Voice commands: the Listen button

The Listen button is a round microphone in the app header on every page, for the account owner and for the patient's own key (a family member, a friend or a caregiver-role account does not see it, and neither does a care-team or home-team login). The Emergency page has the same thing as a card called Say it. Tap the microphone, say one sentence, and the app answers out loud, in the voice chosen in Settings, and on the screen. Under the answer is a box to type the same command and tap Go, so everything works without a microphone too.

Push to talk, never always-on. Listening starts when the microphone is tapped and stops by itself at the end of the sentence; the app cannot listen for a wake word, and a web page is not allowed to turn a microphone on without a tap. The first time, one sentence explains that the phone will ask to use the microphone; tap Start listening, then Allow when the phone asks. The words are turned into text by the phone's own speech recognition: no audio and no transcript reach ExpressAgain. What is saved is the result of the command, for example a symptom entry, never the words. It works in Safari on iPhone and iPad, in Chrome on Android and on a computer in Chrome or Edge; where a browser cannot listen the button reads Type a command and only the box works.

Call someone: say call my daughter, call Dee, or call the nurse. The app looks on My People by first name, nickname or relationship, and on the Care Team page by role, and shows a card: Call Dee? with Yes, call and No, counting three seconds. Say no (or tap No) to stop it; otherwise, or on Yes, the phone's dialer opens with the number. If two people match, the card asks which one by name. A person without a phone number is named so it can be added on My People.

Send help: say send help, I need help, or emergency. This is the same Get Help Now as the band on the Emergency page: the screen shows Sending a help alert in 5 with a big Cancel, and nothing is sent until the countdown ends. Who is alerted and how the ladder climbs is in Get Help Now alerts. Saying call 911 does not dial: the app shows a Call 911 button for the person's own tap and never calls 911 by itself.

Log a symptom: say I'm in pain, log that I'm in pain, my right leg hurts, I'm nauseous, I feel dizzy, I fell, or my feet are swollen. The entry goes on Health Tracking under Symptoms and events with the catalog's name (Pain, Nausea, Dizzy spell, Fall, Swelling and the others), the body place for Pain when a side was said (right leg, left arm, head, chest, stomach, back), the time, and the note Logged by voice. The app reads it back: Logged: pain, right leg, 2:14 PM. A place said without a side (my leg hurts) is kept as a word in the note.

Read today's schedule: say what's today, read me today's schedule, or who is coming today. The app reads the Schedule's entries for today in time order, for example Today: 9 AM, Home care visit with Ivy. 2 PM, Physical therapy. That's all 2.

Read my medications: say read my medications or what meds do I take. The app reads the active medications from Prescriptions with their strength and how often, and the next dose time when the medication has a schedule, for example The next dose is due at 7 PM. It never logs a dose: Given, Skipped and Refused stay a tap on Prescriptions, and the dose pop-up is never answered by voice. Saying I took my pills, or asking to change a schedule, is refused and nothing changes.

Call for help: when a professional is on shift (clocked in, or scheduled for now), say call for help and it is logged exactly like pressing the help button the patient wears, so the help-button counts and the wait-time record stay whole; the app names who is on shift. When nobody is on shift it says so and offers Send help instead. Say help, or what can you do, to hear the list.

A sentence the app does not understand does nothing: it says I didn't catch that and lists what it can do. No voice command ever deletes anything, pays anything, or changes a medication schedule.