With the arrival of digital assistant apps like Gemini and Siri, most of us have grown used to talking to our phones. But conversing with your Android or iOS device can go way beyond interacting with AI. You can also use your voice to launch apps, fill out text fields, and do just about everything that was previously only possible with your fingers and thumbs.

Of course, the traditional touchscreen input will often be the way to go. But there might well be scenarios—when you're cooking, repairing something, looking after children, or doing anything else that keeps your hands busy—where it's easier and more convenient to use voice input instead. The usefulness of voice control is of course well known to those who have impairments that keep them from controlling a touchscreen phone with the usual taps and swipes.

To configure voice control on an Android device, you need to install the free Voice Access app from the Google Play Store. You also need to have the Google app installed. Once you've installed Voice Access, you can enable this feature from Settings. On a Pixel phone, head to Accessibility > Voice Access. The exact location of the feature may vary on other handsets, but it'll be somewhere in the Accessibility menus. For Samsung devices, for example, it's under Accessibility > Interaction and dexterity > Voice Access.

During the setup of the feature, you'll be able to tweak a few of the options, including whether to display a persistent button onscreen for launching Voice Access, and whether the feature is always listening for commands whenever the screen is on (which is recommended for convenience). The same Voice Access screen where you enable the feature also gives you access to a few more key settings. These include options for how long your phone should wait before it stops listening for commands, how precise your phrasing has to be for instructions, and how the Voice Access shortcuts are displayed on screen.

There are a host of different commands you can use; Google has a full list here. You can also see the full list from Accessibility > Voice Access > Voice Access Settings > Voice Access commands. To help with navigating menus, say “show labels” to put numbers on each menu item—you can then just say the relevant number. Use the “Show grid” command, and you get a numbered grid across the screen you can then work with.