How do I set my phone to hear text messages?

Many smartphones come equipped with text-to-speech capabilities that can read texts aloud. This feature enables people with visual impairments or reading disabilities to listen to messages, emails, webpages and more using synthesized speech. Modern text-to-speech technology can produce natural sounding voices to make the listening experience smooth and enjoyable.

Both iPhones and Android devices contain built-in text-to-speech engines. All it takes is a few adjustments in your phone’s settings to enable text messages to be read aloud. You can customize the voice, language, speaking rate and more to best suit your needs.

This article will provide step-by-step instructions for setting up your smartphone to read text messages out loud. We’ll cover choosing a synthetic voice, adjusting reading speed, accessing text-to-speech settings, and additional accessibility features to further enhance the experience.

Check Your Phone Settings

To get started using the text-to-speech feature on your iPhone, you first need to find the settings where you can turn it on. Here are the steps:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Scroll down and tap “Accessibility.” You can also search for it using the search bar at the top.
3. Under “Vision,” tap “Spoken Content.”
4. On this screen, you will find the various settings to control text-to-speech on your iPhone.

For more details, refer to Apple’s guide on finding the Spoken Content settings: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/hear-whats-on-the-screen-or-typed-iph96b214f0/ios

Turn On Text-to-Speech

To enable your iPhone to read text messages out loud, you first need to turn on the text-to-speech capability. This feature allows your iPhone to convert text into synthesized speech. Here’s how to find the setting:

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content. Here you will find a toggle to turn on Speak Selection. Tap the toggle so it is in the green “on” position. This allows your iPhone to speak any text you have selected (Source: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/hear-whats-on-the-screen-or-typed-iph96b214f0/ios).

You may also want to turn on Speak Screen while you’re in this menu. This makes your iPhone read the entire screen from top to bottom. Both Speak Selection and Speak Screen need to be enabled for your iPhone to automatically read incoming text messages.

Choose a Voice

The iPhone allows you to select from a variety of high-quality voices to read your text messages aloud. To choose a voice:

1. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content.

2. Tap on Voices. This will display a list of available voices.

3. Tap on a voice to select it. You can tap on the Play button next to each voice to hear a sample.

4. Once you have selected your preferred voice, tap Done.

The iPhone includes a range of voices in different languages, accents, and genders to choose from. Most users prefer selecting a voice that sounds natural and pleasing to them. Often people select a male or female voice according to their personal preference.

You can set different voices for speaking text versus speaking Siri responses in the Settings. This allows you to customize the ideal voice for having your text messages read aloud.

Set Message Announcements

You can configure your iPhone to read incoming text messages aloud. This allows you to hear notifications even when you can’t look at the screen. To set this up:

1. Open the Settings app and tap “Notifications”.

2. Scroll down and tap “Announce Messages”.

3. Toggle “Announce Messages” on.

You can now choose to have only the sender announced, or the full message text read aloud. Tap “Announce Senders” or “Announce Full Message” to select which option you prefer.

The text-to-speech feature will now read aloud sender names and/or messages for SMS, iMessages, and other messaging apps. You’ll hear an audible notification when new messages arrive.

This can be helpful if you want to know who texted without having to look at your phone. It’s also useful as an accessibility aid if you have vision impairments.

Adjust Reading Speed

The speaking rate or reading speed controls how fast or slow the text-to-speech voice talks when reading aloud your text messages. You can speed up the voice to talk faster or slow it down to talk slower as per your preference.

To adjust the speaking rate on iPhone, go to Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content, then use the Speaking Rate slider to make the voice talk slower or faster (Source 1). The longer the slider is on the right, the faster the speaking speed will be. Move the slider back to the left to have the voice talk slower.

Text Reading Options

In addition to reading text messages aloud, there are other options for making use of the text-to-speech voice on iPhone

You can have the voice read just the name of the sender when you receive a new message by going to Settings > Notifications and toggling on “Announce Notifications”. You can also have messages read out automatically without needing to tap them, enabling the “Speak Selection” option also found in Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content.

There are third-party apps such as Odiofy that read imported text aloud using iPhone’s built-in voices as well.

Using Headphones

Using headphones or a Bluetooth headset is a great way to keep text messages private when your phone reads them aloud. Headphones allow you to hear the text-to-speech conversion without broadcasting the message to those around you [1].

Headphones also let you save messages for later if you receive a text at an inconvenient time. You can have the text read aloud through your headphones whenever you have some privacy to listen [2].

Earbuds and wireless headsets are ideal since they block out ambient noise. Choose a comfortable pair that securely fits your ears to get the best listening experience as messages are read to you.

Additional Accessibility Features

Besides text-to-speech, iPhone provides several other accessibility settings for people with disabilities. Examples include:

• Screen readers like VoiceOver to hear descriptions of everything on the screen
• Display accommodations to customize color filters, contrast levels, and text sizing
• Switch Control to use switches, joysticks, or head movements to select items on screen
• AssistiveTouch gestures to perform touch screen actions easier
• Hearing aid compatibility to use Made for iPhone hearing aids via Bluetooth

For all the accessibility options on iPhone, check Apple’s guide for getting started with accessibility features.

Summary

To set up your phone to hear text messages read aloud, there are a few key steps:

1. Go into your phone’s settings and turn on the accessibility feature for text-to-speech (Free Text to Speech Online with Realistic AI Voices). This enables your phone to read text aloud using a synthetic voice.
2. Choose the default voice you want your phone to use as well as the speaking speed.
3. Enable announcement notifications for text messages. This will make your phone automatically read new incoming texts.
4. You can fine-tune additional speech options like pausing between sentences or words. And for privacy, use headphones to keep messages private.

Following these main steps will get text-to-speech up and running for SMS messages. It creates a hands-free way to listen to texts conveniently.