YourCarTalks

Your car greets you back. Every time you drive.

YourCarTalks is an Android app that plays a personalized greeting through your car's speakers every time you connect to Android Auto. Add your car name and driver name — it randomly picks one each drive. Choose from system TTS or offline AI voices.

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✨ Features

🎙️ Smart Greeting Hear "Hello Hrishi. Your car is ready for launch." or "Beast is ready for launch." — randomly picks your name or car's name each drive. 20 handcrafted messages keep it fresh.	🔌 Silent Detection Uses Android Auto's CarConnection API. No icon appears in Android Auto's app drawer — it's purely phone-side.
🔋 Battery Friendly Foreground service with minimal notification (only visible when connected to Android Auto). Won't get killed by the OS.	🧠 Offline AI Voices Download Sherpa-ONNX TTS models for fully offline speech synthesis. Male and Female voices available.
🎨 Theme Support Choose between Light, Dark, or System-default theme. The app follows your preference across the UI.	💬 Custom Greetings Pick from 20 messages across 5 categories (Performance, Racing, Sci-Fi, Attitude, Time-Based). Or let it surprise you with Random mode.
🚀 Start on Boot Automatically resumes after device reboot — set it and forget it.

🎯 How It Works

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│          Phone connects to Android Auto         │
└────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                         │
                         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│     CarConnection emits CONNECTION_TYPE_        │
│               PROJECTION                        │
└────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                         │
                         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│      GreetingService (foreground) detects it    │
└────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                         │
                         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│     2-second delay (audio routing stabilizes)   │
└────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                         │
                         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│   TTS greets with random name + message         │
│   "Hello {name}. {message}" / "{car} {message}" │
│   (System / Sherpa-ONNX Male/Female / Kokoro)   │
└────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                         │
                         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│        Audio plays through car speakers         │
│              ✦ Welcome to Your Tesla ✦          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

🎙️ TTS Engines

Engine	Online Required	Quality	Details
System TTS	No	Device-dependent	Uses your phone's built-in TTS engine (Google, Samsung, etc.)
Sherpa-ONNX Male	Download once	High	Offline AI voice — English male. ~80 MB download
Sherpa-ONNX Female	Download once	High	Offline AI voice — English female. ~80 MB download
Kokoro British Female	Download once	High	Offline AI voice — English British female (Isabella). ~330 MB download

All engines include a Test button in Settings so you can preview before driving.

🛡️ Permissions

Permission	Purpose
FOREGROUND_SERVICE + FOREGROUND_SERVICE_CONNECTED_DEVICE	Keep the connection monitor alive in the background
POST_NOTIFICATIONS (Android 13+)	Foreground service notification (only while connected to AA)
BLUETOOTH_CONNECT (Android 12+)	Required for connectedDevice foreground service type on Android 14+
REQUEST_IGNORE_BATTERY_OPTIMIZATIONS	Prevent the OS from killing the background service
RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED	Restart the service after device reboot

All permissions are requested during the first-launch setup wizard with clear explanations.

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Android phone with Android 10+ (API 29)
• Android Auto set up on your phone and car
• A connected device or emulator for testing

Build & Install

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/Hrishi2861/YourCarTalks.git
cd YourCarTalks

# Build
./gradlew assembleDebug

# Install
adb install -r app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-arm64-v8a-debug.apk

First Run

1. Open the app
2. Enter your car's name (and optionally your driver name)
3. Follow the setup wizard to grant permissions (battery, auto-start, notification, bluetooth)
4. Choose your preferred theme, TTS engine, and greeting style
5. That's it! Connect to Android Auto and hear your greeting 🎉

🧰 Tech Stack

Language	Kotlin
UI	Jetpack Compose + Material 3
Car API	androidx.car.app:app (CarConnection only)
Architecture	Single-activity + Lifecycle-aware Foreground Service
Persistence	Jetpack DataStore (Preferences)
Offline TTS	Sherpa-ONNX
Min SDK	API 29 (Android 10)
Target SDK	API 34

📄 License

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_{Made with ❤️ for everyone who talks to their car}