How to have Windows Phone 7 read a text message to you

In Hardware Tags #wp7 Published 2/27/2012

Windows Phone 7 by default (in mango) will read text messages to you if your device is Bluetooth linked to an audio device (like your car stereo). I found this out while I was looking for an app that would do this for me while driving. What I found was, this is supported natively with a few settings changes. You can tell WP7 to read text messages to you under a few different circumstances (or turn it off all together). The settings for what scenarios these are read to you are:

  1. Off
  2. Always On
  3. Bluetooth and headsets
  4. Bluetooth only
  5. Wired headset only

To enable this, follow these steps:

  1. Open Settings
  2. If the System view isn’t selected, select it, then scroll down and select speech near the bottom.
  3. The last option on this page is Read aloud incoming text messages. Click on that box and you can choose your option that is listed above.

If you have any issues with the voice recognition, also check Enable speech recognition over the network which should be the first option on the Speech settings (in Mango).

When a new text comes in, the phone will ask you to read it or ignore without you having to hit anything which makes it very convenient while driving/being hands free.

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