Soundlink Micro plays music from iPhone, but phone calls and VoiceOver sound routed through iPhone

[Dani K]

A Soundlink Micro successfully paired to my consumer's iPhone 11 (iOS 13).  Her music played through it well, but when a call came in, the announcement of the call and the audio of the call itself were routed through the iPhone instead of the speaker.  The consumer is visually impaired and uses VoiceOver, the built in screen reader accessibility feature in iOS.  The sound from VoiceOver also went through the phone.

The consumer checked and Call Audio Routing was on Automatic.  She switched it to speaker, but that did not help.

I have other consumers using other brands of (and even other models of Bose) Bluetooth speakers using VoiceOver, and the music, calls, and VoiceOver all come through the speaker, so I do not think the VoiceOver is the issue.  Suggestions?

[Jessie_O]

Hi Dani K, Thank you for reaching out!

Thank you for your post and welcome!

This is certainly unusual and not something I have seen before. The SoundLink Mirco does not have the ability to choose which sounds are being played, this will be with the phone. I would recommend clearing the pairing list on the speaker by pressing and holding the Bluetooth button. Once complete, delete the pairing on the iPhone and try connecting again. 

Let me know how it goes!

[Dani K]

Thanks for the reply.  This is my consumer's equipment, and I am not able to do an in-person visit right now, so I can't test anything.  We did "forget" the device and re-pair that first day.

[Keith_L]

Hi Dani,

Thank you for that update!

I've had a look into the VoiceOver software and have found that there is a setting that allows it to auto-select which speakers are used for that and calls which is likely what you are looking for.

To find this go to: 

• Launch Settings from your Home screen.
• Tap General.
• Tap Accessibility.
• Tap VoiceOver.
• Tap Audio.

• Tap the switch next to Mute Sound Effects, Audio Ducking, or Auto-select Speaker in Call to enable/disable each option.

Let me know if this does the trick for you!

[Dani K]

Thanks for the research and the suggestion.  We did make sure the audio routing was set correctly and even changed it to what did not seem correct, but it made no difference.  Also, VoiceOver is working as expected when the phone is not connected to the speaker, so I'm stumped as to why it is not coming through the speaker.

[Keith_L]

That definitely is unusual then. I am confused on this as well!

I know you mentioned trying other Bluetooth devices with the phone, but would you have another iOS device that you could test to see if the behavior is the same with that? It would be interesting to see if it happens with any iOS device running VoiceOver.

[Dani K]

That's a good suggestion.  The consumer did have an older (but still running iOS 13) iPhone, so I asked her to turn off her newer iPhone and pair with the older one.  This was her email to me after testing:

Hi when pairing to my old phone it did the same thing.

At first I heard the bleep from siri then nothing.

It plays music through the speaker fine but nothing else. 

As a follow up, I asked her if she was still hearing VoiceOver through the phone while hearing music through the speaker.  She did not hear VoiceOver at all.  Thinking it could be a volume issue, I had her turn up the volume while sliding her finger around on the screen (which would activate VoiceOver speech), but she said that did not work, either.

Finally, I wondered if for some reason it was only playing either music or speech and not both.  I had her close the music app she was using and try to use VoiceOver, but that still did not work.

I have used a Bose brand BT speaker, a little bar style one, with consumers using VoiceOver before and have not had this issue.

[Jeff_G]

Thanks for getting back in touch. 

I'd recommend the customer get in touch with local support here to discuss their options for service. This isn't normal behavior. 

Thanks.

[Dani K · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your help.  The consumer and I did do a three-way call with Bose Support, and the issue has been resolved.  The answer was to press and hold the multifunction button on the front of the speaker until it beeped.  As soon as the consumer released the button, she was able to get sound from VoiceOver and music to come through the speaker!