How-to guide · Voice & conversation Hands-free continuous conversation

Actioncontinuous-conversation
Audience Motor Situational Vision
Time Per-turn — ongoing
Permissions Microphone (already granted at first launch)
What this is: When you start a turn with your voice, Aside’s mic re-engages automatically the moment its spoken reply ends. You can keep the conversation going — question, answer, follow-up, answer — without ever touching the orb again. It’s the difference between a walkie-talkie (push every time) and a phone call (just talk). Useful when your hands are full, when reaching the screen is hard, or when you simply want the interaction to feel like a conversation instead of a transaction.
Try it now

From the Aside main screen, tap the orb once to start listening, then say:

“What’s the weather today?”

Aside replies aloud. As soon as it finishes speaking, the orb returns to listening on its own. Without touching anything, just say “and tomorrow?” and Aside answers again, then listens again. Repeat as long as you like. Tap the orb once to stop.

Step by step

  1. Open Aside and tap the orb

    Open Aside. The orb sits at idle, breathing slowly. Tap it once. The status pill at the top changes to LISTENING… and the mic opens. Continuous mode kicks in only when a turn is started by voice — that’s why we tap-to-listen rather than typing.

    The Aside main screen on a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in the listening state. The status pill at the top reads ‘● LISTENING…’ in clay-colored caps, with the cost counter ‘$0.859 today’ next to it and a vertical ‘NEW’ link at the top right. The warm-paper-colored orb is centered with a soft saturated terracotta core and a faint outer halo. Beneath the orb, a single line reads ‘I’m listening.’. Below that, the clay-colored ‘Make Aside my assistant’ pill is still visible, and the bottom row of mono pills reads ‘history · type · muted · memory’. A small build-identity stamp ‘Aside 0.2.6 · 1f482727ffbc-dirty · 2026-05-06T12:58:21Z’ runs along the very bottom edge.
    Mic open after a single tap. The orb subtly responds to your voice level.

  2. Ask your first question

    Speak naturally. There’s no need to keep holding anything — the mic stays open until you stop talking. When you pause, Aside transcribes the utterance, sends it, and switches the orb to its thinking state.

    What’s the weather today?
    The Aside main screen now in the thinking state. The status pill at the top reads ‘● THINKING…’ with the cost counter ‘$0.859 today’. The orb shows a denser warm core surrounded by a ring of small dotted particles drifting around it — Aside’s thinking visual. The caption beneath the orb reads ‘Thinking…’. Below the orb sits a rounded ‘Message Aside’ text input with a circular send-arrow button to its right (the on-screen keyboard has dismissed but the text-mode composer remains). The clay ‘Make Aside my assistant’ pill is still visible, and the bottom pill row reads ‘history · voice · muted · memory’ (text-mode layout — ‘voice’ in place of ‘type’).
    Mic closed; Aside is composing its reply against today’s weather data.

  3. Aside speaks — then listens again on its own

    The orb shifts to speaking as the reply streams out of the speaker. Crucially, when the spoken reply ends, the orb does not drop back to idle — it goes straight back to listening. No tap, no “Hey Aside” needed. This is the heart of continuous mode: turn-end is taken as a cue to wait for your follow-up.

    The Aside main screen, back in the listening state for the second time. The status pill at the top reads ‘● LISTENING…’ again, with the cost counter now showing ‘$0.896 today’ (climbed from $0.859 in step 1, reflecting the just-finished first turn). The orb has returned to its softer listening visual style. Beneath the orb, the line ‘I’m listening.’ has reappeared. The ‘Message Aside’ text input is still visible below the caption (text-mode composer carried over from the previous turn). The bottom pill row reads ‘history · voice · muted · memory’.
    The mic re-armed itself the instant the spoken reply ended. Just talk.

  4. Ask a follow-up — no tap required

    Now ask the next thing. Aside has the previous turn in context, so a half-sentence works (“and tomorrow?”, “what about Friday?”, “is it warmer?”). The same loop plays out: thinking, speaking, then listening again. The chat-history sheet, if you open it, shows every turn paired up like a phone-call transcript.

    And tomorrow?
    The Aside main screen with the chat history bottom sheet pulled up to roughly two-thirds height, showing a chained conversation. From top to bottom inside the sheet: a clay-tinted ‘ASIDE NOTE — new session’ banner; ‘YOU — What is the weather today question’; ‘ASIDE — I don’t have access to weather data yet — check your location permissions in Settings and ask again, and I’ll pull the current forecast for Edmonton.’; and a partially clipped ‘YOU — And tomorrow question’ entry at the bottom edge. Behind the sheet, the orb is dimmed but visible; the status pill reads ‘● READY’ with cost ‘$0.974 today’.
    Two chained turns with no taps between them. The mic is already open for a third.

  5. Stop the loop when you’re done

    When you’re finished, tap the orb once. The mic closes and the orb returns to its calm idle state — same as the screen you opened the app to. Continuous mode only ever runs while a voice session is live; once the orb is idle, nothing is listening.

    The Aside main screen back at idle, identical in shape to the first screen of any other guide. The status pill reads ‘● IDLE’ with cost counter ‘$0.974 today’ alongside it. The orb is its calm warm-paper color. Beneath the orb, in large bold type: ‘Tell me everything,’ and below that, in lighter type: ‘Tap the orb or type below.’. The clay ‘Make Aside my assistant’ pill sits below that, and the bottom pill row reads ‘history · type · muted · memory’ (back to mic-default layout). The build-identity stamp ‘Aside 0.2.6 · 1f482727ffbc-dirty · 2026-05-06T12:58:21Z’ runs along the very bottom edge.
    One tap to stop. The mic is fully off; Aside is back at idle.
Continuous mode only auto-restarts after a voice-initiated turn. If you tap the type pill and send a typed message, the orb returns to idle when the reply finishes — not back to listening. That’s by design: typing implies you don’t want the mic auto-arming. To get the chained-mic flow, start the turn with your voice.
Note: If you’re in a noisy environment, the auto-restarted mic can pick up background speech as a turn. If that becomes annoying, tap the orb once after Aside’s reply to drop back to idle, then tap again when you’re ready for the next question. You get to decide how chatty the loop is.