30 Voice Guidelines You Can Use on Your PlayStation Four
Sony's PlayStation four has voice directions, just like the Xbox One. They're just not as powerfully advertised. PS4 voice directions work with a standard headset, so you don't need any special hardware–unlike the Xbox One, which requires a Kinect for voice control.
The PlayStation four doesn't suggest as many directions as the Xbox One does. However, voice directives were improved somewhat with PlayStation firmware update Two.00, released back in October 2014.
How to Enable Voice Directives
You can issue voice directives in one of two ways:
- With a PlayStation Camera: If you have the optional PlayStation Camera accessory for your PS4, you can just speak out noisy and issue voice directions through the camera's microphone.
- Through a Headset: You can connect a headset to the audio jack on your PS4's controller and speak voice instructions into the headset. The basic mono headset included with the PS4 works fine for this. However, you can also use another headset with a microphone, even a wireless Bluetooth headset. As long as you can connect a headset with a microphone to your PlayStation Four–no matter how you do it–you're good to go.
Before testing this out, you'll also want to ensure voice guidelines are enabled on the PS4. To do so, head to Settings > System > Voice Operation Settings and ensure the “Operate PS4 with Voice” option is enabled.
How to Make Your PS4 Listen for Guidelines
To embark issuing a voice guideline, say “PlayStation” out noisy. After about a 2nd, a microphone will show up on your screen. This is your indication that you can commence speaking voice instruction. The PS4 will listen for ten seconds–if you don't say anything within that time, it will stop listening.
You can also press the “L2” button on your controller to make your PS4 embark listening for voice guidelines, but this only works when you're at the home screen.
You need to pause for a 2nd after telling “PlayStation”–you can't simply say “PlayStation [instruction]” without pausing, or it won't hear your guideline.
If there's a lot of ambient noise near you, the PS4 may have trouble hearing you. You may also need to speak more leisurely and enunciate more clearly if the software can't understand you. Voice instructions won't work at all while you're voice talking online in a party.
The Different Guidelines You Can Use
Once your PlayStation four is listening for directions, you can speak several directives from anywhere:
- Take Screen Shot: Save a screenshot.
- Begin Movie Clip: Begin recording and save the next fifteen minutes of gameplay. If you've configured your PS4 to record shorter gameplay clips–like ten minute clips–it will record a shorter clip instead.
- Save Movie Clip: Save the last fifteen minutes of gameplay to a movie clip. If you've configured your PS4 to record shorter gameplay clips, it will record a shorter clip instead.
- Begin Broadcast: Embark broadcasting your gameplay.
- Stop Broadcast: Stop broadcasting your gameplay.
- Home Screen: Comeback to the PS4's home screen.
- All Directions: Display the available voice instructions on the current screen.
- Fewer Directions: Hide the list of available instructions.
- Log In: Go to the Switch User screen.
- User #: Select a user on the Switch User screen. For example, “User 1” will select the very first user in the list and “User Two” will select the 2nd user in the list.
- Yes: Agree to a confirmation prompt on the screen.
- Cancel: Cancel at a confirmation prompt on the screen.
- Back: Go back to the previous screen.
- Back to Game: Go back to the presently active game you're playing.
- Commence PlayStation Store: Open the PlayStation Store.
- Embark Notifications: Open the Notifications Screen.
- Commence Friends: Open the Friends screen.
- Commence Messages: Open the Messages screen.
- Commence Party: Open the Party screen.
- Embark Profile: Open the profile screen.
- Begin Trophies: Open the Trophies screen.
- Begin Settings: Open the Settings screen.
- Commence Power: Open the Power screen.
- Inject Rest Mode: Put the PS4 into rest mode. This only works from the power menu screen.
- Turn Off PS4: Power off the PS4. This only works from the power menu screen.
The following voice directives must be spoken on the PS4's home screen:
- [Game Name] or [App Name]: Select a game or app just by telling its name. For example, you can say “Amazon” to select the Amazon Instant Movie app. This only works if the game or app is already installed. This also works for built-in apps–for example, you can say “Internet Browser” to select the Internet browser app.
- Embark: Embark the presently selected game or application.
- What's Fresh: Go to the What's Fresh section.
- Library: Go to the Library section.
- TV and Movie: Go to the TV and Movie section.
For example, let's say you're presently using Amazon Instant Movie and you want to commence using the Netflix app. You'd say “PlayStation, Home Screen, Netflix, Embark, Yes” to do this. This string of directions would make the PS4 commence listening, take you to the home screen, select the Netflix app, tell the PS4 to begin it, and agree to close the current app to do so.
Unluckily, there's no way to turn a PlayStation on from Rest Mode with your voice like the “Xbox, On” guideline on an Xbox One. You'll have to either press the PlayStation button on your controller or power button on the console. But the voice instructions it does have are still pretty useful.