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I just upgraded to the Samsung Galaxy S III running Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and I drive a 2009 Mazda 5 with integrated bluetooth speakerphone.

When I'm in my car, I connect the headphone jack to my car stereo Aux input so that I can play music from my phone through my car speakers. I got a phone call today and I noticed that when I'm connected to the Aux jack, my phone wouldn't connect to the bluetooth speakerphone. In fact, I couldn't hear the phone call at all, although the person on the other end could hear me. When I pulled out the cable from my phone's headphone jack, the bluetooth connection to the speakerphone was restored.

I never had this problem with my Bionic.

How do I make my phone connect to the bluetooth speakerphone even when I have a cable in the headphone receptacle?

Note: my car hooks up to the bluetooth speakerphone only -- it doesn't have an option to play music through the car speakers via bluetooth.

UPDATE (JUL 19)

Having thought about the situation some more, here's what I think is happening:

When I make a phone call using my car's integrated bluetooth speakerphone, my car turns off the stereo input to my speakers and replaces it with the phone input. At the same time, if I have a cable plugged into my headphone jack on my phone, my phone assumes that I want to hear the call through my "headphones" and not any attached bluetooth device, so my phone doesn't transmit the incoming phone audio to the bluetooth antenna -- it sends it to the audio cable plugged into the headphone jack. Since my car stereo isn't accepting auxiliary input during a phone call, I hear nothing.

So, I really need a way to tell my phone that when I have a bluetooth speakerphone connected and "headphones" connected, I prefer to hear the call through the bluetooth connection (I don't think it's very likely that I'm going to be able to get Mazda to change their stereo firmware :-) ).

UPDATE (JUL 24)

  1. I tried my wife's Razr (running ICS) and didn't have this problem, so it seems to be Samsung Galaxy SIII problem, not an ICS problem.
  2. I've come up with a couple of work-arounds that I'll submit as a separate answer.
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  • 1
    This is really a silly problem that should get improved by manufacturers. +1
    – Zuul
    Jul 19, 2012 at 18:51
  • What I particularly like about this issue is that it didn't exist in earlier versions of the operating system -- it's newly-added "value."
    – Gdalya
    Jul 20, 2012 at 0:54
  • At the very least, it should work like the selection of a computer's boot order, where the user is able to select the desired order.. first this, second that, third that... etc. Using this approach, would a matter of saying to the system: first Bluetooth, second AUX.. :)
    – Zuul
    Jul 20, 2012 at 9:36

2 Answers 2

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From the Samsung tech support, they say that:

when the AUX cable is plugged in, Blue-tooth audio is dead.

However, from the ICS Options during a call:

During a call, you can also use buttons near the bottom of the screen to:

  1. Switch to the dialer, for example to enter a code.

  2. Controls the audio output as follows:

    1. If a Bluetooth headset is not connected: Turns the speakerphone on or off.
    2. If a Bluetooth headset is connected: Functions as a 3-way switch between the built-in earpiece, the speakerphone, and the headset. The icon changes to indicate the current output. Touch & hold to see a 3-way menu.
    3. If a wired headset is plugged into the phone, it replaces the phone's built-in earpiece.

Note:
The Google Support link refers to the Android 4.0 for Galaxy Nexus (Released 2011, November), but the one you have is newer (Released 2012, May). Since the OS is the same, there's no reason as to not have those options available.

You can try and check if the mentioned option at point 2.2. works, but besides from that, I believe that you're out of luck on this subject.

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  • Thank you for tracking down appropriate discussion on the web. If I recall correctly, when I had this issue yesterday, I tried to push the bluetooth button. It was "greyed out" and, when I pushed it anyway, nothing happened. I'll double-check on my way home tonight.
    – Gdalya
    Jul 19, 2012 at 18:56
  • There is also the Dock Audio Redirector: play.google.com/store/apps/… but I'm not sure if that only works for docks.
    – TREE
    Jul 19, 2012 at 19:47
  • Confirmed: when I plug in my headphones, it disables the bluetooth phone connection.
    – Gdalya
    Jul 19, 2012 at 20:30
  • @Gdalya From the hours that I've invested reading about this before placing the answer, doesn't appear to exist a solution for this (yet). I've came across some supposed solutions with APPs, but were either for a phone dock or music related. If I get to find anything that may help you, I'll update this answer.
    – Zuul
    Jul 19, 2012 at 20:34
  • Regarding TREE's comment: For the app that you suggested to work, there would need to be an S3 car dock that triggered the car dock event in the OS. I'm not certain that there is that kind of dock for the S3 -- the description of the offical dock doesn't clearly state that (samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones-accessories/ECS-K200BEGSTA). My current universal dock certainly doesn't trigger this. Further, 1) reading the description of the App, I don't think that it will accomplish what I want and 2) I don't think I want to invest in the $50 Samsung dock in order to find out.
    – Gdalya
    Jul 19, 2012 at 20:49
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I've developed 2 work-arounds:

  1. Turn off bluetooth.

    When I do this, I hear the call through my car speakers (using cable from headphone jack to AUX input) and use my phone's microphone rather than the car's microphone.

    Drawbacks:

    A. I need to make sure that my car stereo is set to AUX input during phone calls.

    B. I can't use my car's voice dialer, which has a convenient activation button on the steering wheel.

  2. Get a second bluetooth receiver and connect it to the AUX input in my car. This has the added benefits of not triggering the S3's "you plugged in headphones" notification (which I find annoying and haven't been able to find a way to switch off) and also doesn't halve the volume automatically, like plugging in a cable to the headphone jack does.

    Drawbacks:

    A. You have to spend an extra $20 - $30.

    I bought the GOgroove BlueGate from Newegg ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16875991070 ) although have since found a cheaper receiver ( http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10827&cs_id=1082704&p_id=7364&seq=1&format=2 ) that seems like it would also work.

    B. It takes a little bit of playing around to get it to work. So far, I seem to need to turn on the extra receiver and then manually connect the bluetooth to both the car and the spare transceiver -- it seems like I can't just get in my car and have everything automatically work, but I only started using this setup yesterday so maybe I'll be able to work out some of these kinks.

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  • I tried #2 for a few days. I had a lot of trouble with getting both Bluetooth hook-ups to work at once. A lot of the time, the audio would say it was connected, but I wouldn't hear any music through my speakers. So I'm going with workaround #1 for now.
    – Gdalya
    Jul 26, 2012 at 18:21

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