# Voice calls

> Talk to a character out loud — how a call starts, flows, and ends.

Source: https://reverie.im/en/docs/media/voice-calls
Language: en

A voice call is a live spoken conversation. You talk, the character answers in its voice, and everything said lands in the chat afterwards as ordinary messages you can read, fork or continue by typing.

## Starting a call \[#starting-a-call]

The **Voice Chat** button is the phone icon in the chat header. It appears while the conversation is still empty, or while **Instant Chat Mode** is on — so the reliable way to place a call is to open a character and call before sending anything.

### Open a character and don't type yet \[#open-a-character-and-dont-type-yet]

The header shows **Voice Chat** on a conversation with no messages in it. If you have already sent messages in that thread, start a new chat with the same character.

### Confirm the rate \[#confirm-the-rate]

Before the first call Reverie checks that you have enough credits for a minute and shows the current per-minute rate. While the promotion lasts that dialog reads **Call time is free for now** and adds that the character's replies and their voice playback are still charged, the same as in chat; the confirm button is **Start Call**. You acknowledge it once; it comes back only if the rate changes.

### Let it connect \[#let-it-connect]

Reverie asks for the microphone, then the character greets you. The spoken greeting plays only on a brand-new conversation — pick up an existing one and the call opens straight into listening.

## How a turn works \[#how-a-turn-works]

You speak; Reverie waits for a pause, transcribes what you said, sends it as a normal chat message, and plays the reply in the character's voice. The pause it waits for is a fraction of a second, and it is shorter when you finish on sentence-final punctuation — so ending a sentence cleanly sends your turn sooner than trailing off does.

Just after the character stops speaking there is a brief echo guard during which the microphone ignores what it hears, so the tail of the character's own audio isn't transcribed as you.

## Interrupting \[#interrupting]

**Tap the character's avatar while they are speaking.** That stops the audio and hands the turn back to you.

Talking over the character does nothing. Voice barge-in is deliberately switched off: browser echo cancellation is not reliable enough to tell your voice apart from the character's own output, so the microphone stays gated while audio is playing. The avatar is the interrupt target — in a group call, the featured speaker's avatar.

## If you go quiet \[#if-you-go-quiet]

Silence does not hold the line open indefinitely.

| Silence so far  | What happens                          |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------- |
| 8 seconds       | The character sends a first follow-up |
| 10 more seconds | A second follow-up                    |
| 12 more seconds | A third, phrased as a goodbye         |
| After that      | The call hangs up by itself           |

The counter resets the moment you start speaking again, so an ordinary pause mid-conversation costs you nothing.

> **Three follow-ups and the call ends.** There is no warning beyond the
> goodbye line, and once the call drops the phone button is gone from a
> conversation that now has messages. If you need a real break, **Mute** —
> the idle timer is suspended while you are muted.

There is no maximum call length on the other side of that: a call you keep talking through can run as long as you like.

## Controls during a call \[#controls-during-a-call]

* **Mute** / **Unmute** — stop sending your microphone.
* **Voice settings** — open the voice picker and change the voice mid-call; in a group call it opens the per-member list. See [Reading messages aloud](https://reverie.im/en/docs/media/reading-messages-aloud).
* **End call** — hang up.

If the character has stickers, one may pop up over the speaking avatar as a reaction while they talk. See [Stickers](https://reverie.im/en/docs/media/stickers).

## Group calls \[#group-calls]

Calling a [group chat](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/group-chats) works the same way. Every member gets its own voice — you set them one per character under **Chat Settings → Voice & Input → Voice**, where a group chat shows one row per member instead of a single picker. Whoever is speaking is shown large; the rest sit below as tiles.

## What a call costs \[#what-a-call-costs]

Calls are billed **per elapsed minute**: each minute you stay connected bills one minute, counted by Reverie rather than by your browser. A dropped connection that reconnects, or a report that arrives twice, never charges you twice.

| What                  | Rate                                                         |
| --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Call time             | **0 credits per minute** — free during the current promotion |
| The character's voice | Billed as text-to-speech at the engine's rate                |
| Speech recognition    | Free                                                         |

> **The voice is the real cost, not the minutes.** Call time is free right now,
> but every line the character speaks is synthesised and billed at whatever
> the selected engine charges — on the premium engine that is 25 credits per
> character of text. Put the character on a free voice before a long call.
> [Engines and rates](https://reverie.im/en/docs/media/reading-messages-aloud)

## Speech recognition and privacy \[#speech-recognition-and-privacy]

Reverie uses the browser's own speech recognition on desktop and its own transcription on mobile, switching over if the browser engine keeps failing. Transcription is tuned per language — 21 languages have tuned prompts — and the character's name and last reply are taken into account so names and petnames come back spelled correctly.

Call audio is transcribed in a single stateless request and is not stored. Voice samples you upload to the [Voice Studio](https://reverie.im/en/docs/media/voice-cloning) are different — those are kept until you delete the voice.

## Related \[#related]

* [Reading messages aloud](https://reverie.im/en/docs/media/reading-messages-aloud) — the engines, voices and per-character rates
* [Voice Studio](https://reverie.im/en/docs/media/voice-cloning) — clone or design the voice a character uses
* [Group chats](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/group-chats) — how multi-character conversations work
* [Credits](https://reverie.im/en/docs/billing/credits) — what your balance is spent on