Voice commands

Hold the mic button and say it. The parser resolves product + weight in a single phrase, in English or French, on-device — your audio doesn't leave the tablet.

1. Enable voice on the tablet

Voice is opt-in per device. The first time you tap the mic button, the browser asks for microphone permission. Allow once and the tablet remembers.

You can also flip it from Settings → Voice. Off by default on shared tablets so audio capture is never a surprise.

2. How to use the mic button

The mic orb sits next to the search bar. Hold it (don't tap-and-release) while you speak. The orb breathes leaf-green while listening; it settles back to idle when you let go.

• Live transcript appears below the search bar as you speak.
• Match preview shows the resolved product as soon as the parser is confident (typically before you finish the phrase).
• Cancel: slide your finger off the orb. Nothing is committed.
• Confirm: release while a match is highlighted. Product is added to the active cart with the spoken weight.

3. Phrases the parser understands

The grammar is product + quantity + unit, in either order. Both English and French parse natively, including spelled-out numbers.

English examples:

• "Almonds, six hundred grams" → 600 g of almonds
• "Two kilos of rolled oats" → 2 kg of rolled oats
• "Carrot, two fifty" → 250 g of carrots (assumes default unit)
• "Olive oil, half a litre" → 500 ml of olive oil
• "Three cumin" → 3 jars of cumin (per-piece variant)

French examples:

• "Carottes deux cents grammes" → 200 g de carottes
• "Un kilo et demi d'amandes" → 1500 g d'amandes
• "Cumin, trente grammes" → 30 g de cumin
• "Huile d'olive, un litre" → 1000 ml d'huile d'olive

The parser is fuzzy on product names — typos, plurals, and accent variants resolve to the same canonical product. "Carrot", "carrots", "carrotte", and "carotte" all reach carrots.

4. Where audio goes

On Chrome and Safari, the Web Speech API resolves locally on the device — Snaptare never sees the audio waveform, only the transcribed text. We then run our own product-matching against the on-device catalog. The microphone is held only while you press the orb; it doesn't run continuously.

If you opt into the Whisper-tiny WASM fallback (rare; for browsers without native recognition), the model runs entirely on-device. No audio leaves the tablet either way.

5. Tips for noisy shops

• Hold close. Tablet on the counter, you within 50 cm. The built-in mic is omnidirectional but not magic.
• Speak after the orb glows. The first ~150 ms of a press is when the mic starts capturing. Saying "carottes" instantly after pressing can clip the C.
• Use one phrase. "Carottes, deux cents grammes" beats "Heu… carottes… euh… deux cents." The parser handles natural language but pauses split it into separate utterances.
• Match the language. Set Settings → Language to French on shifts where you'll speak French — the recognizer's bias toward FR phonemes makes a real difference in noise.
• Push-to-talk fallback. If recognition keeps mishearing in your shop, keep voice off and use the on-screen keyboard or barcode scanner. The till works fine without voice.