Use Google Assistant to Listen to Articles on Android
Much of my reading has shifted to audiobooks these days, making it easier to fit into my schedule and sometimes more interesting. I often wish that I could just listen to articles the same way I listen to audiobooks. Well, it turns out Android is equipped to do this with Google Assistant. Here’s how to do it:
- Open the article or website you want to read aloud with Chrome or another Chromium-based viewer.
- Say, “Hey Google, read it.” Sure, it sounds a bit concise, but Google Assistant is happy to be of service: it will immediately open the article in a new window and read it aloud. (Google will also respond to similarly worded commands, but read more effectively).
- If Google Assistant says it can’t read the screen because Screen Context is disabled, tap the Assistant screen to open a dialog, then confirm to enable Screen Context without having to navigate your phone’s settings.
To learn more about reading articles on your devices, watch the video below:
It’s easy to enable and use this feature, but we’ll cover the controls as well. The Read command opens a web page in a separate browser for reading with a playback control bar at the bottom that includes play / pause, rewind, and skip forward buttons. There is also a Speed button that you can press to change the reading speed from 0.5 to 3 times.
The page will automatically scroll on its own when Google Assistant reads it, but you can also use the rewind / skip forward buttons or click / drag on the media timeline to manually navigate through it.
Tap the three-dot menu icon in the upper right corner to adjust a few more options. The two most useful options are Read Aloud and Translation. Read Aloud allows you to change the voice that Google Assistant uses to read, while Translation uses Google Translate to automatically (and persuade) translations from 42 supported languages.
As we mentioned above, Read It only works in Chromium browsers like Google Chrome and only for certain websites. If you have paid access or need to be signed in to access the site, Google Assistant will not be able to read it aloud because the Read It browser window does not carry your cookies or login information. Android police have also discovered that ad blocking apps are causing Read It to malfunction – likely because the Read It browser has embedded ads.
These idiosyncrasies aside, Read It works well. I will definitely use it to keep track of my daily news feed.