Can Alexa be active at the same time the satellite radio is on ?

Just ask your question the next time XM radio cuts out.

I live in some dense forest, every time I pass under a tree, XM radio cuts out. and starts up again later with a time lag. The only way we have found to listen to a complete entire song is to find a clearing and park there to hear the song. Of course, Maine is over 92% forest, so in some areas it may be a long drive to find a big enough clearing to make XM radio work.

You should be able to talk to Alexa every time the XM radio cuts out though.

 

I do not have Alexa.

 

Can’t solve your problem since I use Siri and CarPlay and never even bothered with Satellite during the introductory period (burned out on it years ago and morphed into free apps and Bluetooth)
I can say that there is plenty of room for improvement in this area. A lot of strange things happen with CarPlay. It sometimes refuses to launch and other times it launches automatically when plugged in. I have learned to sit still and not start moving in the car until everything is working the way I want it to. Even then, there are occasional glitches that occur while moving.
This problem with Alexa OR Satellite, but not both, sounds annoying.

 

I was just playing with Apps on my PRIME LE, which has a different HU than your XLE, so this may not apply to your situation. Toyota recently integrated all the connected apps including the Toyota+Alexa into the ToyotaApp on the smartphone. In order to use Toyota+Alexa, the ToyotaApp has to be open and the phone must be connected to the car via Bluetooth with internet connected either via WiFi or via Cellular Data. It seems if you have +Alexa working, it is considered as one of the audio sources you can choose from. Since you can listen to only one audio source at a time, you must switch between XM radio and +Alexa.

However, if you install the SiriusXM phone app on your phone and link the accounts, provided you have an account with SiriusXM, you can use +Alexa skill to play the SiriusXM app. This is very similar to using +Alexa to play music from Amazan Music or IHeartRadio. IHeartRadio and NPROne skills are built-in so I have no problem playing those using +Alexa command, but some apps are apparently not supported. I can play Spotify via the regular Amazon Alexa app but not from Toyota+Alexa.

My conclusion after playing with Toyota+Alexa for a while, other than the fact that it displays some information on the HU and it speaks through the car's speaker, I don't see anything useful about Toyota+Alexa in PP, since it can not do any of Remote Connect functionalities. It is much better than the Toyota OEM voice command but I could not use it to make a phone call, and it has no skill to control the HVAC of the car. Since I do not use the data connection on my phone most of the time, all of the ToyotaApp integrated connected services are kinda useless for me anyway.

 

If you use SiriusXM app, then you will not be listening to XM radio as an audio source from the HU. It is streaming from your phone. And if you use +Alexa skill to play SiriusXM app on your phone, then the audio source is staying as +Alexa, so if you ask "Alexa, what is the weather?" then the whatever playing is interrupted by Alexa and after the answer, it should go back to XM radio that was playing before the interruption. I don't have SiriusXM account, so I can't test it on my car using SiriusXM app, but that is the exactly the way it works if the music or book or news is being played by asking "Alexa, play my favorite music from Amazon Music" or "Alexa, read my book from Audible" or "Alexa, what is today's news on NPROne".

The point here is that only Toyota+Alexa is being used as an audio source. You must be able to ask Alexa to play the radio or music or news or podcast or audiobook or whatever you want to listen to. So, if the Alexa skill does not allow to play the app, then it will not work. Conversely, if the Alexa skill can play the audio, then Alexa is always on standby just waiting for your key word.

 

On my trial today, Toyota+Alexa could not make a phone call. That is if I ask "Alexa, call home." then +Alexa would respond by saying "Calling Home." but nothing happened. My phone never dialed. I did not try it today, but I am sure even if +Alexa can not make a call, the phone button on the steering wheel should still work. I don't receive or make a phone call often enough, so I am not sure of this, but receiving call should work fine while +Alexa is playing music or radio or whatever. If IRRC and if it is the same as just playing music off USB, then I think the volume of the audio will not automatically diminish as the phone is picked up.

 

There is no manual for Toyota+Alexa. The multimedia manual that came with the car covers very, very basic only, nothing in detail. And Toyota recently updated the ToyotaApp and integrated connected apps. Even the Toyota customer service rep has very little knowledge of how those apps work together. For my recent contact with Toyota, I was blatantly told by the first customer service rep that there is no way I can use any of the Toyota Apps without first signing up for the Safety Connect service. It was only after escalating my inquiry to the case manager and him spending half a day researching, it became clear that it is possible to use apps even without Safety Connect (and active telematics). Yap, this basic fact is not even covered in the current Toyota reference page: Audio Multimedia & Connected Services | Select Vehicle | Toyota Owners

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My single biggest problem with CarPlay is that Siri ignores me half the time when I do "Hey Siri". It's like having two wives!

 

Siri always answers me, but never listens to my wife, even though we both trained our phones. She would claim Siri has the same selective hearing that I do.
In fact, my wife had to turn Siri off on her phone while riding as a passenger because both CarPlay (connected to my phone) and her phone will answer my voice at the same time.