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Talking to Dash ProThis feature requires the Pro plan

Dash can listen and it can talk back. Useful when your hands are busy - at the counter, on the water, halfway through a handover.

Asking about something on the page​

Highlight any words on a page - a customer's name, a line on a booking, a product's description - and an Ask Dash button appears just under them.

The Ask Dash button under a highlighted brief description on a product

Press it and Dash opens beside the page with those words already in the box, along with what they are, like the brief description or the SKU for Mountain Bike. Finish the question in your own words and send it. Nothing is sent until you do.

Dash open beside the product, with the brief description in the ask box

The button does not appear when you highlight text inside a box you are typing in.

Speaking instead of typing​

Press the microphone in the ask box and say your question. For example, "What bookings do I have tomorrow?" Dash sends it after a pause of about three seconds. You can also finish with "Go Dash", "Send it" or "Send that" to send it immediately. The spoken finish is removed from your question.

This uses your browser's own speech recognition, so it works best in Chrome and it needs microphone permission the first time. If the microphone does not appear, your browser does not support it - typing still works everywhere.

Speaking a question also turns on Read replies aloud, so Dash answers out loud. To stop listening without waiting for the pause, press the microphone again. Check names and numbers in the answer; type a follow-up if the browser misheard them.

The microphone in the ask box at the bottom of the Ask Dash page

Having Dash read its answers​

Press the speaker on any answer and Dash reads it aloud.

To have it read every answer without asking, turn on Read replies aloud in the tools row. It stays on until you turn it off.

Dash reads what is on screen: the line it wrote and the rows under it. It does not read out a table cell by cell, and a long answer is trimmed at the end of a sentence rather than cut mid-word.

The Read replies aloud button in the tools row at the top of the page

What it costs​

Reading an answer aloud uses AI credits, charged on the length of what it reads - roughly one credit per hundred characters. A short answer costs almost nothing; a long report costs more, which is another reason Dash keeps its answers short.

Typing and reading on screen cost nothing extra beyond the usual.

On the phone​

The same controls are on the phone. If you would rather not have EquipDash open at all, connect WhatsApp and message Dash there instead - WhatsApp's own voice notes work in that chat.

If you cannot hear anything​

  • Check the tab is not muted. Browsers mute audio on a tab that has never been clicked.
  • Check your AI credit balance - reading stops when credits run out, and the answer is still on screen to read yourself.
  • Try the speaker on a single answer first. If that works and Read replies aloud does not, turn it off and on again.