Does speak method in TextToSpeech API sends data to Google servers?

Question

We are using speak(..) method from TextToSpeech class for performing TTS in Android.

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/speech/tts/TextToSpeech.html#speak(java.lang.CharSequence,%20int,%20android.os.Bundle,%20java.lang.String)

Does speak method in TextToSpeech API sends data to Google servers for better performance or is the input is kept at device only?

Thanks, RS

Answer 1

You can assign a specific Voice to the TextToSpeech object, and this voice can be a network voice, or not. So whether internet is used depends on:

1) Whether a network voice is currently assigned to the TextToSpeech object,

2) What engine is being used by the device and whether or not that engine supports network voices at all (Google is not always used... and some engines [or older versions of them] don't use network voices),

3) That the network feature is not disabled in the device's TTS settings,

4) Whether you are online or not. :)

As long as you are running Android API 21 or higher, you could check whether or not internet will be required by adding this line after you have assigned the voice you want, and before the line that contains speak():

boolean isNetRequired = yourTTSObject.getVoice().isNetworkConnectionRequired();