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The introduction of voice commands to the PS5 has opened doors for players to control the console with the help of their voice. With the PS5’s voice commands, players can either quickly jump into a game, skip media, or more. However, the voice commands are not very efficient as of now and still needs to be worked on. That being said, PS5’s voice assistant is the best you can get if you want to operate your console with your voice.
Furthermore, as of now, the PS5 voice commands are limited to certain regions since the feature is still in development mode and needs lots of work. Meanwhile, to make use of PS5 voice commands, players will need to be among a certain few that can access the beta to enable the feature on their consoles. That being said, this guide will let you know the few commands users can deploy to navigate through their consoles, along with making use of certain settings.
One thing to note here is that voice commands are not yet available to all users, as Sony is still rolling out updates and slowly expanding region-wise coverage of PS5’s voice commands. We hope to see Sony rolling out the update to more regions soon. However, as of now, Sony has kept mum about the same.
The first thing that comes to mind while on the way to use voice commands on the PS5 is how to enable the feature on the console. For this, users will need to be a part of the beta program. As discussed earlier, the feature is not yet available to all users in every region.
If you’re one of the select few, head over to the settings menu on your PS5 console and navigate to Voice Command (Preview). Click on the menu and then click on the “Enable Voice Command” option to turn on and start using the voice command feature on the PS5.
Furthermore, the console also gives users the ability to let the console hear voice commands via DualSense’s microphone. In the same menu, users can also set their response time, speech speed, speech volume, listen to “Hey PlayStation,” and more.
As discussed earlier, users can use PS5’s voice commands to search for and bring up any game or app they want to launch or have a look at. This option is particularly well suited for those with plenty of games in their console’s library and those who want to access the game or app quickly with as few clicks as possible.
To search for an app or game, simply say, “Hey, PlayStation, search Overwatch 2.” Furthermore, to find a game from the vast library, say, “Hey, PlayStation find, Grand Theft Auto.”
PS5’s voice commands would’ve been worthless if the console couldn’t launch a game or an app with it. This is pretty self-explanatory and works simply like opening apps with Siri or Google. As soon as users say, “Hey, PlayStation,” they’ll see a bubble on the top left of the screen, then you say, “Open The Witcher 3.”
Importantly, with this, players can skip the informational page of a game or an app and go directly to the home screen or main menu of the game they launched. Furthermore, PS5 users can also launch games or app using the DualSense’s inbuilt microphone, which works like a charm.
This one’s probably the most useful out of all the things that users can do with the voice commands on the PS5. Watching a movie and listening to music is all the easier now that users don’t have to pick up the controller or the media remote if they want to pause/play or seek the movie or a song. Simply say Hey, PlayStation and then ‘pause’ or ‘play’ or ‘next’ or ‘previous,’ and you get the picture.
For these simple voice commands to work, users will need to bring up the PS voice assistant by saying, Hey PlayStation once, and then following the command they wish to perform.
| Voice command | Action |
| Find (name of app or game) | Finds and brings up the app or game in either your PS library or PS store |
| Open (name of app or game) | Brings up and launches the app or game in your PS library |
| Pause | Pauses the currently playing media |
| Resume | Resumes the currently paused media |
| Rewind | Rewinds the currently playing media |
| Next | Skips the currently playing media |
| Previous | Returns to hte previously played media |
| Fast Foward | Moves forward through the media |
| Cancel | Cancels the last voice commands |
While the PS5’s voice commands are useful, it still lacks the charm, and to be honest, they are not at all good at the moment. As it so happens, many times, PS5’s voice assistant doesn’t even understand what the user is saying. Furthermore, players can’t even take a screenshot on the PS5 with voice commands.
There’s one more thing to consider here; apart from all the flaws, the PS5 voice assistant will start off as soon as the word PlayStation is brought up in any conversation; we suggest you keep the DualSense‘s mic switched off. For those unaware, simply holding down the mute button on the controller, which will glow in orange, indicating the controller’s mic is on mute.
With all the flaws and the handiness, PS5’s voice assistant feels like the first generation of most voice assistants with all their flaws and features. That being said, Sony will definitely add more features and more stability to the PS5’s voice commands. Imagine starting a call with your PS buddies with simply voice commands and jumping to a particular section of the game.
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