Can you use voice typing on an Xbox, PlayStation or VR headset?

Mostly no for consoles, and yes for Meta Quest headsets. Neither Xbox nor PlayStation 5 documents a way to dictate a message into any text box. Meta Quest headsets do: select the microphone on the keyboard and speak. Each device has its own speech feature, and they do different jobs, so check which one you need before you look for a setting.

Meta Quest headsets dictate from the keyboard's microphone

On a Meta Quest headset, you dictate by selecting the microphone on the Quest keyboard instead of typing ¹. Apps that draw their own keyboard may not offer the microphone ¹.

Quest has two modes, and the one you can use depends on where you live. Online dictation is available only to users in the United States, and on-device dictation is an opt-in feature available worldwide ². Outside the United States, on-device dictation is the mode to switch on in the headset's voice dictation settings. Meta's help article for this feature is the source for the exact menu names, and it is the page to check against your headset's software version.

Xbox speech features transcribe chat and read your typing aloud

Xbox has two speech features, and neither is dictation into a text box. The first is speech-to-text. Microsoft's documented feature transcribes what people say in a party chat into an on-screen overlay on top of gameplay, and it was added in the June 2021 update ³. It shows other people's words, not yours.

The second is text-to-speech, which runs the other way. Microsoft's accessibility guideline for Xbox games describes the pattern: the player types what they want to say into a text-entry box, and the text is read aloud to the other players in a synthesized voice ⁴. Typing is possible, but the output is speech, not a written message.

Microsoft's developer reference points the same way. It defines the speech-to-text source for a game as in-game speech subtitles or transcribed game voice chat ⁵. That is the design of the feature: it turns game speech into text, and it does not turn your speech into text in a box. We found no Xbox page that describes a microphone button for dictating into any text field.

Turning these features off: We could not open Microsoft's Xbox support pages while writing this, so we cannot give a verified menu path for the transcription or text-to-speech options. Look in the console's accessibility settings, and confirm the option names on Xbox's support site before you change anything.

PS5 Voice Command controls the console and does not type text

PlayStation 5 has a voice feature called Voice Command (Preview). Sony's support page says you can use your voice to find or open games, apps and settings, capture gameplay or control media playback ⁶. The page says your words appear as text on screen, followed by the response, but that is a record of your command. It does not describe a way to write and send a message or a search term.

The preview is narrow. It is available only to accounts registered in the United States and the United Kingdom, and it listens and responds only in English ⁷. Anyone with another account region, or anyone who speaks another language to the console, cannot rely on it.

Sony also warns that some devices with noise cancellation may be hard for Voice Command to understand, and suggests trying the microphone on the wireless controller instead ⁸. That matters if your gaming headset cancels noise. To turn the preview off, follow the steps on Sony's Voice Command support page.

When you need to write on a console, dictate on another device

Writing long text with a controller is slow, and none of the console features above fixes that. Dictating on a phone or computer and keeping the console for play is the practical choice. Three situations come up most often:

1. You want to dictate in a game's chat. Use the console's voice chat to speak to other players. The speech features above do not turn your words into text for you to send.
2. You want the words to appear in a text field as you speak. Meta Quest is the one headset in this guide where you can dictate into a text field directly.
3. You want offline dictation. On Quest, the on-device mode is the option. We found no Xbox or PS5 page that documents an offline dictation mode for text fields.

Yap, which we make, runs on Mac, Windows and phones, so it does not add dictation to a console or headset. For the built-in tools on those computers and phones, follow our guide to turning on voice typing, which covers each setting and shortcut.

Related questions

For the computer side of the same question, see Can you use talk to text on a computer? and how to turn off voice typing. If you are choosing a headset for dictation rather than gaming, whether a wireless headset is good for dictation covers the trade-offs. For the terms used here, see voice typing and voice command. The whole subject is in our dictation overview.