Introducing Thy Voice

This week I’m launching a new app into the Microsoft Store. Following on from my experiences with enabling hands-free calling in Windows 10/11 for devices not supported by Microsoft’s own Phone Link app, I’ve been exploring this area further.

I’d been interested in how the hands-free audio integrates into Windows and discovered how to utilise it to deliver audio to the remote phone. After reading about the Live Speech feature coming in iOS 17, I thought it would be interesting to bring this functionality to Windows. The resulting app, Thy Voice, allows you to participate in a voice call from your PC and use text to talk when you might not be able to use your own voice. There are many reasons why a user might not be able to use their voice, either temporarily or permanently and it seemed to me that if available on the PC it would be easier to converse via text than using the iPhone soft-keyboard. These types of tool are known as Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).

The user interface is WinUI 3.0 and designed to match the modern look of Windows 11, rather like the messaging feature in Phone Link or a Teams chat. As well as supporting live text entry you can create a collection of reusable phrases to speed up entry. Some examples are pre-loaded in the beginning based on some existing common messages for AAC users.

Since only one app can be registered to use a specific hands-free device, I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel and break existing Phone Link features so Thy Voice sits alongside your existing phone software (Phone Link or Thy Phone) and can detect when a call is active. You make and receive calls through your existing app, you can decide whether to use Thy Voice to conduct the call via text.

There are many possible enhancements, such as supporting other languages and allowing the voice to be set separately from the default Windows settings. I decided it was better to get the basic application launched and then grow it based on feedback. Talking of which, I’d be very interested in any feedback on the app, whether or not you are an existing AAC user. It’s always good to understand different perspectives and use-cases.