Listening is a microphone foreground service, and only the user starts it

Context

Darek is only useful hands-free, so he must hear a Command with the screen off and the app closed. Android allows that in one way: a foreground service of type microphone, with its ongoing notification.

Android limits when that service may start. Since Android 14 (targetSdk 34) a microphone service cannot be started from the background at all — not from BOOT_COMPLETED, not from an alarm, not by a service the app already runs. The exemptions are: an activity of the app is visible, the user tapped the app’s widget or one of its notifications, a system component or a visible app’s PendingIntent started it, or the app is the phone’s assistant (VoiceInteractionService), a device owner or privileged. A Quick Settings tile is not documented as an exemption; AOSP binds the tile without the privileges the check needs, so a tile must open an activity that starts the service. On API 30–33 the same background start is allowed but the microphone records silence (Android 11’s while-in-use rule); on 26–29 there is no such rule. Sources: background start restrictions, Android 15’s boot restrictions, and for the tile, AOSP’s TileLifecycleManager and ActiveServices — read, not yet measured.

Once running, a foreground service keeps its process out of Doze’s wakelock cull, and the audio server holds its own wakelock while capturing, so listening continues with the screen off.

Decision

• Listening is one foreground service, type microphone, with an ongoing notification that says Darek is listening and offers Stop.
• It starts only from a user action: Słuchaj in the app, the Słuchaj of the notification after a reboot, or the Quick Settings tile. The last two open a translucent activity with no window, which starts the service and closes, so neither leans on the notification exemption or on a tile AOSP does not exempt; the tile opens it with startActivityAndCollapse(PendingIntent), since the Intent overload throws for targetSdk 34+ on API 34+, and uses that overload only below 34. Whatever a start still owes (the disclosure, the microphone, the notifications) is asked on Home, so that activity opens Home instead.
• No notifications, no Listening. A hidden notification would leave no Stop outside the app and no way back after a reboot, so the app’s notifications or Listening’s channel turned off stop Listening, and Home says why with a button to the fix (phase-2.md, The start paths).
• After a reboot it does not start by itself. A boot receiver posts a notification whose action starts it — one tap — and only if Listening was on when the phone went down: Stop clears that, so a user who stopped Darek on purpose is not asked at every boot. The receiver declares RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED itself, since WorkManager’s merged one left with the reminders in phase 0.
• MIUI and other vendor ROMs get a setup step for autostart and the battery saver’s “No restrictions”, because they kill foreground services the platform would keep: a sheet shown once after the first start, then permanent rows in Settings that make no claim about the state.
• What the microphone is doing is shown, not hidden: the notification says Darek hears, is paused for a call, or cannot hear. Cannot hear is more than a second of exact zeros outside a call (another app took the microphone) or a recording that cannot start, which is tried again rather than ending Listening (phase-2.md, section 3).

Alternatives

Listen only while the app is open. No permanent notification, little battery, and no special Play declaration — but it is not the app the owner asked for. Rejected on 2026-10-31.

Be the phone’s assistant (VoiceInteractionService), which is exempt and could start after boot. It replaces the user’s Google assistant, needs the user to change the default assistant in system settings, and is a much larger API for one action.

Start on boot anyway through a loophole (an alarm that opens an activity, an accessibility service). Each is either refused on current Android or a Play policy violation.

Consequences

• Play Console needs the foreground service declaration for microphone (use case: voice commands for an assistant, nothing saved) with a video of the user starting it, and a prominent disclosure in the app right before the RECORD_AUDIO request.
• The notification stays while listening: the platform’s price and the honest signal that the microphone is open. On Android 14+ the user can swipe it away while the service keeps running; Darek does not repost it, and Listening stays visible in the app and on the tile.
• In the background as on screen, only a Command or a hail with „hej” gets an answer (ADR-0009): the name alone, from a TV or a pocket, gets silence.
• Battery cost is real and has to be measured over a night on the test phone before the door.