By request: SYNC (not nav) voice commands
07-20-2009, 02:30 PM
#1
2nd Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Michigan
Posts: 278
By request: SYNC (not nav) voice commands
Allright, so enough people PM'd me for a request of a basic, useful list of what you can say to SYNC, and what it can do. So while I munch on a sandwich for lunch here, I'll do my best to list as much as I can. Just a disclaimer though: I am no substitute for the SYNC manual found with your owner's manual documentation, nor updates posted at the official SYNC website, www.syncmyride.com.
Also, this thread does NOT cover voice commands for the nav system (a whole separate system with its own voice commands that can also control climate and radio settings). I'll make another thread for that later.
I'll split this thread into a few parts: How to access SYNC and select your audio source, how to use the media player functions, how to use the phone functions, How to use 911 Assist and Vehicle Health Report, and how to use Traffic, Directions, and Information.
BIG IMPORTANT NOTE TO PEOPLE WITH NAV (ELECTRONICS PACKAGE): If you have NAV, you'll need to say 'SYNC' at the prompt after pressing the voice button to 'switch over' to the SYNC command set before giving any of the commands below. When you press the voice button in a vehicle equipped with NAV, you are in a different command menu than people without nav (who go straight to the SYNC command set). Again, remember to say 'SYNC' at the main prompt in Nav-equipped vehicles to get to the prompts where you can say the stuff we talk about below.
How to access SYNC and select your audio source
To start, you can access Sync by pressing the 'Voice' button on the steering wheel. It looks like a little talking head (be careful, the button that it's on is a 2-way 'see-saw' button, meaning you can press the left side OR the right side. Make sure to press the side that the talking head icon is on). Anyway, when you press it, you'll hear a chime, followed by a prompt that says "[Audio Source], Please say a command", followed by a tone, that indicates SYNC is listening for a command. In fact, whenever you hear that tone, that means SYNC is listening to you, and you can speak a command.
[Audio Source] could be a bunch of things, like 'Phone', 'USB' (for your iPod or USB stick), 'Bluetooth Audio' (if you're streaming music from your phone), or 'Line In' (for basic music input). If there is no SYNC audio source in-use (e.g. you press the voice button when you're listening to the radio), it'll just say "SYNC. Please say a command." If you hear that prompt ("SYNC" as the audio source), you'll need to specify an audio source before you can start giving commands. See the next paragraph.
Audio source is important, because depending on what your audio source is, the commands you can say are different. For example, if your audio source is USB, and you give the command "Call Home", the system will not understand. Similarly, if the source is Phone, and you say "Play Artist Metallica", it's not going to respond the way you want it to. Don't worry though, because you can always give another audio source as a command from any main SYNC prompt (so you can switch to the proper audio source at any time).
Here's an example of what I mean: let's assume you were listening to your iPod via the USB port, and you want to make a phone call to home. Here's how that would work:
[You]: press the voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Phone."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Phone. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Call Home." (assuming you have a contact called 'Home' in your phone's contact list)
[SYNC]: (chime) "Calling Home."
...and the phone call is placed via the hands-free system.
The moral of the story: if you need to switch audio sources to give a command, just press the voice button and say the new one.
The only exception to this rule (you knew it was gonna happen) is the 'Phone' button on the steering wheel. If you press this, the audio source will immediately jump to 'Phone' (but SYNC won't be listening for a voice command from you, don't worry). Whatever you were listening to before (if anything) will stop. Thus, if you were to press the voice button after pressing the phone button, you'll hear "[Chime] Phone. Please say a command.[Listening Tone]", regardless of what your audio source was before press the phone button. Don't blame me, I didn't design that part.
Does all that audio source stuff make sense? I hope so. Next post will talk about the media player part of SYNC, so you can listen to your tunes by voice.
Also, this thread does NOT cover voice commands for the nav system (a whole separate system with its own voice commands that can also control climate and radio settings). I'll make another thread for that later.
I'll split this thread into a few parts: How to access SYNC and select your audio source, how to use the media player functions, how to use the phone functions, How to use 911 Assist and Vehicle Health Report, and how to use Traffic, Directions, and Information.
BIG IMPORTANT NOTE TO PEOPLE WITH NAV (ELECTRONICS PACKAGE): If you have NAV, you'll need to say 'SYNC' at the prompt after pressing the voice button to 'switch over' to the SYNC command set before giving any of the commands below. When you press the voice button in a vehicle equipped with NAV, you are in a different command menu than people without nav (who go straight to the SYNC command set). Again, remember to say 'SYNC' at the main prompt in Nav-equipped vehicles to get to the prompts where you can say the stuff we talk about below.
How to access SYNC and select your audio source
To start, you can access Sync by pressing the 'Voice' button on the steering wheel. It looks like a little talking head (be careful, the button that it's on is a 2-way 'see-saw' button, meaning you can press the left side OR the right side. Make sure to press the side that the talking head icon is on). Anyway, when you press it, you'll hear a chime, followed by a prompt that says "[Audio Source], Please say a command", followed by a tone, that indicates SYNC is listening for a command. In fact, whenever you hear that tone, that means SYNC is listening to you, and you can speak a command.
[Audio Source] could be a bunch of things, like 'Phone', 'USB' (for your iPod or USB stick), 'Bluetooth Audio' (if you're streaming music from your phone), or 'Line In' (for basic music input). If there is no SYNC audio source in-use (e.g. you press the voice button when you're listening to the radio), it'll just say "SYNC. Please say a command." If you hear that prompt ("SYNC" as the audio source), you'll need to specify an audio source before you can start giving commands. See the next paragraph.
Audio source is important, because depending on what your audio source is, the commands you can say are different. For example, if your audio source is USB, and you give the command "Call Home", the system will not understand. Similarly, if the source is Phone, and you say "Play Artist Metallica", it's not going to respond the way you want it to. Don't worry though, because you can always give another audio source as a command from any main SYNC prompt (so you can switch to the proper audio source at any time).
Here's an example of what I mean: let's assume you were listening to your iPod via the USB port, and you want to make a phone call to home. Here's how that would work:
[You]: press the voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Phone."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Phone. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Call Home." (assuming you have a contact called 'Home' in your phone's contact list)
[SYNC]: (chime) "Calling Home."
...and the phone call is placed via the hands-free system.
The moral of the story: if you need to switch audio sources to give a command, just press the voice button and say the new one.
The only exception to this rule (you knew it was gonna happen) is the 'Phone' button on the steering wheel. If you press this, the audio source will immediately jump to 'Phone' (but SYNC won't be listening for a voice command from you, don't worry). Whatever you were listening to before (if anything) will stop. Thus, if you were to press the voice button after pressing the phone button, you'll hear "[Chime] Phone. Please say a command.[Listening Tone]", regardless of what your audio source was before press the phone button. Don't blame me, I didn't design that part.
Does all that audio source stuff make sense? I hope so. Next post will talk about the media player part of SYNC, so you can listen to your tunes by voice.
07-20-2009, 03:55 PM
#2
2nd Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Michigan
Posts: 278
Using SYNC with your Media Player/MP3 Player/iPod
Allright, so this is the media player section. The good news for you is that SYNC supports a ton of media players, from the iPod to the Zune to most cell phones (via a USB cable or streaming via Bluetooth). Or, if you're like me, where you don't have a nifty MP3 player, you can load up MP3s, WMAs, and a bunch of other music formats onto a plain ol' USB thumb drive, and plug it into the USB port in your car.
For a full list of what Media players work with SYNC, check out: http://www.syncmyride.com/#/overlay/...y_music_player
In fact, make an owner account on SyncMyRide.com while you're there. If you want to make use of Sync Services (traffic, directions, and information), or if you want to be able to run a Vehicle Health Report, you'll need to have one. And if you're sick of telling the website what vehicle, radio, and steering wheel you have every time you visit and need information, making an account will help. There's a strict privacy policy, and I have yet to be spammed by anything related to the site, if it makes you feel better.
Anyhoo, I'm going to go over SYNC operation from USB, not line-in or Bluetooth Audio. Here's why:
Line-In lets you stream audio from any device with a mini-jack (1/8-in headphone style) plug, and Bluetooth Audio from phones that can stream bluetooth music to another device. That's it. If you specify 'Line In' or 'Bluetooth Audio' as your audio source (see last post), you turn it on. If you specify another audio source, you turn it off. If you want to voice control your music, you need to use the USB port, so the car can communicate with your media player. Plus, if you have an iPod, iPhone, Zune, or other media player, it'll charge while it's plugged in to the USB port. Totally awesome, I know.
Anyway, let's talk USB. To set the audio source to USB, press the voice button on the steering wheel, and when you hear the tone that indicates SYNC is listening (see the first post), say 'USB'. Of course, if you press the voice button and hear [Chime] "USB. Please say a command."[Listening Tone], then you've already got the USB port set as the audio source, and you can jump right in and give media player commands.
Once you specify 'USB' as your source, you'll be prompted with [Chime] "USB. Please say a command."[Listening tone], so in either case, you'll end up here:
Voice commands you can give while in Media Player (USB) mode:
*Those with a NAV system will have to say 'SYNC' at the first voice prompt before getting to a place where you can give these commands.
1.) Play All
You can choose to listen to all the music on your media device, not just one artist or genre. You can do that by pressing the voice button and saying "Play All".
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play All."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Play all." (begins playing)
2.) Play Artist
Say you want to listen to some Bruce Springsteen, some Linkin Park, or some Jessica Simpson (hey, I'm not judging you), you can tell SYNC to only play music by a particular artist. Just know that if you do this, it will ONLY play music from that artist, and will keep looping through those tracks unless you tell it to play some other set of music, or give it the 'Play All' command.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play Artist Bruce Springsteen."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing Artist Bruce Springsteen" (begins playing tracks with 'Bruce Springsteen' in the 'Artist' field of the ID3 metadata)
3.) Play Track
Suppose you climb into your brand new Mustang, and, like me, get the urge to hear Cake's "Going the Distance". You COULD tell SYNC to play the artist 'Cake', but you might get any of a dozen cake tracks that could be on your media player. You can use the << and >> buttons on the steering wheel to scroll through the tracks until you get to 'Going the Distance', or you can just tell SYNC to queue it up for you.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play Track Going the Distance"
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing Track Going the Distance" (begins playing the track with 'Going the Distance' in the 'Title' field of the ID3 metadata)
[You]: Enjoy some go-fast music while you're fighting and biting and riding on your horse.
4.) Play Genre
If you're feeling like some hard rock, jazz, metal, country, pop, or indie, you can tell SYNC to play music of only that genre by giving the voice command to play a particular genre. SYNC will then oblige, and stay within that genre until you specify something else or give the 'Play All' command.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play Genre Rock."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing Genre Rock." (begins playing all tracks with 'Rock' in the 'Genre' field of the ID3 metadata)
5.) Play Album
If you have an entire album on your Media Player and want to hear it, tell SYNC to play just that music by giving the Play Album command. SYNC will only play tracks from that album until you specify something else or give the 'Play All' command. If I wanted to listen to Atreyu's album 'Lead Sails Paper Anchor', I'd use the commands below:
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play Album Lead Sails Paper Anchor."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing Album Lead Sails Paper Anchor." (begins playing all tracks with 'Lead Sails Paper Anchor' in the 'Album' field of the ID3 metadata)
6.) Play Playlist
If you have a favorite playlist on your media player, SYNC can play it for you. Just use the 'Play Playlist' command.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play Playlist Cruising Music."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing Playlist Cruising Music." (begins playing all tracks as called for in the 'Cruising Music' playlist)
7.) Similar Music
If you're listening to a track from the 2345089234 on your MP3 player, and want to hear something like it, but don't know which track to request, let SYNC spin the wheel for you by using the 'Similar Music' command. When you give this command, SYNC plays another track from your collection with the same 'Genre' ID3 metadata.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Similar Music."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Similar Music." (begins playing another track with the same data in the 'Genre' field of the ID3 metadata)
8.) What's Playing?
If you want to know more about what's currently playing, ask SYNC, and ye shall receive. Track title, Artist, and Album will be given to you.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "What's Playing?"
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing What I've Done by Linkin Park, from the album Minutes to Midnight." (gets data from the Title, Artist, and Album fields of the ID3 metadata)
9.) Play (by itself)
If you are listening to a track and want to hear it again from the beginning, you can press the << button on the steering wheel once, or give the 'Play' command. Similarly, if you have paused music, you can resume it by giving the voice command 'Play'. Play is NOT the same as 'Play All' (see command #1)
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play."
[SYNC]: (If listening to a track, track restarts from the beginning. If a track was paused, it resumes)
10.) Pause
The counterpart to 'Play', giving the 'Pause' command pauses the current track. Use the command 'Play' to resume.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Pause."
[SYNC]: (Pauses track)
11.) Previous/Next Track
Giving the voice command 'Previous Track' or 'Next Track' plays the previous or next track in the list of tracks SYNC is currently playing (could be all tracks on the media player, or as part of a smaller grouping, such as by artist, album, or genre, if you used one of the above commands). There are also << and >> buttons on the steering wheel that do the same thing.
12.) Shuffle On/Off
Giving the voice command 'Shuffle On' or 'Shuffle Off' turns on randomization when playing tracks on your Media Player. Be careful to pronounce the 'On' or 'Off' carefully and clearly, as mumbling or speaking fast can throw SYNC off with this command.
13.) Cancel
You can stop searching, indexing, or playing music with the 'Cancel' command. Cancel is also a global command, meaning you can give it anywhere in the SYNC system, and it will cancel the voice interaction and return the car to a 'ready' state (press the voice button to start again). You'll hear the "thud thud" tone, meaning it heard you and is canceling the interaction.
14.) Help
Like 'Cancel', saying 'Help' anywhere in the SYNC system gives you a list of things you can say depending on where you are in the interaction.
So there's the basic media player commands. Here's to hoping those of you with SYNC who were unsure before can enjoy cruising to your favorite music now. Next post will be on using the Phone features of SYNC.
*Remember, those who have a NAV system will have to say 'SYNC' at the voice prompt before you can say any of these commands.
For a full list of what Media players work with SYNC, check out: http://www.syncmyride.com/#/overlay/...y_music_player
In fact, make an owner account on SyncMyRide.com while you're there. If you want to make use of Sync Services (traffic, directions, and information), or if you want to be able to run a Vehicle Health Report, you'll need to have one. And if you're sick of telling the website what vehicle, radio, and steering wheel you have every time you visit and need information, making an account will help. There's a strict privacy policy, and I have yet to be spammed by anything related to the site, if it makes you feel better.
Anyhoo, I'm going to go over SYNC operation from USB, not line-in or Bluetooth Audio. Here's why:
Line-In lets you stream audio from any device with a mini-jack (1/8-in headphone style) plug, and Bluetooth Audio from phones that can stream bluetooth music to another device. That's it. If you specify 'Line In' or 'Bluetooth Audio' as your audio source (see last post), you turn it on. If you specify another audio source, you turn it off. If you want to voice control your music, you need to use the USB port, so the car can communicate with your media player. Plus, if you have an iPod, iPhone, Zune, or other media player, it'll charge while it's plugged in to the USB port. Totally awesome, I know.
Anyway, let's talk USB. To set the audio source to USB, press the voice button on the steering wheel, and when you hear the tone that indicates SYNC is listening (see the first post), say 'USB'. Of course, if you press the voice button and hear [Chime] "USB. Please say a command."[Listening Tone], then you've already got the USB port set as the audio source, and you can jump right in and give media player commands.
Once you specify 'USB' as your source, you'll be prompted with [Chime] "USB. Please say a command."[Listening tone], so in either case, you'll end up here:
Voice commands you can give while in Media Player (USB) mode:
*Those with a NAV system will have to say 'SYNC' at the first voice prompt before getting to a place where you can give these commands.
1.) Play All
You can choose to listen to all the music on your media device, not just one artist or genre. You can do that by pressing the voice button and saying "Play All".
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play All."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Play all." (begins playing)
2.) Play Artist
Say you want to listen to some Bruce Springsteen, some Linkin Park, or some Jessica Simpson (hey, I'm not judging you), you can tell SYNC to only play music by a particular artist. Just know that if you do this, it will ONLY play music from that artist, and will keep looping through those tracks unless you tell it to play some other set of music, or give it the 'Play All' command.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play Artist Bruce Springsteen."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing Artist Bruce Springsteen" (begins playing tracks with 'Bruce Springsteen' in the 'Artist' field of the ID3 metadata)
3.) Play Track
Suppose you climb into your brand new Mustang, and, like me, get the urge to hear Cake's "Going the Distance". You COULD tell SYNC to play the artist 'Cake', but you might get any of a dozen cake tracks that could be on your media player. You can use the << and >> buttons on the steering wheel to scroll through the tracks until you get to 'Going the Distance', or you can just tell SYNC to queue it up for you.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play Track Going the Distance"
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing Track Going the Distance" (begins playing the track with 'Going the Distance' in the 'Title' field of the ID3 metadata)
[You]: Enjoy some go-fast music while you're fighting and biting and riding on your horse.
4.) Play Genre
If you're feeling like some hard rock, jazz, metal, country, pop, or indie, you can tell SYNC to play music of only that genre by giving the voice command to play a particular genre. SYNC will then oblige, and stay within that genre until you specify something else or give the 'Play All' command.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play Genre Rock."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing Genre Rock." (begins playing all tracks with 'Rock' in the 'Genre' field of the ID3 metadata)
5.) Play Album
If you have an entire album on your Media Player and want to hear it, tell SYNC to play just that music by giving the Play Album command. SYNC will only play tracks from that album until you specify something else or give the 'Play All' command. If I wanted to listen to Atreyu's album 'Lead Sails Paper Anchor', I'd use the commands below:
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play Album Lead Sails Paper Anchor."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing Album Lead Sails Paper Anchor." (begins playing all tracks with 'Lead Sails Paper Anchor' in the 'Album' field of the ID3 metadata)
6.) Play Playlist
If you have a favorite playlist on your media player, SYNC can play it for you. Just use the 'Play Playlist' command.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play Playlist Cruising Music."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing Playlist Cruising Music." (begins playing all tracks as called for in the 'Cruising Music' playlist)
7.) Similar Music
If you're listening to a track from the 2345089234 on your MP3 player, and want to hear something like it, but don't know which track to request, let SYNC spin the wheel for you by using the 'Similar Music' command. When you give this command, SYNC plays another track from your collection with the same 'Genre' ID3 metadata.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Similar Music."
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Similar Music." (begins playing another track with the same data in the 'Genre' field of the ID3 metadata)
8.) What's Playing?
If you want to know more about what's currently playing, ask SYNC, and ye shall receive. Track title, Artist, and Album will be given to you.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "What's Playing?"
[SYNC]: (Chime) "Playing What I've Done by Linkin Park, from the album Minutes to Midnight." (gets data from the Title, Artist, and Album fields of the ID3 metadata)
9.) Play (by itself)
If you are listening to a track and want to hear it again from the beginning, you can press the << button on the steering wheel once, or give the 'Play' command. Similarly, if you have paused music, you can resume it by giving the voice command 'Play'. Play is NOT the same as 'Play All' (see command #1)
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Play."
[SYNC]: (If listening to a track, track restarts from the beginning. If a track was paused, it resumes)
10.) Pause
The counterpart to 'Play', giving the 'Pause' command pauses the current track. Use the command 'Play' to resume.
example:
[You]: Press voice button
[SYNC]: (Chime) "USB. Please say a command." (Listening tone)
[You]: "Pause."
[SYNC]: (Pauses track)
11.) Previous/Next Track
Giving the voice command 'Previous Track' or 'Next Track' plays the previous or next track in the list of tracks SYNC is currently playing (could be all tracks on the media player, or as part of a smaller grouping, such as by artist, album, or genre, if you used one of the above commands). There are also << and >> buttons on the steering wheel that do the same thing.
12.) Shuffle On/Off
Giving the voice command 'Shuffle On' or 'Shuffle Off' turns on randomization when playing tracks on your Media Player. Be careful to pronounce the 'On' or 'Off' carefully and clearly, as mumbling or speaking fast can throw SYNC off with this command.
13.) Cancel
You can stop searching, indexing, or playing music with the 'Cancel' command. Cancel is also a global command, meaning you can give it anywhere in the SYNC system, and it will cancel the voice interaction and return the car to a 'ready' state (press the voice button to start again). You'll hear the "thud thud" tone, meaning it heard you and is canceling the interaction.
14.) Help
Like 'Cancel', saying 'Help' anywhere in the SYNC system gives you a list of things you can say depending on where you are in the interaction.
So there's the basic media player commands. Here's to hoping those of you with SYNC who were unsure before can enjoy cruising to your favorite music now. Next post will be on using the Phone features of SYNC.
*Remember, those who have a NAV system will have to say 'SYNC' at the voice prompt before you can say any of these commands.
07-20-2009, 04:14 PM
#3
2010 Section Moderator
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Lithia, FL
Posts: 3,328
Thanks for the info!! I did buy the Nav system for mine..based on your recommendation and plenty of test drives at the dealer.Signed up for Sync website as well!!
Last edited by wilkinda; 07-20-2009 at 04:17 PM.
07-22-2009, 10:24 AM
#7
1st Gear Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Pa
Posts: 84
I really like the nav system that is in my stang. But I have a question. When you are playing an artst on the usb and you want to change artst, is there an easier way to do it? Like right now songs are playing hit the button on the steering wheel have to say audio, usb, play artst. Is there a short cut to just hit the button and say play artst? Since I dont want to change devices I hope their is a way.
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