Voice dictation for Steam Frame. Speak into a text field using your controllers, without a keyboard or an always-on microphone.

Desktop is the Frame's built-in desktop session. Standalone apps, such as Firefox launched directly from Steam, run outside Desktop. Frame Voice types into both; accented and non-Latin text currently requires a standalone app. Dictation is unavailable inside Steam menus and VR games.

Install on your Frame

1. Open Desktop, then open Konsole (the terminal).

2. Paste this command and press Enter:

   curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/techieyann/frame-voice/main/get.sh | sh
   

3. The GUI installer opens in Desktop. Choose how your speech is transcribed. If asked, enter your SteamOS administrator password to allow text input. If you have never set that password, run passwd in Konsole first.

4. Find the Frame Voice microphone icon in the Desktop tray.

Choose transcription and language

Model	Runs on	Speed	Accuracy	Internet needed	Requirements
Whisper Base	Local	Medium	Iffy	Initial download only	~142MiB
Whisper Small	Local	Slow	Good	Initial download only	~466MiB
Whisper Large v3 Turbo	Groq	Fast	Best	Every dictation	API key

Whisper models were created by OpenAI. Local transcription sends no audio to OpenAI or Groq; the models run on your Frame using whisper.cpp.

Choose Language in the Transcription tab, or Automatic detection if you use more than one language. Local setup downloads the appropriate English or multilingual model. Groq needs no language-specific download.

Try your first dictation

1. Open Firefox, start a new tab, and click its address bar.
2. Briefly touch either joystick cap, lift your thumb, then touch it again and hold.
3. Wait for the start tone and microphone badge, then speak.
4. Lift your thumb to finish. Wait for the transcription to appear.

Click the joystick during recording to cancel. After text appears, A submits and X clears. On the left hand, D-pad Right submits and D-pad Left clears. These actions are available briefly after dictation and stop when you change focus. Nothing submits automatically.

Open Configure… in the tray to customize Frame Voice. See the settings guide for the General, Transcription, and Controllers tabs.

The configuration window: choose a transcription path and language, then save.

If something does not work

Check that dictation is running in the tray and that an app's text field is focused. Use View recent logs in the tray for more detail, or follow the troubleshooting guide.

Settings · Troubleshooting · Release notes · Developer guide · License