Hands-free

Hands-free exists only in browsers that can turn speech into text — Chrome, Edge, and the other Chromium browsers with a speech service behind them. Anywhere else there is no detach button, no /hands-free and no mic on the page (see Which browsers).

Turning it on #

Either of:

• the detach button in the side panel's header, just left of minimize
• typing /hands-free in the composer — the / menu offers it as soon as you type /hand, and /hand-free works too

The panel folds down into a mic and closes, and the same mic rises at the bottom middle of the page. It follows you from tab to tab. Opening the side panel again — from the mic's own menu, the toolbar icon or the right-click Open Browsentic item — turns hands-free off; the panel and the mic never listen at the same time.

Hands-free lasts until you open the panel or the browser closes. A browser that restarts comes back with the panel, never with a microphone already on.

Talking #

Just speak. What you say streams in above the mic word by word, and the mic's edge pulses while it hears you. Pause, and a ring runs once around the mic — when it closes, the instruction is sent.

When a run finishes, its answer streams in above the mic the same way, and fades after a moment.

The mic listens for the tab in front of you, and only while the browser window is focused. Switch tabs and it follows; switch to another app and it stops until you come back. It also stops while the agent is working. The browser lets only one thing listen at a time, so going hands-free closes the side panel in every window, and opening the panel anywhere ends hands-free.

The menu #

Rest the pointer on the mic for a second and five buttons fan out around it:

What rides along — the element, live code, attached files — shows as chips beside the mic until you next speak. Each has a ×.

Hold to talk #

Switch it on from the menu and the mic stops listening on its own. Hold left Control — control on a Mac — and speak; let go, and the mic mutes and sends what you said at once, with no countdown. The key's name shows on the mic while this is on, and the mic grows and turns pink while you hold it. The setting is remembered.

Why that key: it sits at the far left on Mac and PC keyboards alike, it is the same physical key on every layout — QWERTY, AZERTY, Dvorak — and on its own it does nothing in any browser or system.

Control is also the key for shortcuts, so a hold only counts if nothing else joins it. Tap it, or press another key with it (Ctrl + C), click or scroll while it is down, and the mic never opens; if it had already opened, what it heard is thrown away rather than sent. A key press a web page makes up is ignored — only you can open the mic.

Moving it #

Press and hold the mic until it grows a little, then drag it anywhere. It stays where you drop it on every tab. Against a side or a corner, the menu turns to open away from the edge and deals its buttons out in that turned order; captions and permission requests move to whichever side has room.

When the agent needs your OK #

The mic turns orange and says what the agent is asking to do. Press it for the request — the same Allow, Deny and Always on ‹host› the panel offers, or the code itself when the agent wrote some — all of it, scrolling if it is long, since Allow runs every line. If the request comes from a tab you are not looking at, a card appears on the page you are on, or a system notification when the browser is in the background; clicking it takes you there. Each request is announced once.

A-Eye never lands on the mic #

The mic, like the rail and Browsentic's cards, is marked as Browsentic's own. A-Eye — yours or the agent's — never outlines it and never picks it; a click on the mic while A-Eye is up does nothing. When you start A-Eye from the mic's menu, the mic steps aside until you have picked.

The agent's pointer passes through it too. A button under the mic — a cookie banner's Accept, a sticky footer — is still one the agent can click or drag to, and an agent's click there never lands on the mic's own stop.

Which browsers #

Browsentic offers hands-free only where it can actually hear you:

A browser whose speech service has transcribed even once keeps hands-free for good: a later failure there is a dropped connection, not a missing service. And one written off can win it back — dictate in the panel, and the first word it transcribes brings the detach button back.

Limits #

• Speech goes to Google while hands-free is listening, as it does for the panel's dictation — see Limits.
• One page at a time can listen. Chrome runs one speech recognizer at once. If another page starts listening, the mic lets it have the microphone and says so; press it to take it back.
• Background noise can become an instruction. Anything that sounds like speech is transcribed. The ring before sending is your chance to press and throw it away; mute the mic when you are not using it.
• Hold to talk needs the page itself to have the keyboard. While you are typing inside a frame embedded in the page — some rich editors, Google Docs among them — the key goes to that frame and the mic does not hear it. Click the page around it first.
• No mic where Browsentic is not allowed — chrome:// pages, the Chrome Web Store, the new tab page. The mic stops listening there, and the toolbar icon is the way back to the panel.

See also #

• Conversations — typing and dictating in the panel, and minimizing it to the rail
• Approvals — what asks first, and why