Talk or type: dictation, live voice and Read aloud

Updated 18 October 2026

You can talk to PelQi the way you talk to a person, or type, and switch between the two in the same chat. The message box has two separate voice controls: the microphone puts your words in the box, and the waveform starts a spoken conversation.

Talking and typing work on every plan. Free includes 3 photos and about 6,000 characters of read aloud a day; paid plans 40 photos and 200,000 characters.

Type

• Type in the message box at the bottom of the chat and press Enter (or tap Send). Shift Enter starts a new line.
• To send a photo of a letter, a bill, the fridge or homework, tap + and choose Take a photo, Choose a photo or Upload a photo or screenshot. You can also paste a screenshot or drop a picture on the box.

Dictate a message

• Tap the microphone. PelQi shows "Recording" with a timer and Cancel.
• Speak. Tap the microphone again, pause for about four seconds, or reach two minutes, and it stops.
• Your words appear in the box where the cursor was. Nothing is sent: change them, keep dictating, or press Send.

Have a voice conversation

• Tap the waveform button (Start voice conversation). A full-screen view opens with PelQi's face.
• Talk. When you pause for about a second, PelQi answers out loud, sentence by sentence, and then listens again. No tapping between turns.
• To interrupt, just start talking: PelQi stops and hears you. Mute pauses listening; End (or Escape) closes it.
• Everything said is written into the same chat, so you can carry on by typing afterwards.

Read aloud

• Under each reply, Read aloud plays it in your PelQi voice, and Copy copies the text. Tap Read aloud again to stop.
• The speaker button at the top of the chat (Read replies aloud) reads every new reply out loud.
• Change the voice in Settings, You, Voice.

What it can and cannot do

• Voice and typing are one conversation: live voice continues the open chat and its words land in it.
• Dictation never sends by itself. You edit the words and press Send.
• Your voice is turned into text on PelQi's own servers; recordings are not sent to Anthropic.
• Live voice ends after two quiet minutes, when you leave the app, or when today's voice allowance runs out.
• Approval cards still need a tap. Saying yes in live voice does not send anything outward.

What you should see

In a voice conversation your lines are labelled You and PelQi's words light up as it says them. Approval cards still wait for a tap, exactly as when typing.

If it does not work

• "Microphone blocked" or nothing happens: see Fix the microphone.
• "I didn't catch that": PelQi was not sure what it heard, so it sent nothing. Move closer, cut background noise, and try again.
• PelQi is silent: see PelQi does not speak out loud.
• The day's voice is used up: read aloud and live voice stop until midnight where you are; typing still works. See Daily allowances.