[App] Around Sound - Have your phone listen for you while you enjoy music or movies

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This was my first app and recently just overhauled it with a lot of the updates I had been doing to Wave Control. I've gotten great feedback from XDA members on Wave Control, so I'd like to see what you all think of this one.

Update (10/11/2012): Half of proceeds from app sales from October will be donated to Breast Cancer Research
More Info Here

Around Sound allows you to listen to music, watch movies, or play games and still be aware of your surroundings. It's meant for when you're using sound isolating earbuds like Shure or others that are basically earplugs so you have no idea what's going on around you.

It uses the mic on your headset or phone to listen around you. You set how loud a noise needs to be to trigger it. When a loud sound is detected, it pauses your music or movie for a timeout period. During this time, it feeds the outside sound through to your headphones so you can hear what's going on. After the timeout period it then resumes playback.

With games, you can use the non-pause mode which will overlay the outside sounds on top of the current audio. Usually the game audio will lower itself during this time. I would really like for games to support the pause feature. I've reached out to some developers but need everyone's help to request the feature be added to their favorite games.

Play Store Links:
Free Version
Pro Version

Some known issues:
1. Audio lag - when the outside sound is fed through there's about a 500ms delay. It's a known issue with Android. It's rumored to have been fixed in Jelly Bean (or there's some low level API's available to fix it) but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet.

2. Bluetooth Mic Option - Currently only works with mono headsets and not the AD2P kind

Some use cases:
- At the office: pause your music automatically when someone is trying to get your attention
- At home: Don't miss door slams, children crying, your dog barking, or other warning signs


- At the airport: Relax at the gate and have your music or movie pause when the gate announcements start


- Anywhere relatively quiet where you want to know if something happens around you

Permissions Needed:
Network Communications: Full Internet Access (For Ad Supported Version)
Phone Calls: Read Phone status (shuts off the audio processing during calls)
Hardware Controls: Audio Settings, Record Audio (to use the microphone, no audio is ever stored)
Coarse Location(Not GPS): For Ad Supported Version
Write External Storage: For Ad Supported Version
Billing: For in app upgrades
Bluetooth: For Bluetooth mic feature
Broadcast Sticky: For Bluetooth mic feature

Limitations:


-Needs Froyo or Above (Android version 2.2+)
-For Pause Music Mode: You can't be in a really loud environment otherwise the microphone input will be maxed out and there is no way to detect a louder sound. Use Street Mode instead

Coming Soon:
Timeout period Adjustment
Volume control of mic feed during timeout

Developed on a Samsung Galaxy SIII

Wow, very cool and unique app! Thank you! This will be very useful.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Originally Posted by Whoosh13

Wow, very cool and unique app! Thank you! This will be very useful.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Glad you like it

Let me know if there are any new features you'd like to see.

This is a great idea but can you get the phones mic to work instead for people without mics on there headset?

Originally Posted by SkillfulMmd

This is a great idea but can you get the phones mic to work instead for people without mics on there headset?

It will use whatever the available mic is. If there's only the one on the phone it'll use that one. If there's one of the headset then it'll use that one instead.

I have on todo list to put the option to force use of the phone's mic even if there's one on the headset.

Awesome in tat case ill download it now and have a go

Great idea! Thank you so much!

Throwing out of the window from my flying Ferrari killer S3 :P

I noticed in the app description:

Note: Bluetooth Mic Option (pro or pro features) currently only works with mono headsets and not the AD2P kind

I assume my headset is the A2DP kind, it's a stereo bluetooth headset. I haven't had much luck with any application being able to use my bluetooth mic. I've tried other headsets but they were all stereo bluetooth. I'm using a nexus 7. Is this a planned upcoming feature? Is there a underlying reason why so few apps (any?) seem to support this?

Originally Posted by sark666

I noticed in the app description:

I assume my headset is the A2DP kind, it's a stereo bluetooth headset. I haven't had much luck with any application being able to use my bluetooth mic. I've tried other headsets but they were all stereo bluetooth. I'm using a nexus 7. Is this a planned upcoming feature? Is there a underlying reason why so few apps (any?) seem to support this?

I'm actually getting mixed feedback. Apparently it does work on some phone/headset combos. The way it behaves seems more like a bug in Android than an issue with headsets. I've heard Bluetooth is one area phone manufacturers sometimes tweak so maybe that's what's going on here. I need to get more data to really be sure.

I'd say give it a shot and see if it does work. Maybe Jelly Bean handle BT better.

Originally Posted by MarksThinkTank

I'm actually getting mixed feedback. Apparently it does work on some phone/headset combos. The way it behaves seems more like a bug in Android than an issue with headsets. I've heard Bluetooth is one area phone manufacturers sometimes tweak so maybe that's what's going on here. I need to get more data to really be sure.

I'd say give it a shot and see if it does work. Maybe Jelly Bean handle BT better.

Ok thanks. Hmm, I just installed it but didn't realize it's a pro feature. Not that I wouldn't buy it, but I wanted to use it with a stereo bluetooth headset, and going by so far with my experience with bluetooth recording in general with jellybean (as in nothing working so far with 4 different headsets) so I suspect it probably wouldn't have worked.

I suspect as well it's an android issue.