Kindle Touch TTS Implementation Flawed

[emellaich]

I'm one of the few that use and appreciate text-to-speech, and coming from the K3, I have to say that some decisions were made that cause real issues for the way that I use the feature on the Touch.

When you are listening to a book on the KT it turns off the screen after a minute or so, but keeps on reading the text. I assume this was a move to reduce battery life.

However, without the screen on there is no way to interact with the TTS controls. In the K3, I had three choices when the I was listening to a book. I could use the volume button to raise or lower volume, I could hit the spacebar to pause the text, or I could hit shift-Aa to shut off text to speech.

With the Touch, I have to turn it back on, select the menu to bring up the touch controls, and then perform the actions. The problem is that there are times when I need to quickly silence the system and there is no way to do that.

Picture this: you are driving along listening to your book. You pull up to the curb to pick up your kid and the book is in the middle of a violent fight, a murder scene, or a passionate love scene. You can't quickly turn it off.

It's a special problem because turning it back on is very sluggish. I guess the next step is to try a reset as suggested elsewhere to see if that speeds things up.

[tomsem]

It is the same with previous kindles. Screen saver kicks in unless you feed it keyboard input.

[yifanlu]

I emailed amazon about this a while ago and they said it's an intended feature.

[thayerwilliams]

I feel your pain, emellaich and it's one of the reasons I returned my KT and went back to the KK 3G. There's just no way around it with the current implementation of the KT. Perhaps in future versions they'll add some basic hardware buttons back, such as volume control, or page turn buttons that double as volume keys when the screen is off.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by tomsem

It is the same with previous kindles. Screen saver kicks in unless you feed it keyboard input.

On my k3 the screensaver does not kick in while tts is on. I can always pause/resume with the space bar.

[BeccaPrice]

I don't use TTS, but doesn't it automatically turn the page for you as it reads? shouldn't that keep it from turning off?

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by PhillipA82

How have you done that. My sreensaver appears all the time...

I have the K3 Kindle Keyboard 3G, and I have used TTS in the past quite often, especially for proofreading. It turns the pages automatically, and I've never had the screensaver appear while using TTS.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Barty

On my k3 the screensaver does not kick in while tts is on. I can always pause/resume with the space bar.

Yeah, about two seconds after I hit 'submit reply' (and had to log off) I had a feeling that was the case, and in fact confirmed it today (how quickly one forgets). I wonder if there is a difference between the SO and non-SO kindles?

In any case, I'll add this to my litany of things to send to kindle-feedback. I have a few others I'd rank higher in priority but I do use TTS occasionally and definitely prefer the previous behavior.

[catsittingstill]

I tried this just now with my KK.

The screensaver may not come on automatically, but I can certainly put the kindle "to sleep" with the power switch, and the TTS keeps reading. I can adjust the volume while the KK is "asleep" but I cannot use the spacebar to pause reading. If I use the power button to wake the sleeping KK, it wakes in slightly under two seconds (faster than I can get the cover open, actually, and if I carry it around while listening to the TTS I will have the cover closed to protect the screen) and then the spacebar pauses the TTS immediately.

I would suggest checking what happens if you first use the power button to wake the sleeping KT, and then open the cover. If the KT is awake by the time you get the cover open then the thing slowing you is the increase in time to use the touchscreen to get to the TTS controls instead of pausing with the spacebar. Perhaps the increased time is less than you think?

I am quite comfortable with the TTS and use it when driving or when I have to do mindless chores like dishes; I would be sad to be without it. I can understand that if its use is less convenient on the KT that might be a reason to go with a different device.

[tomsem]

I tried the ~disableScreensaver hack, but it appears not to work on KTouch, or else there is a different way to enter debug mode. Too bad..

[emellaich]

I wonder how much power the touch screen takes? You could freeze the screen image with the speech controls -- thus saving power usage from page turns. However you would need to keep the touch sensors active to recognize touches.

Alternately a power-on when speaking with the screen off could pause speaking and wake up the device with the controls enabled.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by emellaich

I wonder how much power the touch screen takes? You could freeze the screen image with the speech controls -- thus saving power usage from page turns. However you would need to keep the touch sensors active to recognize touches.

Alternately a power-on when speaking with the screen off could pause speaking and wake up the device with the controls enabled.

Page turns don't consume much power compared to TTS itself when that is in operation. Besides you could always manually turn on the screensaver if you wanted to and realize whatever power savings that confers. The problem is that it turns on automatically.

[yifanlu]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I tried the ~disableScreensaver hack, but it appears not to work on KTouch, or else there is a different way to enter debug mode. Too bad..

The command on the touch is: ~ds

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by yifanlu

The command on the touch is: ~ds

Oh, cool! I'll be using that one. Thanks!

Short of restart, wonder if there's a way to turn it back on; ~ds is a little too effective, and prevents even the power button from invoking the screensaver.