Tweaking Google Assistant to control media on phone.

Videodrome

Truckinator
Sep 12, 2013
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So I'm about to start a commercial driving job and Cell Phone use will be strictly prohibited. I'm not even allowed to have the phone sitting physically withing hands reach, it must be in the back of the truck. They're even picky about use of MP3 players. My truck will have a safety event camera that triggers if I hit a bad pothole or something worse like a crash and if I'm caught in the video holding any electronic device I could be written up or fired. I need to figure out the best way to comply with these strict rules, yet manage the boredom of driving down the interstate all day.

I am however allowed to have a hands free Blutooth headset. I haven't seen my truck yet, so I'm not sure what kind of audio hookup options I might have. It would be nice if it has it's own Blutooth, but hopefully worst case it's an Audio AUX jack and to comply with rules I'll have to get a super long audio cord if that's the case. If it has neither, I'll cope by just setting up a portable Blutooth speaker I used at my last job.

The main thing I'm wondering about is using my linked Headset with Google Assistant to start or stop certain Apps. I seem to be able to do this with Audible, but I can't specify which book to play. The same seems to be the case with Pandora if the app is already open. Using Google to open Pandora seems glitchy for some reason.

I was really hoping I could just Voice Control YouTube to find and plays songs or maybe Ted Talks, but I'm not sure I can do things that detailed.

I just wondered if anyone has dealt with a similar situation wanting a lot of hands free control of apps and if you had any luck with it or tips.
 
I've had some progress working Pandora and YouTube this way. Its just that YouTube is refusing to play videos for safety reasons as I drive. This is annoying if I want to listen to a TedTalk, but it will look up music and play songs or comedy albums.

Audible has much less support. It seems like I can pause or play it if I first start it manually, but I can't tell it to play a specific book.

Oh well, if I can call out play commands to YouTube, that will help a lot. I think there is another app YouTube Audio that has no video capability thatight let me listen to audio content of videos.