Droid Turbo–Super-Spy Hands-Free Controls

Me: “How now, brown cow? What’s my schedule this week?”

Droid Turbo (spoken): “Here are the events you requested. First up, you have a calendar event tomorrow at 4:10pm. The title is ‘Kids’ Dentist Appointments’.” [The phone’s screen displays my entire calendar for the week.]

This never gets old. The Droid Turbo, like the last few iterations of Droids, uses Moto Voice with Google Now voice commands to give you hands-free access to your phone’s features as well as a wide range of other information. With the latest update, you can assign your own access phrase. Instead of staying, “OK, Google Now” (or “OK, Google”) you can say something that feels natural to you. Truthfully, it felt like a lot of pressure to choose the activation phrase. I ended up with, “How now, brown cow?” I suspect I may need to change it, but I haven’t come up with something better.

The list of voice commands you can use is extensive. Ask about the weather in a certain part of the country, your flight information, or to navigate to a favorite destination. You can send email and texts, post to Twitter, or make a phone call with voice commands. It can handle a variety of math problems. Or perhaps you just want to “Take a selfie” hands-free. I captured the above screenshot by saying, “Zap my screen.” Zap is a Motorola-specific way of sharing media and files, but it also takes a nice screenshot.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with Google Now voice commands is remembering that it’s there for you to use. And occasionally having it think you want to call your cousin Aaron at 2am, rather than set your alarm. [Note: I do not have a cousin Aaron, thankfully, but I do apologize to anyone I may have called – and hung up on – in error.] Right now, I’m playing around with the voice commands and deliberately using them so it comes more naturally to me when I’m on the go.  Right now, I love being able to get hands-free information while I’m driving or when my hands are full.

Do you use voice commands with your phone? If so, do you have a favorite command?

Disclosure:  As a member of the VZWBuzz, I received the Droid Turbo for review purposes. There was no additional compensation and the opinions contained in this post are my own.

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