Android Auto

Android Auto starts reading every message you send twice

Ben Schoon | Apr 8 2024 - 11:49 am PT

Hands-free messaging through Google Assistant is one of the most useful parts of Android Auto, but a new behavior is emerging which leaves the platform reading out the message you’re sending twice before it actually sends it.

For years, the order of events with sending a message via voice message on Android Auto has been simple. After summoning Assistant, the user says who to send a message to and the message’s contents. Assistant then transcribes the message and reads aloud what it is going to send on the user’s behalf. After the user confirms, the message is sent.

That used to be all, but recently the behavior has changed.

Google Assistant on Android Auto has recently started reading out the message a second time. After confirming what you want to send, Assistant then says it is sending the message and then reads the whole thing out a second time. This reiteration doesn’t seem to really serve a purpose, as there’s no way to stop the sending when it’s read out again.

This change was noticed in recent weeks by some users, including several on Reddit in the past week. There’s no way to change it, as it happens automatically through Assistant.

However, this notably only happens on new messages. With replies, the process hasn’t changed. The initial message is read, the user then selects to send a message in reply. Assistant then listens to the message and transcribes it, first repeating what it heard aloud before actually sending the message.

Some have also found that Assistant is disabling dictation a bit too early as of late too, but this issue appears not as widespread.

In all reality, this isn’t a huge problem, but it’s a bit frustrating that it adds a few more seconds to the process for no good reason. Hopefully, Google will patch whatever bug or revert whatever change was made here. This also comes a couple of months after Google rolled out a new design for voice message replies on Android Auto as well as AI summaries for longer messages.

Have you noticed these issues with voice messages on Android Auto? Let us know in the comments.