."

How do I turn that s**t off?
Click to expand...

I've had similar issues. My google-fu resulted in learning that this happens with the headphones when they get sweat in them. Unfortunately, you cannot turn off voice control. My "fix" has been to use headphones that don't have a microphone built in.
 
No, I'm not using a Bluetooth, I'm using an Etymotics HF5 earbud headset. I'm positive I'm not hitting the volume buttons, and the phone isn't getting drenched with sweat in the rear jersey pocket.

Maybe the volume thing is unrelated. I still don't need that damn voice control thing though. My phone is not a 4Gs so miz Siri is not available anyway.
 
Sam D said:
I've had similar issues. My google-fu resulted in learning that this happens with the headphones when they get sweat in them. Unfortunately, you cannot turn off voice control. My "fix" has been to use headphones that don't have a microphone built in.
Click to expand...

Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhh. That's probably it then. Yes it has a built in mic.
 
Voice control is also activated by pressing and holding the home button.
 
The "safety" culture world has deemed you must have it and indirectly driven the inability to turn it off. No touching that cell phone while you're driving, of course.
 
//follow up


How bizarre - my little headset has three tiny BUTTONS in the mic body which I never noticed before. Volume up, volume down and skip song. Sweat shorting out the buttons is exactly the reason for the weird behavior. How they are able to that kind of control through the headset outlet is beyond me, I didn't think there were enough contacts present in the jack.

follow up//
 
Sac Arrow said:
//follow up


How bizarre - my little headset has three tiny BUTTONS in the mic body which I never noticed before. Volume up, volume down and skip song. Sweat shorting out the buttons is exactly the reason for the weird behavior. How they are able to that kind of control through the headset outlet is beyond me, I didn't think there were enough contacts present in the jack.

follow up//
Click to expand...

Move somewhere you can ride and not sweat! Not Cali! lol

David
 
flhrci said:
Move somewhere you can ride and not sweat! Not Cali! lol

David
Click to expand...

You don't understand - it's not the heat that makes me sweat, it's the girls on the bike trail!

Oh yeah, that aspect can be problematic in Cali too. Like, totally dude.
 
Sac Arrow said:
//follow up


How bizarre - my little headset has three tiny BUTTONS in the mic body which I never noticed before. Volume up, volume down and skip song. Sweat shorting out the buttons is exactly the reason for the weird behavior. How they are able to that kind of control through the headset outlet is beyond me, I didn't think there were enough contacts present in the jack.

follow up//
Click to expand...

Ahh, so it's a wired headset.

There's four contacts. Look at the Apple earbuds or your Apple compatible ones sometime next to a set of "dumb" ones. Only three on the non-Apple ones.

Can still plug the three-conductor one in there, it's designed to work with both.
 
denverpilot said:
Ahh, so it's a wired headset.

There's four contacts. Look at the Apple earbuds or your Apple compatible ones sometime next to a set of "dumb" ones. Only three on the non-Apple ones.

Can still plug the three-conductor one in there, it's designed to work with both.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but how do you get:

Audio R (+/-)
Audo L (+/-)
Mic (+/-)
Vol up
Vol down
skip

To work with four (probably only three supported by the headset) contacts? Do audio wires double for contact closure signals, with a common (-) lead for the two audios and the mic?
 
Sac Arrow said:
Yeah, but how do you get:

Audio R (+/-)
Audo L (+/-)
Mic (+/-)
Vol up
Vol down
skip

To work with four (probably only three supported by the headset) contacts? Do audio wires double for contact closure signals, with a common (-) lead for the two audios and the mic?
Click to expand...

How many signals can one send down a single piece of wire, and how fast? ;)

This guy reverse engineered the signals between the headphones and an iPod Shuffle. It's a lot more complex than you think...

http://david.carne.ca/shuffle_hax/shuffle_remote.html

And the phones, as he hints at, may be different.

And not all headsets work with all devices fully, indicating that there have been changes.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3310
 
Sac Arrow said:
Yeah, but how do you get:

Audio R (+/-)
Audo L (+/-)
Mic (+/-)
Vol up
Vol down
skip

To work with four (probably only three supported by the headset) contacts? Do audio wires double for contact closure signals, with a common (-) lead for the two audios and the mic?
Click to expand...

All you need is one contact for all the switches and different impedance on each switch. The circuit can tell by the resistance where to direct the command.
 
Henning said:
All you need is one contact for all the switches and different impedance on each switch. The circuit can tell by the resistance where to direct the command.
Click to expand...

Yup, but that's not all they're doing. To get the secret handshake right, you have to license the tech from them. Seriously.
 
denverpilot said:
Yup, but that's not all they're doing. To get the secret handshake right, you have to license the tech from them. Seriously.
Click to expand...

Same technique, just generate a digital signal. My point was that you can control multiple functions through a single circuit creating differentials in the signal provided.
 
I very, seriously doubt there is a digital signal multiplexer contained in the tiny microphone pod attached to one wire of the headset. I suppose there could be small resistors in the button circuits.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I very, seriously doubt there is a digital signal multiplexer contained in the tiny microphone pod attached to one wire of the headset. I suppose there could be small resistors in the button circuits.
Click to expand...

Magic?

David
 
Sac Arrow said:
I very, seriously doubt there is a digital signal multiplexer contained in the tiny microphone pod attached to one wire of the headset. I suppose there could be small resistors in the button circuits.
Click to expand...

Read the article I posted. And the comments.
 
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