So I got a Gear S, paired it with my Galaxy S4 and S-Voice seemed to work well at home, but I found that it didn't work when I was outside. Nothing about S-Voice worked when I was out (except the wake up command "Hi Gear"). Doing a bit of testing I found that it worked when my phone was on Wi-Fi but it didn't work when my phone was switched to data. Oddly enough, S-Voice works from my phone regardless of the Internet connection it has, so this seems to be an issue with the Gear S. The error message I am getting on my Gear S is "Could not find network connection." Any ideas? Tips? Advice? (besides avoiding Samsung's crap, because that's all I've been hearing until now...)
[Q] S-Voice not working with phone data (works on Wi-Fi). Any advice?
- Thread starter fardelian
- Start date
If you mean connected, then yes, they are connected. If I go to "Phone" on my gear and look for a contact and dial it, it finds the contact and dials using my phone. I control the music, etc, from my Gear without issues.
The only exception appears to be S-Voice on my Gear when the phone is using the data connection. This particular case is the only one not working.
Same thing. I just reset the Gear to factory settings, re-connected it to my phone and when I disable the Wi-Fi on my phone, S-Voice on my Gear doesn't work (it still work on my phone). The error message it says is exactly this: "I can't find a network connection / Please connect and try again."
I also did a software update (it did update the firmware) but the problem persists.
I bet Samsung didn't even test this case. It seems like they just rushed everything to get the Gear S on the market and didn't give testers enough time to do proper testing and they didn't listen to any UX feedback.
I bet Samsung didn't even test this case. It seems like they just rushed everything to get the Gear S on the market and didn't give testers enough time to do proper testing and they didn't listen to any UX feedback.
Fixed!
I figured it out. ROOT REQUIRED.
For some reason the firmware was blocking my phone from sharing its data Internet connection. After a lot of digging I found that it has something to do with carriers, so at first I contacted tech support and they told me that "Portable Wi-Fi hotspot is definitely supported" and it's not blocked by them, which meant they weren't blocking Bluetooth tethering. To me it's still not clear whether or not the carrier can/could fix the issue, but I was sure it was a software issue so I kept searching for Wi-Fi hotspot apps and read as much as I could about them to avoid purchasing a bunch of useless apps. One of these apps got my attention as I read its description, before I even looked for more details:
Here is how I got S-Voice to work on my Gear S:
For some reason the Wi-Fi hotspot doesn't work at all any more (I can't see my phone as a hotspot, but I could see it and connect to it before, except I didn't get any Internet access on my laptop) but Bluetooth tethering works so now I can access the Internet with my laptop and I can use S-Voice on my Gear S. I'm still not sure why tethering didn't work by default because I got the phone without a contract and I didn't see any signs that it wouldn't work - it simply didn't without a warning.
I'm sorry for text links, the forum prevents me from posting externallinks.
I figured it out. ROOT REQUIRED.
For some reason the firmware was blocking my phone from sharing its data Internet connection. After a lot of digging I found that it has something to do with carriers, so at first I contacted tech support and they told me that "Portable Wi-Fi hotspot is definitely supported" and it's not blocked by them, which meant they weren't blocking Bluetooth tethering. To me it's still not clear whether or not the carrier can/could fix the issue, but I was sure it was a software issue so I kept searching for Wi-Fi hotspot apps and read as much as I could about them to avoid purchasing a bunch of useless apps. One of these apps got my attention as I read its description, before I even looked for more details:
Here is how I got S-Voice to work on my Gear S:
- Root the phone
- Install the Free Tethering Unlocker *ROOT* app from play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.kernelxp.freetether
- Install BusyBox (required by the unlocker app) from play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stericson.busybox
- Open the Free Tether Unlocker app and press the "Unlock my Tethering!" button
For some reason the Wi-Fi hotspot doesn't work at all any more (I can't see my phone as a hotspot, but I could see it and connect to it before, except I didn't get any Internet access on my laptop) but Bluetooth tethering works so now I can access the Internet with my laptop and I can use S-Voice on my Gear S. I'm still not sure why tethering didn't work by default because I got the phone without a contract and I didn't see any signs that it wouldn't work - it simply didn't without a warning.
I'm sorry for text links, the forum prevents me from posting externallinks.
