WH-1000XM3 Headphones Not Playing Notification Sounds

[HughPMF]

Can someone help me as this is driving me crazy?

Just purchased these headphones recently and whenever I connect them to my phone (Samsung s20 5G) I don't hear ANY notifications on the headphones - the notifications play on my phone but no sound whatsoever on my headphones so I have no idea that e.g. a text message has arrived when I have my headphones on.  Music plays fine.  Google Assistant works fine and will read back a new text message but I want to know when they arrive so that I can listen to the read back.

Any ideas why this is happening?

P.S. I just tried with an old pair of bluetooth headphones and these work fine i.e. notifications come through so this is a Sony or Google Assistant issue - any ideas??

[IamNic]

Hello @HughPMF,

to which phone did you connect the headphones?

Maybe you are right and the fitness band interfers - does the band vibrate by any chance? To notify you of any incoming messages?

- Nic

[HughPMF]

They are connected to a pair of Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones.  I've established that this is only a problem with Google Assistant as Amazon Alexa works fine and I get the notification sounds.  However, Alexa is really dumb when it comes to managing the phone (so can't read out text messages or even recognise what music I'm playing unless I open the relevant skill first).  Google Assistant is so much better but I don't get the notification sounds even if I switch off Spoken notifications.

The fitness band is definitely not interfering (and it also gets the notifications).

I'm wondering if this is a problem with Google Assistant on my phone which is relatively new (a Samsung S20 5G) .
As an aside I'm looking at using the Tasker app (from the Play store) as a work around as this can send a spoken notification when messages (etc) arrive and can be configured to only do this when my headphones are connected.

[HughPMF · Accepted solution]

Final update:

Installed Tasker and set it up - excellent product.

I can now use Google Assistant even though I don't get notifications as Tasker tells me when a text message or email arrive (using Notification Listener plugin).  It also tells me who is ringing me when I receive a phone call with my headphones on.  Brilliant!