If you like using voice commands through Waze with Android Auto, you may have noticed recently that they no longer work. There’s a very good reason for that. According to a new report from 9To5Google, Waze broke the voice commands for Android Auto after sending out the most recent update. This update added support for Coolwalk among other things, but it also disabled most Google Assistant voice commands.
This is said to be an intentional decision to disable the commands in Android Auto. But Waze hasn’t yet mentioned why it chose to do so. Presumably, things had to be disabled to fix other issues. Perhaps the voice commands were causing other bugs with this new update. And Waze decided to disable them until it was able to find an implement a fix. As this seems like the only logical reason to turn off a feature that isn’t being removed for good.
There are still two voice commands that work through. According to Waze, who confirmed that disabling most voice commands was intentional, you can still use the voice commands for “drive to home” and “drive to work.”
Full Android Auto voice functionality is coming back at some point
Waze recently told users who reported the issue that things were functioning as intended. Specifically stating that “developers are working on implementing full Google Assistant functionality.”
The company does not however mention any sort of timeline for the commands coming back. Just that developers are working on it. That being said, you don’t necessarily have to sit around and wait for the functionality to come back. If you really access to the voice commands again, you can always revert back to the previous version of the app before the update. Where voice commands are still functional.
It’s a temporary fix of course, since you lose out on the new app update. But it’s likely the only option for now.