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BT Audio Keeper

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Keeps cheap Bluetooth speakers awake so they stop clipping the start of your audio.

The problem

Many budget Bluetooth speakers put their amplifier into standby the moment the audio stream goes silent — for example during the pauses between audiobook sentences. Waking the amp back up takes a fraction of a second, so the first syllable after every pause gets swallowed. Infuriating for audiobooks and podcasts.

The fix

The app runs a foreground service that streams sub-audible white noise to the speaker. The signal is far too quiet to hear, but it's not digital silence, so the speaker never drops into standby and nothing gets clipped.

It deliberately does not register a media session or request audio focus — your actual player (Audible, Spotify, …) keeps full control of play/pause, and media buttons on the speaker or lockscreen keep working exactly as before.

Features

  • Manual mode — noise streams whenever you toggle it on.
  • Auto mode — the service watches for other apps playing media and only streams while something is actually playing. No battery spent while nothing plays.
  • Signal level slider — the default (4/32767 PCM amplitude) is inaudible. If your speaker still cuts out, raise it; around 200 the hiss becomes faintly audible, which doubles as confirmation the stream reaches the speaker.
  • Home-screen widget — 1×1 toggle.

Requirements

Android 8.0+ (API 26). Built against SDK 34.

Building

./gradlew assembleDebug
adb install app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk

No release signing is configured — build a debug APK and sideload it.

How it works, technically

A daemon thread writes low-amplitude random PCM (44.1 kHz mono, 16-bit) to an AudioTrack tagged USAGE_MEDIA — that tag matters, since notification-style audio routes to the phone speaker on most Bluetooth stacks and never reaches the A2DP sink. Auto mode uses AudioManager.AudioPlaybackCallback to detect when other apps play USAGE_MEDIA/USAGE_GAME audio and starts/stops the noise accordingly.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

About

Streams sub-audible noise so cheap Bluetooth speakers stop clipping the first syllable after every pause

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