Google’s Text-To-Speech Adds Multiple New Voices

If you are an Android user, you must have come across a ‘robotic’ voice while trying to use Google voice assistant or in some other app. The voice that guides you while using the navigation on Google Maps is a relatable example. Google has released a new update to improve the clarity of the text-to-speech feature. It is trying to sound more natural. You will find an elaborate set of examples that denote the improvement between previous and new voice qualities.

The voices do sound a bit more natural, but if you ask us, it isn’t anything vastly different from the original one. A sample of a voice in the Hindi language sounds exactly the same with minute changes in clarity.

Google text-to-speech: How to update

If you already use Google’s text-to-speech feature, there isn’t anything to worry about. It will auto-update to the newest version in the background. It may take a while for all the eligible devices to receive the update and the expected timeline is a few weeks. Google, or other text-to-speech services, lack naturality, and it’s commendable that the company is trying to improve that.

The Android Developers page also talks about how app makers can integrate text-to-speech in their apps as well. It shows an example of how to set up voice synthesis, get a list of voices, and set a specific voice. The code snippet is available on the web page, and you can implement it in your apps to offer TTS support to your users.

For your reference, Google currently offers 421 voices in 67 languages across the Globe. The new update will be available for all 64-bit Android devices. You can go to the Play Store Setting and manually update it if there are any new ones available for download.