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Quest 3 Keyboard Dictation not working

On the onscreen keyboard I tap the Microphone key so that I can dictate my typing. The putt on says Initializing for several seconds and just shuts off. 

  • I've restarted the device 
  • tested audio and mic using voice commands 
  • software's up to date 

How can I make dictation work?

47 REPLIES 47

chirivasp
Protege

I have pretty much given up on WhatsApp being a useful app since the keyboard is skittish and awkward at best and they seem to have taken away the speech-to-text dictation functionality. This is a very long-term defect that has been discussed to death, in my view. I guess they just can't fix it or don't think it's worth the energy/time/money to do so. Too bad, but there's plenty of other excellent activities and content for the Quest 3. Maybe I'll try this again next year sometime.

 

chirivasp
Protege

The dictation feature apparently works in the underlying platform since I use it with my browsers. But WhatsApp and Messenger do not provide speech-to-text dictation although now and then the microphone appears. I cannot get any technical support folks to comment or respond. I tried this with my Quest 2 as well and have the same result. It is pretty maddening since using chat is nearly impossible with the hunt-and-peck keyboard that is provided. I got a canned answer from WhatsApp tech support that indicated that they do not provide actual technical support--only access to a bunch of canned answers through a bot of some kind.

What in the world are all those 1000's of people doing anyhow?

chirivasp
Protege

I further researched this based on what davecotter reported and, indeed, it is only WhatsApp and Messenger that do not provide speech-to-text service. All the other apps, including the bug-reporting one, work fine in this regard. It is maddening that I cannot get a hard answer from anyone regarding whether this is a known bug or something weird about my setup (my Quest 3 and Quest 2 both exhibit this deficit). Not having STT makes chatting in VR pretty much a useless hunt-and-peck exercise trying to use the virtual keyboard. Somebody ought to fix this already as it's been broken for over a year, it seems.

Hi Alice,

I notice that you sort of dropped out of the good fight at some point regarding this odd-ball missing feature. It turns out to be super-useful and I have used it extensively over the past few days in the 'report a bug' applet and others. Is there a way to up the ante a bit to get some action on getting it fixed? I have pumped the system in all kinds of ways and no one who knows anything and can do anything turns up. Joining the developers' group makes no sense since it is oriented toward folks making games and other apps for the Quest devices. WhatsApp and Messenger are native Meta apps so I expect that their developers don't spend much time there. I have tried to find out what Zuckerberg's email address is but no luck on that front.

The issue has been around for over a year now....more than enough time to work its way up the priority list, I would think.

Any updates on the voice dictation functionality and why it’s not available even though the browser has a mic button? I am based in Europe, is it function that is enabled in the EU? The current keyboard and point a mouse functionality is becoming tiresome and really making the headset unusable for general purposes outside of gaming. 

Hi Ginger,

I have just installed V74 (despite warnings to the contrary) and can tell you that the missing dictation function in WhatsApp (and likely some other apps) is still missing. Indeed, this functionality, which is pretty much essential to using the headset for chatting and emails, has gotten a bit impatient in the browsers where it previously worked. It times out in the middle of input. I guess moving fast and breaking things ends up breaking things, good buddy.

stripealipe
Protege

Yeah, bit of a shame this... someone needs to start rolling some heads in those offices... I'd been embarrassed at the way this Horizon OS has been handled and updated... for such a cool headset too..

chirivasp
Protege

I have noticed commentary that the speech-to-text functionality which is super useful since using the keyboard is pretty iffy, is not yet available outside the US and in anything but English. On the other hand, the feature is broken here in the US as well, so there's that. You wonder where all the billions get spent, no? It must be a trial to run a mega-corporation like Meta and actually try to get stuff done.

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