The timer’s voice isn’t working
The timer reads the snail’s messages out loud using the voices already built into your device. Most problems are quick to fix. Start with the test below, then work down the checklist.
Press the button and listen for a short sentence.
Quick checklist (try these first)
- Turn the volume up. Check the device volume, and any headphones or Bluetooth speaker it might be sending sound to.
- Tap or click the timer once, then press Start. Browsers do not allow any sound until someone has touched the page. If the timer starts by itself, the first message may be silent. That is normal.
- Look at the Sound button on the timer. It should say “Sound: On”. Press it once if it says “Off”.
- Check the browser tab is not muted. A small speaker icon with a line through it on the tab means it is muted. Click it to unmute.
- Open the timer in a normal browser. Inside some apps (Google Classroom, Teams, Seesaw, or an LMS app on a phone) the timer opens in a built-in window that may not support voices. Choose “Open in browser” or copy the link into Chrome, Edge or Safari.
- Reload the page and try again.
If it is still silent
The teacher’s settings may have the voice turned off
- Open the timer’s settings page (the version without the student ending on the link).
- Make sure “Read the messages out loud (text to speech)” is ticked, then use “Hear a message” to test.
- Copy the new student link and share it again. Old links keep the old settings.
The chosen voice is not on this device
Voices come from each device, so a voice picked on one computer may not exist on another. The timer then uses that device’s default voice. In the settings, set Voice to “Automatic” if you want it to always use the device default.
No voices are installed on the device
Menu names change between versions, but these are the usual places.
- Windows: Settings, Time and language, Speech. Add or manage voices there.
- Mac: System Settings, Accessibility, Spoken Content. Choose a System voice or manage voices.
- iPhone or iPad: Settings, Accessibility, Spoken Content, Voices. Also check the silent switch on the side and turn the volume up.
- Android: Settings, search for “text-to-speech output”, then make sure a speech engine such as Google Speech Services is installed and has a language downloaded.
- Chromebook: Update ChromeOS, then try again in the Chrome browser.
The browser may not support it
- Chrome, Edge and Safari work best.
- Firefox only has voices on some computers.
- Update your browser and your device, then restart the browser.
The page is inside an LMS or slide deck
- Some pages block sound inside embedded frames. Open the timer in its own tab using the link instead.
- If you use the embed code, keep the part that says allow=”fullscreen; autoplay”. It helps sound work.
School-managed devices
Some school devices have sound or speech turned off by an administrator. If the test above stays silent on every browser, ask your school’s IT help desk to allow text to speech in the browser.
Still stuck? The timer works fine without the voice. The words still appear on the screen, and you can use the “No sound” setting so nobody waits for audio that is not coming.