One common feature that can be found on nearly every major mobile operating system is the ability to use your voice to interact with your phone. This is a great feature for users who can’t interact with their phone, say when they are driving. With the release of Windows Phone 8 came improved voice control, which you may or may not be aware was also carried over to some apps.

If you have a phone running Windows Phone 8, there are apps that support voice commands. This feature is actually built into the OS through the Speech feature.

About Speech

By using the Speech feature on Windows Phone 8, you can use your voice to launch apps, write an SMS, call people and more. You can also tell your phone to open apps and even navigate to a part of the app.

To access the Speech feature on your phone, press and hold the Windows icon at the bottom of your screen and it should pop up. In the window that opens, you should be able to just speak your command. If that doesn’t work, press the microphone icon, and you should see a message flash that says Listening…. You can then speak your command.

Some useful Speech voice commands

Here are five useful commands that you may find useful:

1. “Call ‘contact name'” – This will call whatever person you say from your contact list.
2. “Redial” – This will call the last number you called.
3. “Text ‘contact name'” – This will start a new text message that will be sent to the contact you say. You can then dictate the the message without having to type it.
4. “Start ‘application'” – This will open the application you say.
5. “Search for ‘term'” – This will open your browser and search for the term you say.

How to tell what apps you can interact with using your voice

Not every app available on the Windows Store supports voice commands, and many don’t actually tell you the app does support them. Luckily, there is a way to see which apps you can interact with using your voice:

1. Pressing and holding the Windows icon on your phone until the Speech feature opens.
2. Saying “What can I say?“.
3. Swiping right to the menu that says apps.

This will present you with a list of apps and pressing on each app will tell you what commands you can use while the app is open.

If you would like to learn more tips and tricks for the Windows Phone, please contact us today to see how we can help.