Is your Roku device describing everything you are seeing on it? If so, it means that the voice guide setting is turned-on on the device. If that’s the case, today you will know the steps to turn off voice on Roku.
While the feature is useful for those who are visually impaired since it helps them through the TV’s settings and menus, you may get annoyed with it if you have mistakenly enabled it.
For those unaware, all TVs have accessibility settings that help people with visual and hearing impairments understand what’s happening on the device. If you don’t want the feature, you can simply disable it.
Different Ways to Turn Off Voice on Roku
Smart TVs are known to be smart because of the various functions they can usually perform and the features that they come built-in with. However, there is always that one particular thing that makes a smart TV look dumb. Like automatically turning a feature on that no one wanted to in the first place.
Roku TVs have a text-to-speech feature that reads aloud the text displayed in the TV menus, and it can be irritating at times. Imagine turning the TV on at night, wanting to watch a movie, and suddenly the Roku TV starts its voice. To avoid such surprises, today we will be looking at how to turn off voice on Roku.
There are times when the feature suddenly turns on when, let’s say, a child is playing with the remote and presses the button. This can be super annoying. So, follow this guide on how to turn off Roku Voice.
Via a Remote Shortcut
The text-to-speech feature can sometimes be mistakenly activated by pressing the options button (marked with an asterisk) on the remote. If you press the button four times, the feature turns itself on. To turn it off, simply press the asterisk button four times. And that is one way you can turn the text-to-speech feature off.
Before you try this shortcut, ensure that it’s enabled. To do so, navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Screen Reader / Audio Guide > Shortcut > Enabled.
Roku calls this text-to-speech feature Audio Guide, and we can see it as a guide alright, which can be a bit annoying. Anyway if, for some reason whatsoever, pressing the options button on the remote doesn’t seem to turn the Audio Guide off, there is another way for you to turn the Audio Guide off.
Using Audio Guide Settings
You can also turn off the audio guide by navigating through the settings menu. Here’s how you can do it:
Step 1: Turn your TV on and press the Home button on the remote, which will take you to the home screen.
Step 2: From the left sidebar, select the Settings option.
Step 3: Once under Settings, head over to the Accessibility option.
Step 4: Now navigate to Audio Guide / Screen Reader under the Accessibility menu.
Step 5: Select Audio Guide and choose Off.
And this is how you will be able to turn Audio Guide off. The voice will be activated until you hit the off switch for it. Supposing you wish to turn the feature on again, simply follow the steps to turn the audio guide on.
Disable Remote Shortcuts to Turn Off Audio Guide
Looking at how one can easily turn the Audio Guide on with a few button presses on the remote itself, it is no wonder that you suddenly switch the TV on and boom, the Audio Guide voice is back on again. Thankfully, there is a way to disable these shortcuts on your remote. Follow the below steps to do so:
Step 1: Press the Home button on the remote, which will take you to the home screen.
Step 2: From the left sidebar, select the Settings option.
Step 3: Once under Settings, head over to the Accessibility option.
Step 4: Under the accessibility menu, head over to the Shortcut option.
Step 5: Now, select Disabled as the option to completely turn the Audio Guide Shortcut off.
And this is how you disable the shortcut button on your remote.
Turn Off Descriptive Audio in Streaming Apps
If you are hearing scene narration when streaming media from a streaming app, it’s because you have turned on audio description for that platform. Here’s how you can disable descriptive audio on popular apps.
Netflix: On the remote control, press the Down button. Change the selection to a language without narration.
Amazon Prime Video: Tap the Up button on the remote control and go to Audio & Languages. Select the available language without an audio description.
Max (formerly HBO Max): Tap the Play/Pause button. Move down and select the speech bubble. Select a language under Audio, and finally press the Back button to save changes.
Hulu: Press the Up button on the remote and go to Settings > Audio. Change the language to the one without the audio description.
Apple TV: Navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Audio Descriptions. Finally, choose Off.
Wrapping Up
So, these are the steps through which you can simply turn off the voice guide on Roku. For your sanity and the benefit of everyone, it’s best to have the shortcuts disabled, as you wouldn’t know when a child might simply press the Star button four times and then suddenly activate the Audio Guide.
Since the audio guide activates itself, the child might just decide to turn the TV off because they don’t know what just happened. Or, if you just wish to keep the shortcuts enabled, simply keep the remote away from the reach of children to avoid accidental key presses to activate the Audio Guide.
If you have any questions related to the article, do let us know in the comments section below.
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