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Signature
voiceSearch({
  container: string | HTMLElement,
  // Optional parameters
  searchAsYouSpeak?: boolean,
  language?: string,
  additionalQueryParameters?: object,
  templates?: object,
  cssClasses?: object,
});

​
Import

import { voiceSearch } from "instantsearch.js/es/widgets";
View demo

​
About this widget

The voiceSearch widget lets users perform a voice-based query. It uses the Web Speech API, which only Chrome (from version 25) has implemented so far. This means the voiceSearch widget only works on desktop Chrome and Android Chrome. It doesn’t work on iOS Chrome, which uses the iOS WebKit.

​
Examples

JavaScript
voiceSearch({
  container: "#voicesearch",
});

​
Options

​
container
string | HTMLElement
required
The CSS Selector or HTMLElement to insert the widget into.
voiceSearch({
  container: "#voicesearch",
});
​
searchAsYouSpeak
boolean
default:false
Whether to trigger the search as you speak. If false, search is triggered only after speech is finished. If true, search is triggered whenever the engine delivers an interim transcript.
JavaScript
voiceSearch({
  // ...
  searchAsYouSpeak: true,
});
​
language
string
default:"all languages"
The language you want your voiceSearch widget to recognize. The default (all languages) can result in false positives. For example, an English word you pronounce might be recognized as a French word, which can cause irrelevant results. Make sure to give a BCP 47 language tag, like en-US or fr-FR. This language is automatically forwarded to the queryLanguages query parameter.
JavaScript
voiceSearch({
  // ...
  language: "en-US",
});
​
additionalQueryParameters
function
A function that receives the current query and returns the list of search parameters you want to enable for voice search.By default, the following query parameters are set:To disable this behavior, override the return value of additionalQueryParameters.
JavaScript
voiceSearch({
  // ...
  additionalQueryParameters(query) {
    return {
      ignorePlurals: false,
    };
  },
});
​
templates
object
The templates to use for the widget.
JavaScript
voiceSearch({
  // ...
  templates: {
    // ...
  },
});
​
cssClasses
object
The CSS classes you can override:
  • root. The root element of the widget.
  • button. The button element.
  • status. The status element.
JavaScript
voiceSearch({
  // ...
  cssClasses: {
    root: "MyCustomVoiceSearch",
    button: [
      "MyCustomVoiceSearchButton",
      "MyCustomVoiceSearchButton--subclass",
    ],
    status: [
      "MyCustomVoiceSearchStatus",
      "MyCustomVoiceSearchStatus--subclass",
    ],
  },
});

​
Templates

You can customize parts of a widget’s UI using the Templates API. Each template includes an html function, which you can use as a tagged template. This function safely renders templates as HTML strings and works directly in the browser—no build step required. For details, see Templating your UI.
The html function is available in InstantSearch.js version 4.46.0 or later.
​
buttonText
string | function
The template used for displaying the button.
voiceSearch({
  // ...
  templates: {
    buttonText(
      {
        isListening,
        status,
        errorCode,
        transcript,
        isSpeechFinal,
        isBrowserSupported,
      },
      { html },
    ) {
      return html`<span>${isListening ? "Stop" : "Start"}</span>`;
    },
  },
});
​
status
string | function
The template used for displaying the status.
voiceSearch({
  // ...
  templates: {
    status(
      {
        isListening,
        status,
        errorCode,
        transcript,
        isSpeechFinal,
        isBrowserSupported,
      },
      { html },
    ) {
      const className = isListening ? "listening" : "not-listening";
      return html`
        <div class="${className}">
          <span>${transcript ? transcript : ""}</span>
        </div>
      `;
    },
  },
});

​
HTML output

HTML
<div class="ais-VoiceSearch">
  <button class="ais-VoiceSearch-button" type="button" title="Search by voice">
    ...
  </button>
  <div class="ais-VoiceSearch-status">...</div>
</div>

​
Customize the UI with connectVoiceSearch

If you want to create your own UI of the voiceSearch widget, you can use connectors. To use connectVoiceSearch, you can import it with the declaration relevant to how you installed InstantSearch.js. 
import { connectVoiceSearch } from "instantsearch.js/es/connectors";
Then it’s a 3-step process:
JavaScript
// 1. Create a render function
const renderVoiceSearch = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  // Rendering logic
};

// 2. Create the custom widget
const customVoiceSearch = connectVoiceSearch(renderVoiceSearch);

// 3. Instantiate
search.addWidgets([
  customVoiceSearch({
    // instance params
  }),
]);

​
Create a render function

This rendering function is called before the first search (init lifecycle step) and each time results come back from Algolia (render lifecycle step).
JavaScript
const renderVoiceSearch = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const {
    isBrowserSupported,
    isListening,
    toggleListening,
    voiceListeningState,
    widgetParams,
  } = renderOptions;

  if (isFirstRender) {
    // Do some initial rendering and bind events
  }

  // Render the widget
};

​
Render options

​
isBrowserSupported
boolean
true if user’s browser supports voice search.
JavaScript
const renderVoiceSearch = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { isBrowserSupported } = renderOptions;

  const container = document.querySelector("#voicesearch");

  if (isFirstRender && !isBrowserSupported) {
    const message = document.createElement("p");
    message.innerText = "This browser is not supported.";
    container.appendChild(message);
  }
};
​
toggleListening
function
Starts listening to user’s speech, or stops it if already listening.
JavaScript
const renderVoiceSearch = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { toggleListening } = renderOptions;

  const container = document.querySelector("#voicesearch");

  if (isFirstRender) {
    const button = document.createElement("button");
    button.textContent = "Toggle";

    button.addEventListener("click", (event) => {
      toggleListening();
    });

    container.appendChild(button);
  }
};
​
isListening
boolean
true if listening to user’s speech.
JavaScript
const renderVoiceSearch = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { isListening, toggleListening } = renderOptions;

  const container = document.querySelector("#voicesearch");

  if (isFirstRender) {
    const button = document.createElement("button");
    button.textContent = "Toggle";

    button.addEventListener("click", (event) => {
      toggleListening();
    });

    container.appendChild(button);
  }

  container.querySelector("button").textContent = isListening
    ? "Stop"
    : "Start";
};
​
voiceListeningState
boolean
An object containing the following states regarding speech recognition:
  • status: string. Current status (initial|askingPermission| waiting|recognizing|finished|error).
  • transcript: string. Currently recognized transcript.
  • isSpeechFinal: boolean. true if speech recognition is finished.
  • errorCode: string | undefined. An error code (if any). Refer to the spec for more information.
JavaScript
const renderVoiceSearch = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { voiceListeningState, toggleListening } = renderOptions;
  const { status, transcript, isSpeechFinal, errorCode } = voiceListeningState;

  const container = document.querySelector("#voicesearch");

  if (isFirstRender) {
    const state = document.createElement("div");
    state.innerHTML = `
      <p>status : <span class="status"></span></p>
      <p>transcript : <span class="transcript"></span></p>
      <p>isSpeechFinal : <span class="is-speech-final"></span></p>
      <p>errorCode : <span class="error-code"></span></p>
    `;
    container.appendChild(state);

    const button = document.createElement("button");
    button.textContent = "Toggle";
    button.addEventListener("click", (event) => {
      toggleListening();
    });
    container.appendChild(button);
  }
  container.querySelector(".status").innerText = status;
  container.querySelector(".transcript").innerText = transcript;
  container.querySelector(".is-speech-final").innerText = isSpeechFinal;
  container.querySelector(".error-code").innerText = errorCode || "";
};
​
widgetParams
object
All original widget options forwarded to the render function.
JavaScript
const renderVoiceSearch = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { widgetParams } = renderOptions;

  widgetParams.container.innerHTML = "...";
};

const customVoiceSearch = connectVoiceSearch(renderVoiceSearch);

search.addWidgets([
  customVoiceSearch({
    container: document.querySelector("#voicesearch"),
  }),
]);

​
Create and instantiate the custom widget

First, create your custom widgets using a rendering function. Then, instantiate them with parameters. There are two kinds of parameters you can pass:
  • Instance parameters. Predefined options that configure Algolia’s behavior.
  • Custom parameters. Parameters you define to make the widget reusable and adaptable.
Inside the renderFunction, both instance and custom parameters are accessible through connector.widgetParams.
JavaScript
const customVoiceSearch = connectVoiceSearch(
  renderVoiceSearch
);

search.addWidgets([
  customVoiceSearch({
    // Optional parameters
    searchAsYouSpeak?: boolean,
  })
]);

​
Instance options

​
searchAsYouSpeak
boolean
default:false
Whether to trigger the search as you speak. If false, search is triggered only after speech is finished. If true, search is triggered as many times as the engine delivers an interim transcript.
JavaScript
customVoiceSearch({
  searchAsYouSpeak: true,
});
​
language
string
default:"all languages"
The language you want your voiceSearch widget to recognize. The default (all languages) can result in false positives. For example, an English word you pronounce might be recognized as a French word, which can cause irrelevant results. Make sure to give a BCP 47 language tag, like en-US or fr-FR. This language is automatically forwarded to the queryLanguages query parameter.
JavaScript
customVoiceSearch({
  // ...
  language: "en-US",
});
​
additionalQueryParameters
function
A function that receives the current query and returns the list of search parameters you want to enable for voice search.By default, the following query parameters are set:To disable this behavior, override the return value of additionalQueryParameters.
JavaScript
customVoiceSearch({
  // ...
  additionalQueryParameters(query) {
    return {
      ignorePlurals: false,
    };
  },
});

​
Full example

<div id="voicesearch"></div>