It can be pretty annoying if your Roku TV decides to read the interface out loud as you navigate and make selections on the menu or settings screen. So, how do you turn off the Voice Guide on your Roku TV?
You can turn off the Audio Guide on your Roku TV by pressing the asterisk button on your remote control four times in a row. You can also toggle the feature off in the settings menu by going to the Accessibility tab.
Let’s take a look at why your Roku TV is narrating everything and get into the troubleshooting details so you can get rid of this issue in a flash.
Why Is Your Roku TV Narrating Everything?
Your Roku-enabled smart TV (example on Amazon) is narrating everything because the Voice Guide is on. Roku TV has an accessibility feature, called Roku Audio Track, which is a text-to-speech screen reader that describes texts displayed on the screen.
The Audio Track reads the Roku menu options and all on-screen information to help you quickly shift from one option to the other on your Roku TV.
Another reason why the Roku TV might be narrating everything is that the Descriptive Audio feature that’s available when watching movies or TV shows might be on. Descriptive Audio comes in several languages on most Roku devices, including Roku Express, Roku streaming stick, Roku Express+, Roku Premiere, Roku Ultra, and Roku Premiere+.
The screen reader can be easily toggled on and off, and you can customize it to speak at the speech rate and volume you prefer.
How to Turn Off the Narrator on Roku TV
If you’ve accidentally or intentionally turned on the narrator on your Roku TV but don’t have a clue on how to disable it, try the following solutions:
Use the Roku Remote Shortcut
While you might find the Roku TV narrator or the Screen Reader very annoying, it’s convenient for others, especially visually impaired users who need additional help to cruise through the Roku TV menu. The easiest and fastest way to disable this feature is via a shortcut on the remote control.
Roku lets you turn the audio description off using your remote by pressing the asterisk or star button four times in quick succession. The Voice Guide automatically turns off after a few seconds.
The Voice Guide shortcut method can come in handy at times, but if you have a child at home who keeps playing with the remote and turning it on and off continuously, it becomes quite a nuisance.
In that case, it would be best to deactivate the audio description shortcut entirely. Here’s how to turn it off:
- Press the home button on the remote to access the Roku home page.
- Go to the Settings menu and click on ‘Accessibility.’
- Select ‘Audio Guide.’
- Navigate to the Shortcut option.
- Select ‘Disable.’
The shortcut won’t work again once you’ve turned it off. You could test it for confirmation by pressing the star button four times.
Use the Settings Menu
Although the shortcut technique is quick, it might sometimes fail to respond. You could use a more lengthy method to turn off the Voice Guide through the Roku TV settings menu in such a situation. Here are the steps:
- Press the home button on your Roku TV remote.
- Go to the sidebar on the left and choose ‘Settings.’
- Select the ‘Accessibility‘ option.
- Navigate to ‘Screen Reader‘ and select it.
- Toggle the feature off.
Besides disabling the Voice Guide, Roku TV allows you to customize the guide’s speech rate and volume.
The speech rate is your Voice Guide’s speaking speed. You can alter it to be fast, very fast, normal or slow. Here’s how to set it:
- On the Roku home page, navigate to the ‘Settings‘ screen.
- Go to ‘Accessibility‘ and select ‘Audio Guide.’
- Scroll to ‘Speech Rate‘ and pick your preferred speed from the options on the right side of the screen.
Volume, on the other hand, determines how loud your Voice Guide will be. You can pick the volume level from three options: low, medium, and high. To set your desired volume level:
- Go to ‘Accessibility‘ under the ‘Settings‘ menu.
- Select ‘Audio Guide’ and navigate to Volume.
- Choose the Volume level.
Why Is Your Roku TV Narrating Movies?
Sometimes your Roku TV might continue to talk to you even after turning off the screen reader. The feature is always off by default, but most streaming platforms like Hulu, Netflix, and HBO Max, among others, have an accessibility feature called Descriptive Audio that gives explanatory information about scenes, dialog, sound effects, and soundtracks.
How to Turn Off Descriptive Audio
You can check and modify the audio track selection during playback if you find scene narration very irritating. The Descriptive Audio feature is different on all streaming services, so if you don’t want to listen to it, you’ll have to disable it from within the streaming platform.
Since every streaming app has distinct settings, there isn’t a universal process for turning off the narrator. Here’s a brief guide on how you can locate the Descriptive Audio control and turn it off within some of the most popular streaming services.
On HBO Max
- Play a movie or TV show, then press the play or pause button on your remote.
- Scroll down and select the speech bubble.
- Go to ‘Audio‘ and pick a language.
- Press the back button to save the changes.
On Hulu
- Press the up button and navigate to ‘Settings.’
- Select ‘Audio‘ and change the language to the primary language without the audio description.
On Netflix
- Press the down button to open the language options tab.
- Change the option from Language-Audio Description to plain language without the narration feature.
On Apple TV
- Go to Settings and select ‘Accessibility.’
- Select ‘Audio Description‘ and toggle it off.
On Prime Video
- Press the up button on your Roku TV remote.
- Navigate to ‘Audio and Languages.’
- Select your preferred language but without Audio Description.
Reinstalling the Channel
If altering the audio tracks doesn’t disable narration, you could try updating your Roku TV or deleting and reinstalling the channel with the issue.
To remove a channel from your Roku TV:
- Press the home button.
- Select the channel you want to remove.
- Press the star button.
- Select ‘Remove Channel.’
To reinstall the channel, visit the Roku Channel Store, find it, and add it back.
On a Traditional Cable TV
If you still use a traditional cable TV input attached to your Roku device, you might notice that cable TV programming also has this type of Descriptive Audio feature. You could turn it off on your cable TV by disabling the cable network’s SAP (Secondary Audio Programming).
SAP controls are also different among cable providers, but if you have a Spectrum TV, just use your remote to navigate to Settings, then Preferences, and select ‘Audio Language (SAP).‘
On an Xfinity X1, go to Device Settings, then Languages and select ‘Audio Language (SAP) Reset.’
Sometimes, the narration doesn’t stop even after turning off Audio Description. You could try deactivating it by going to the Subtitles and Audio tab of the channel and disabling the feature from there.
If you’ve tried everything but your Roku TV is still narrating, it’s best to get in touch with Roku customer support for expert technical help on all questions regarding your device.