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How do I turn off the text-to-speech? I have followed the instructions in the user guide (attached). Even though the instructions are wrong, when I get to the right place in the settings, there is no option to turn off the text-to-speech. I need help.
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jrh4054,
After review, I was able to find that there is a Text-to-Speech option in the Accessibility setting. To get there go to Settings>My Device>Accessibility>Text-to-speech options. If you find there are no settings in this section that will help eliminate the device reading out your text messages, we may recommend a hard reset.
Did this issue begin as soon as the device was activated or did it begin sometime after a recent software update?
EfrainM_VZW
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I'm not sure you can turn it off altogether. It is used, for instance, to give turn-by-turn directions in Maps (which means you can use these settings to change the voice you hear). What is a situation where it's giving you text-to-speech and you don't want to hear it?
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Dave, see my answer to Ann154 about when this happens.
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If the phone is talking to you for everything, that's a setting under the Accessibility options. You might have to touch an item twice to make a selection and accept that selection for the phone to respond to your commands.
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Thanks for the reply. I've checked the Accessibility settings and don't see anything there causing this. What's happening is the phone speaks text messages I receive when the volume is higher than vibrate. This just started and it's very annoying.
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It reads the actual messages to you? Or does it state "You have a text message." as a notification?
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Do you have "Hands-free mode" or "Driving Mode" turned on? For the tabbed view of the Settings, it is Settings > My device > hands free mode.
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settings > accessibility > talkback (ensure it's off)
settings > hands-free mode (ensure it's off)
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I'll bet a Christmas cookie it's Hands-free mode that got turned on accidentally. This can also be controlled from the Notifications settings (it may be fairly deep in the list). It used to be called "Driving mode," and still is called that in the User Guide. On p. 33: "Driving mode: Enable or disable Driving mode, to have incoming caller ID and text messages read out." The User manual in the on-phone Help does now call it "Hands-free mode."
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It was changed to Hands-free Mode with the update to 4.3
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Thanks to all of you who have responded to my question. The 'hands-free' mode is off on the phone. The phone announces an incoming text and reads it aloud. It's very annoying. It doesn't happen with the phone is set to just vibrate.
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jrh4054, this is a good question. I know I definitely wouldn't want my text messages to be read out loud all the time. When you pull down the notification bar from the home screen. You should have options on the top that are either Green or Grayed out, if you slide through those options you should see one that says "Hands-free mode" and it looks like a steering wheel. If that is green go ahead and tap on that to make it gray. Let me know if that stops the reading out of your text messages.
KevinR_VZW
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KevinR_VZW, as I have told others here, the hands free feature is off. In fact, I have never had it on. Any other ideas?
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Can you post screenshots of your notification bar showing the icons for the various settings? Maybe the community members will see something that hasn't been tried already. Please make sure that the screenshots don't include any personal information.
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jrh4054,
Oh my, sorry to hear your phone is still reading out your text. I would suggest putting your phone in safe mode and seeing if it still reads out your text. Here are the steps for safe mode: http://vz.to/KqH4GQ. Are you using a third party application? If not then the next step would be to do a hard reset: http://vz.to/1cQhLJc.
KarenC_VZW
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To Karen C_VZW: This isn't annoying enough to to a factory reset. I've had too much experience with the time it takes to get the phone back to where it was before the reset. I would have to have some sort of catastrophic failure to do the reset.
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jrh4054,
After review, I was able to find that there is a Text-to-Speech option in the Accessibility setting. To get there go to Settings>My Device>Accessibility>Text-to-speech options. If you find there are no settings in this section that will help eliminate the device reading out your text messages, we may recommend a hard reset.
Did this issue begin as soon as the device was activated or did it begin sometime after a recent software update?
EfrainM_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport
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Issue happened after system update in January 2020
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Thank you for clarifying, Koch720. Are you able to complete a hard reset?
KourtneyC_VZW
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Really? Is this the best that Verizon can do when it cannot properly research an answer for a problem that affects many people. "Just hard reset the phone." The amount of inconvenience this causes for people is unbelievable... to have to factory-reset the phone and go through the process of reloading all the apps, as well as all the custom settings for those apps... and for some people who don't understand that process, then losing data they cannot retrieve. What a ridiculous solution!
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