SpeechSynthesis.onvoiceschanged

This is an experimental technology
Check the Browser compatibility table carefully before using this in production.

The onvoiceschanged property of the SpeechSynthesis interface represents an event handler that will run when the list of SpeechSynthesisVoice objects that would be returned by the SpeechSynthesis.getVoices() method has changed (when the voiceschanged event fires.)

This may occur when speech synthesis is being done on the server-side and the voices list is being determined asynchronously, or when client-side voices are installed/uninstalled while a speech synthesis application is running.

Syntax

speechSynthesisInstance.onvoiceschanged = function() { ... };

Examples

This could be used to populate a list of voices that the user can choose between when the event fires (see our Speak easy synthesis demo.) Note that Firefox doesn't support it at present, and will just return a list of voices when SpeechSynthesis.getVoices() is fired. With Chrome however, you have to wait for the event to fire before populating the list, hence the bottom if statement seen below.

var voices = [];

function populateVoiceList() {
  voices = synth.getVoices();

  for(i = 0; i < voices.length ; i++) {
    var option = document.createElement('option');
    option.textContent = voices[i].name + ' (' + voices[i].lang + ')';

    if(voices[i].default) {
      option.textContent += ' -- DEFAULT';
    }

    option.setAttribute('data-lang', voices[i].lang);
    option.setAttribute('data-name', voices[i].name);
    voiceSelect.appendChild(option);
  }
}

populateVoiceList();
if (speechSynthesis.onvoiceschanged !== undefined) {
  speechSynthesis.onvoiceschanged = populateVoiceList;
}

Specifications

Specification Status Comment
Web Speech API
The definition of 'onvoiceschanged' in that specification.
Draft

Browser compatibility

DesktopMobile
ChromeEdgeFirefoxInternet ExplorerOperaSafariAndroid webviewChrome for AndroidFirefox for AndroidOpera for AndroidSafari on iOSSamsung Internet
onvoiceschanged
Experimental
Chrome Full support 33Edge Full support 14Firefox Full support 49IE No support NoOpera No support NoSafari No support NoWebView Android Full support 4.4.3Chrome Android Full support 33Firefox Android Full support 62
Full support 62
No support 61 — 62
Disabled
Disabled From version 61 until version 62 (exclusive): this feature is behind the media.webspeech.synth.enabled preference (needs to be set to true). To change preferences in Firefox, visit about:config.
Opera Android No support NoSafari iOS No support NoSamsung Internet Android Full support 3.0

Legend

Full support
Full support
No support
No support
Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.
Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.
User must explicitly enable this feature.
User must explicitly enable this feature.

See also