"Hey Wally" — hands-free wake word and how it works

When you enable hands-free mode (Settings → Wally → Voice → "Hands-free 'Hey Wally'"), the browser listens for the phrase "Hey Wally" using your device's built-in speech recognition. Saying the phrase opens the Wally modal and starts recording your follow-up question without you touching anything.

How it works:
• The wake-word pass uses the browser's local Web Speech API — it never leaves your device, costs nothing, and works offline.
• Only after you say "Hey Wally" does Turtini start recording the actual question.
• The recorded question is sent to a managed speech-to-text service (Google Cloud STT V2, "long" model) for transcription. That call is metered and rolls into your org's monthly platform usage at our standard +15% pass-through.

Privacy:
• Your microphone indicator (the dot at the top of macOS / iOS, or in the Chrome address bar) lights up only while the browser is actively listening.
• When you close the modal, listening stops and the indicator turns off.
• If you stop hands-free mode, no further audio is captured by anyone — local or remote.

Battery and CPU:
• Hands-free mode is light on local resources (the browser does this efficiently for accessibility users), but it's not zero. On a laptop you'll notice it for a few percent CPU when actively listening.
• On phones, we recommend turning it on only when you're actually working in the app.

Browser support: works in Chrome, Edge, and Safari (recent versions). Firefox does not yet expose the wake-word API; in Firefox you'll see the "press to speak" mic button instead.