Advanced Sync 3 Commands for old Sync users

[Zaph]

I'm looking for a more advanced list of Sync 3 commands than the few I have seen floating around which seem very basic. There's got to be more. This seems too simplified.

I'm on an XLT 301a equipment group package by the way.

As a long time Sync user, I must admit that the Sync 3 in my Ranger seems a step back in functionality, particularly when it comes to browsing music on a USB stick. Additionally, My old Ford Escape had an extra set of controls on the steering wheel, a right side OK with up/dn/left/right that allowed me to wade through menu selections while keeping my hand on the wheel.

I find myself having to take my hands off the wheel and eyes off the road to touch tiny buttons on the screen way too much.

List from Ford
Detailed command list PDFhttp://www.fordservicecontent.com/F...-Supplement-version-2_sycsy_EN-US_02_2016.pdf

Examples:
Old Sync: Play Artist AC-DC. It would just start playing a randomized list immediately. With Sync 3 I have to pick a song to start with.

Old Sync: Play All. It would take everything on my USB, randomize it and start playing immediately. With Sync 3 this doesn't work anymore - I end up playing songs with "All" in the title. Instead I have to manually hit the browse button, just pick anything and start going though my collection that way. I can't find an equivalent. This one really bugs me. Anyone have a solution? I've also tried Browse All but I still have to go to the screen to pick something.

Incoming text message: Old Sync: hit the right ok button or up or down to pick the text you want to read, then hit the ok button again to read the text. Or if all texts are read, just ok/ok and it's read to me. With Sync 3 hand must leave the wheel and eyes must leave the road to hit the Hear It button on the touchscreen. There is no equivalent on the steering wheel. It's as unsafe as taking your phone out to read a text. Apparently we can say "Listen To Message" but man I sure miss hitting a single button to get that compared to hitting the talk button, waiting for the thing to shut up, and saying that long command.

Old Sync: double click the voice command button to avoid the "Please say a command" prompt and just get a beep to talk. Sync 3 that functionality is gone and it only lets you cut the "say a command" prompt off mid sentence by pressing it again. Note: just found voice command "Interaction Mode Advanced" which I will try.

I'd like people to post up their advanced Sync 3 findings. (or complaints for that matter)

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[Zaph]

Maybe not a whole lot of interest in this subject. But at least voice commend "Interaction Mode Advanced" stops that woman from wasting everyone's time with "Please say a command" so you all have that.

Who's going to be the winner by finding the voice command to get Sync 3 to play all tracks on a USB randomized without having to touch the screen?

For texts I saw a video where it appeared the command "Read It" might work but it didn't.

Maybe it only works if viewing the list of texts, but it does not appear to work when listening to music and a next text pops up.

 

[Zaph]

Adding to my issues:

Old Sync: while reading a text to me, music playing on a USB is 100% muted. On Sync 3 it's merely slightly lowered in volume while the text is being read, making the text somewhat hard to hear. I've been wading through the menus to find a way to fully mute the music, or at least increase the volume of the text reading so I can hear it better. I don't have anything yet.

Maybe all these changes for the worse are due to Microsoft no longer being involved with Sync operating system development.

 

[CoastieN70]

Adding to my issues:

Old Sync: while reading a text to me, music playing on a USB is 100% muted. On Sync 3 it's merely slightly lowered in volume while the text is being read, making the text somewhat hard to hear. I've been wading through the menus to find a way to fully mute the music, or at least increase the volume of the text reading so I can hear it better. I don't have anything yet.

Maybe all these changes for the worse are due to Microsoft no longer being involved with Sync operating system development.

When sync3 is reading you the text increase the volume just as if you were increasing the radio volume. Same applies to "NAV voice" too...

 

[Zaph]

Hmm, so is text reading voice volume control independent of music volume control? If it is that's great that it can be adjusted, but it's not really clear if that's the case. Hopefully it remembers the setting. If it's not independent, that's not going to help.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

I just wish these systems would get to google levels.

nothing worse than having to talk through steps to navigate anywhere.

I just wish I could say - hey sync find address 1234 anystreet whatever city and its done.

Hi RP,

I name my GPS units. My Lorance (now reiterd) was named Gertrude. My homtorhome replacement was Beatrice...My Lincoln Sync is Dits and my Ranger is Double Dits..

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

 

[Anthony]

Hmm, so is text reading voice volume control independent of music volume control? If it is that's great that it can be adjusted, but it's not really clear if that's the case. Hopefully it remembers the setting. If it's not independent, that's not going to help.

Yup that is correct. Next time the “voice” come up adjust the volume and you’ll see a separate volume indicator on the head unit for voice prompts.

 

[UofMEngineer]

Examples:
1. Old Sync: Play Artist AC-DC. It would just start playing a randomized list immediately. With Sync 3 I have to pick a song to start with.

2. Old Sync: Play All. It would take everything on my USB, randomize it and start playing immediately. With Sync 3 this doesn't work anymore - I end up playing songs with "All" in the title. Instead I have to manually hit the browse button, just pick anything and start going though my collection that way. I can't find an equivalent. This one really bugs me. Anyone have a solution? I've also tried Browse All but I still have to go to the screen to pick something.

3. Incoming text message: Old Sync: hit the right ok button or up or down to pick the text you want to read, then hit the ok button again to read the text. Or if all texts are read, just ok/ok and it's read to me. With Sync 3 hand must leave the wheel and eyes must leave the road to hit the Hear It button on the touchscreen. There is no equivalent on the steering wheel. It's as unsafe as taking your phone out to read a text. Apparently we can say "Listen To Message" but man I sure miss hitting a single button to get that compared to hitting the talk button, waiting for the thing to shut up, and saying that long command.

4. Old Sync: double click the voice command button to avoid the "Please say a command" prompt and just get a beep to talk. Sync 3 that functionality is gone and it only lets you cut the "say a command" prompt off mid sentence by pressing it again. Note: just found voice command "Interaction Mode Advanced" which I will try.

1. Should work the same, especially with the old command including "Artist". How do you have your media tagged?
2. Should work the same. If you have a lot of songs with "All" in them (and not much else in the title), I can see some parasitic noise causing it to throw a selection list though. You can just say "Play X" for anything so there's potential overlap. You have to add the type to the command too, e.g. Browse All Songs.
3. "Listen to Message" / "Listen to Message 1" should work.
4. Depending on your source (e.g. Phone over USB), it can take 2-3ish seconds to switch source. That's why a quick double press doesn't skip the prompt. You need the second press within the session, else it's effectively ignored and not passed to the voice engine.

I just wish these systems would get to google levels.

nothing worse than having to talk through steps to navigate anywhere.

I just wish I could say - hey sync find address 1234 anystreet whatever city and its done.

SYNC 3 doesn't have the hardware to allow that capability. The shortest it'll get in SYNC 3 is two step unfortunately.

All of the above items have improvements in v3.4 when that becomes available in a few months. For example, "Please say a command" is gone now in all modes, more USB media commands, etc. For future reference, here's a post I had made for v3.4 for the FE folks: https://www.fordescape.org/threads/sync-3-v3-4-voice-recognition-how-to-faq.114048/#post-1132027

 

[Zaph]

1. Should work the same, especially with the old command including "Artist". How do you have your media tagged?
2. Should work the same. If you have a lot of songs with "All" in them (and not much else in the title), I can see some parasitic noise causing it to throw a selection list though. You can just say "Play X" for anything so there's potential overlap. You have to add the type to the command too, e.g. Browse All Songs.
3. "Listen to Message" / "Listen to Message 1" should work.
4. Depending on your source (e.g. Phone over USB), it can take 2-3ish seconds to switch source. That's why a quick double press doesn't skip the prompt. You need the second press within the session, else it's effectively ignored and not passed to the voice engine.

Thanks for your input. Looking at your occupation, looks like I got the right guy involved in my discussion! Even if nothing gets solved, maybe some ideas for future versions could be considered.

1. All of my media comes from my CD's ripped by a program called CDex. Various iterations of this program over the last 18 years may have used MP3 tags in different ways. I am aware of versions, and I know the early rips only used V1 of tags. However several years ago I attempted to bring my library up to spec using batch processing with a program MP3tag which updated them all to ID3V2. I guess I will have to investigate because a "Play Artist AC-DC" brings up a list of three "AC-DC", all looking identical. With my old Sync would just start playing everything.

2. This is peculiar. My collection is huge. I've deleted all the crap and fluff and kept only the songs I like yet I still have a shocking number of songs with All in the title. If I say "Play All" I'm always going to get a song by Collective Soul called All.

"Browse All Songs" seems to give me a list of 20+ "All" songs starting with Collective Soul and ending with "All You Zombies" by the Hooters. (ok now I'm embarrassed) This one sort of remains unsolved. After a "Play All" I can click through the "All" song and after that the rest of my collection is there seemingly randomized, but I sure am getting sick of Collective Soul "All" hahah.

3. "Listen To Message" works. I wish there was something shorter, like "Read it." Hmmm, does "Hear it" work? That's what the button says. Will try on the way home today if I get a text. Also Thanks to Anthony, the independent text reading volume seemed to work. Ideally I would have preferred an option to mute the audio during text reading however.

4. Was no longer an issue with Interaction Mode Advanced. I just get a simple beep now.

 

[VAMike]

Maybe all these changes for the worse are due to Microsoft no longer being involved with Sync operating system development.

microsoft was never involved with sync 3, that's why it was so much better than the original sync

 

[VAMike]

I just wish these systems would get to google levels.

nothing worse than having to talk through steps to navigate anywhere.

I just wish I could say - hey sync find address 1234 anystreet whatever city and its done.

for that, you need a lot more processing power. like a cloud. then you need a way to communicate with the cloud. luckily, that's what happens when you connect your phone and just use the android/apple interface.

 

[Zaph]

microsoft was never involved with sync 3, that's why it was so much better than the original sync

Sync 3 does have a lot of improvements, (The first one to be able to pronounce me last name correctly) but previous versions seemed to have fewer unexplained quirks. At this point I don't think I would willingly downgrade to an older version of Sync, but there sure are a few operational things I miss.

 

[UofMEngineer]

q. I guess I will have to investigate because a "Play Artist AC-DC" brings up a list of three "AC-DC", all looking identical. With my old Sync would just start playing everything.

2. This is peculiar. My collection is huge. I've deleted all the crap and fluff and kept only the songs I like yet I still have a shocking number of songs with All in the title. If I say "Play All" I'm always going to get a song by Collective Soul called All.

"Browse All Songs" seems to give me a list of 20+ "All" songs starting with Collective Soul and ending with "All You Zombies" by the Hooters. (ok now I'm embarrassed) This one sort of remains unsolved. After a "Play All" I can click through the "All" song and after that the rest of my collection is there seemingly randomized, but I sure am getting sick of Collective Soul "All" hahah.

3. "Listen To Message" works. I wish there was something shorter, like "Read it." Hmmm, does "Hear it" work? That's what the button says. Will try on the way home today if I get a text. Also Thanks to Anthony, the independent text reading volume seemed to work. Ideally I would have preferred an option to mute the audio during text reading however.

1. Check to make sure the artist info is identical for all of them. I know in the past there were some issue where similar names were not necessarily collapsing as expected but there the names were not truly identical (ACDC, ac-dc, etc.). It may be something like that. Also, if you know you're tagged well, shut off the Gracenotes management. I've found that can occasionally muck things up when it's on like assign wrong artist names. Usually that's the lesser known stuff though.

2. Is "All" the first song that shows up when you browse your songs? If so, that's sort of how that works. Example, you play a genre, artist, etc. the first song is always the same. One of my personal annoyances with it as I listen to USB media almost exclusively. Skipping the first song isn't a big deal, just annoying. My guess is this may be the same situation you're hitting. When you browse all songs, it'll just jump to the same screen as if you pressed Browse, then selected Songs. The "All" wouldn't link to any specific song.

3. Read / hear message is about the shortest one you can use. That's one of the few (I think only) disconnects between command and screen.

 

[Zaph]

1. Check to make sure the artist info is identical for all of them. I know in the past there were some issue where similar names were not necessarily collapsing as expected but there the names were not truly identical (ACDC, ac-dc, etc.). It may be something like that. Also, if you know you're tagged well, shut off the Gracenotes management. I've found that can occasionally muck things up when it's on like assign wrong artist names. Usually that's the lesser known stuff though.

2. Is "All" the first song that shows up when you browse your songs? If so, that's sort of how that works. Example, you play a genre, artist, etc. the first song is always the same. One of my personal annoyances with it as I listen to USB media almost exclusively. Skipping the first song isn't a big deal, just annoying. My guess is this may be the same situation you're hitting. When you browse all songs, it'll just jump to the same screen as if you pressed Browse, then selected Songs. The "All" wouldn't link to any specific song.

3. Read / hear message is about the shortest one you can use. That's one of the few (I think only) disconnects between command and screen.

1. I keep using AC-DC as an example. I turned off Gracenotes. No change. But here's what's strange. #1, my mp3 tags are perfect and all identical on all my AC-DC tracks. No ACDC, AC/DC, ac_dc, etc. Just clean AC-DC. The only thing that changes is the fact that they are in separate folders for each CD ripped. Even the genres are the same. #2, it's not consistent - sometimes I get 3 AC-DC's in my list to choose from, sometimes I get 2, and today I got 2 AC-DC's plus 1 Death Cab for Cutie. (WTF?). I looked at that Death Cab MP3 tag and there's nothing wrong with it, other than it's a newer version (ID3v2.4) and it's a different genre too. How the heck is that showing up when I say Play Artist AC-DC. Note that each list of AC-DC's contains all of my AC-DC tunes. So it's not like one list contains one oddball mp3 that I could isolate to inspect and see what's wrong with it.

Maybe AC-DC is a bad example as it's a band with letters spelled out. The issue does occur with other bands though. But many don't have an issue and start playing immediately. Maybe I'm not talking clear enough, but I promise, I'm not eating a hamburger while requesting music. Also, maybe not politically correct to mention, English is my first language and I am a Caucasian college educated person.

I can imagine voice recognition engineers thinking everyone sounds like "Sync, can you, like, play me, um, some Cardi B?"

2. Well I was looking for a voice command that means the same thing as "take everything I have on my USB in random order and start playing all of it and make the first tune random also." In my old Escape with the old Sync version in there it was "Play All". It's not really working like that anymore, and from what I am seeing, there is no longer an equivalent. It's not the end of the world, but I'll put it on my wish list for a future version.

 

[UofMEngineer]

Maybe AC-DC is a bad example as it's a band with letters spelled out. The issue does occur with other bands though. But many don't have an issue and start playing immediately. Maybe I'm not talking clear enough, but I promise, I'm not eating a hamburger while requesting music. Also, maybe not politically correct to mention, English is my first language and I am a Caucasian college educated person.

I can imagine voice recognition engineers thinking everyone sounds like "Sync, can you, like, play me, um, some Cardi B?"

2. Well I was looking for a voice command that means the same thing as "take everything I have on my USB in random order and start playing all of it and make the first tune random also." In my old Escape with the old Sync version in there it was "Play All". It's not really working like that anymore, and from what I am seeing, there is no longer an equivalent. It's not the end of the world, but I'll put it on my wish list for a future version.

On the AC/DC one, you'll have to try it with v3.4 when it's available. I can't recall exactly when we fixed the one issue I mentioned, so it's possible it's in v3.4. I have several AC/DC songs/folders on my test drive and don't run into what you're seeing. Same for all other artists. It's likely with how the media side indexed them and linked them to IDs is my guess.

For the second one, it'll be the same in v3.4. I always get the same song, and comically it's also one that starts with "All". I complained a while back about how the various commands always started on the same song, then were shuffled thereafter. Basically, by design was what I heard. Not a fan of that one either myself. It's the same for artist, genre, etc. Always the first song is the same. "Play All" is probably working fine from a voice perspective, but the media side generation of the playlist is leaving something to be desired.

The joys of issues found using voice, but not actually having anything to do with voice. Story of my life.

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