Detect when sound is playing through earpiece speaker

Question

Background

I'm developing an app that monitors the proximity sensor. However, I don't want to monitor the sensor while the user is listening to something through the phone ear speaker. This is because the user will probably have his/her head against the handset to listen, which in turn triggers the proximity sensor, and I'm not trying to detect head proximity.

Question

How can I detect when sound is and isn't playing through the handset ear speaker? Callbacks are preferable, of course, but I'm willing to poll if it's the only way.

Answer 1

You can approximate this by regularly polling and making the following checks:

• Check if the audio system is not in normal mode.
• Check if the audio is being routed to the earpiece.

I tested this in Android 4.3, and it seemed to work fine with the system phone app, Viber and Skype. However, it doesn't seem to detect music or non-telephony sounds played through the earpiece. I don't think this is much of a problem, because the earpiece generally seems to only be used for telephony anyway.

Example

public class EarpieceSpeakerState {

    private AudioManager audioManager;

    public EarpieceSpeakerState(AudioManager audioManager) {
        this.audioManager = audioManager;
    }
    
    public boolean usingEarpieceSpeaker() {
        return playingSound()
            && routingToEarpiece();
    }

    private boolean playingSound() {
        return audioManager.getMode() != AudioManager.MODE_NORMAL;
    }
    
    private boolean routingToEarpiece() {
        return !(
            audioManager.isSpeakerphoneOn()
            || audioManager.isBluetoothScoOn()
            || audioManager.isBluetoothA2dpOn()
            || audioManager.isWiredHeadsetOn()
        );
    }

}

Answer 2

I don't know if it is the right solution but i think you should at least give it a try, check out this link. Teorically you will not receive focus if somebody else is using the speaker of your phone.

Answer 3

base solution, you can extend it link

 private fun initOnAudioFocusChangeListener() {
val afChangeListener: AudioManager.OnAudioFocusChangeListener =
    AudioManager.OnAudioFocusChangeListener { focusChange ->
        when (focusChange) {
            AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_GAIN -> {
                viewModel.isAppLostAudioFocusLiveData.value = false
            }
            else -> {
                viewModel.isAppLostAudioFocusLiveData.value = true
            }
        }
    }

val audioManager = getSystemService(Context.AUDIO_SERVICE) as AudioManager
if (android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.O) {
    audioManager.requestAudioFocus(
        AudioFocusRequest.Builder(AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_GAIN)
            .setOnAudioFocusChangeListener(afChangeListener).build()
    )
} else {
    audioManager.requestAudioFocus(
        afChangeListener,
        AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC,
        AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_GAIN
    )
}

}