Manual Voice and chat agent
The four things your voice can start
Dictation, the voice agent, translation and meeting mode all listen to you but do different things. This is how to tell them apart.
Nearly every "Neato Echo did something I didn't expect" turns out to be one of four features running when you meant another. They all start from your voice, and each has its own shortcut.
The four
| What you want | What starts it | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Type what I say | Dictation Hotkey | Your words, at the cursor |
| Do what I say | Voice Agent Hotkey, or saying the agent's name | The result of your instruction |
| Say it in another language | Translation Hotkey | Your words, translated |
| Take notes on this meeting | Meeting Mode Hotkey | A recorded, transcribed meeting note |
There's a fifth shortcut, the Chat Agent Hotkey, but it's less confusable — it opens a chat window rather than typing anywhere.
All five are set in one place: Settings → Hotkeys under App.
Dictation vs the voice agent
This is the pair that causes trouble, because both put text at your cursor and only one of them puts your text there.
Dictation transcribes. Say "what time is the meeting tomorrow" and those six words are typed.
The voice agent executes. Say the same thing and it answers the question — the app describes this shortcut as "Speak a request — your AI agent types the result, not your words."
There are two ways to reach the agent, which is why turning off one doesn't always stop it:
- Its hotkey. Everything you say after pressing it is an instruction.
- Its name. During ordinary dictation, starting with the agent's name routes the whole thing to the agent instead.
The second one is the surprising one, and it's on by default. Your agent's name explains how it decides, and how to change or switch it off.
Dictation vs cleanup
A subtler case: you dictated, you got your own words back, but they're not exactly the words you said — punctuation you didn't speak, filler words gone, a clumsy sentence tidied.
That's dictation cleanup. It's off by default in Neato Echo, so if you're seeing it, someone turned it on. It's not the agent, and it isn't meant to change your meaning. See dictation cleanup for what it does and how to turn it off.
Working out which one ran
Ask what came back:
- Your words, roughly as spoken — dictation, working normally.
- Your words, tidier — dictation with cleanup switched on.
- An answer, a rewrite, or something you didn't say — the voice agent.
- Another language — translation.
- Nothing at the cursor, a panel appeared — meeting mode or the chat agent.
If it's the agent and you didn't want it, it answers me instead of typing is the fix-it walkthrough.
Related
Still need help?
Write to [email protected] with your Windows version, your Neato Echo version (Settings → System), and what you were doing. A person reads every message.