GoPro HERO6 Voice Commands

GoPro first introduced voice control with the HERO5 cameras. The GoPro HERO6 Black also supports voice commands. ¹ With that feature, you can control some basic functions of the camera hands-free.

Voice control can be especially convenient when your hands are busy holding onto something else, or if the camera is just out of reach. Your mileage might vary and will depend on the conditions you’re shooting in. It doesn’t work well in noisy conditions, if the camera is inside a housing, or if you’re far away from the camera, and it doesn’t work at all underwater. But in some conditions, it can be an especially useful way to control your GoPro’s filming when your hands are otherwise occupied, you’re wearing mittens or gloves, misting spray or splashes are making the touch screen unreliable, or the camera isn’t in an easily accessible place.

So here’s a rundown on how to use voice commands with the HERO6.

How to Turn Voice Control On & Off

There are a few methods of enabling and disabling voice control on the HERO6.

Enabling Voice Control on the HERO6 Black

The first option is to use the shortcut panel on the back screen. It’s the icon at the top right–it looks like a person speaking. You can toggle it on or off by tapping on the icon.

A second way is to use the regular menu system. Go to:

Preferences > Voice Control > On Camera Voice Control > ON/OFF

A third is to use the GoPro Quik app. Go to:

Camera Preferences > Setup > Voice Control

Action Commands

The voice commands on the GoPro HERO6 are divided into a couple of different categories. The Action Commands control capture.

With some of the other commands, you can specify a different shooting mode. For instance, if your camera is in the video mode (but not currently recording), saying “GoPro Take a Photo” will take a photo without you having to first change to the photo mode.

Voice Command	What it Does
GoPro START RECORDING	Starts recording video in the currently active video preset.
GoPro HILIGHT	Adds a HiLight Tag to your video that will be accessible in video playback.
That was sick	Adds a HiLight Tag to your video that will be accessible in video playback. This doesn’t show up in the on-camera list of commands, but it works.
Oh shit	Adds a HiLight Tag to your video that will be accessible in video playback. This doesn’t show up in the on-camera list of commands, but it works.
GoPro STOP RECORDING	Stops video recording.
GoPro TAKE A PHOTO	Takes a single photo. (Does not work when the camera is already filming.)
GoPro SHOOT BURST	Takes burst photos. (Does not work when the camera is already filming.)
GoPro START TIME LAPSE	Starts timelapse capture in the last timelapse mode you used (photo or video). (Does not work when the camera is already filming.)
GoPro STOP TIME LAPSE	Stops the timelapse capture.
GoPro EDIT MY STORY	This moves your most recent video and photos to your phone to create a QuikStory that you can then edit in the Quik mobile app on your phone.

Mode Commands

In addition to the Action Commands, there are also some that help you switch camera modes.

There are two important things to note about these:

1. These do not activate the shutter. That is, it won’t actually start recording a video or taking a photo or timelapse.
2. Switching modes doesn’t work if the camera is currently recording video or timelapse. You’ll need to stop the recording first (by either saying “GoPro stop capture” or pressing the shutter button).
   

Voice Command	What it Does
GoPro VIDEO MODE	Switches to video mode.
GoPro PHOTO MODE	Switches to photo mode.
GoPro BURST MODE	Switches to burst photo mode.
GoPro TIMELAPSE MODE	Switches to timelapse mode.

Turning the HERO6 On and Off with Your Voice

You can also turn the HERO6 on and off with your voice.

To turn the camera off, just say, “GoPro TURN OFF.”

The HERO6 Black also introduced a new feature known as Wake on Voice. It puts the camera in a standby mode (that lasts eight hours) where the camera is listening out for the command “GoPro TURN ON.”

But first, you need to enable On Camera Voice Control (see above).

Then you need to enable the Wake on Voice feature specifically by going to:

Preferences > Voice Control > Wake on Voice > On

Voice Command	What it Does
GoPro TURN ON	Turns the camera on (Wake on Voice feature must be enabled)
GoPro TURN OFF	Turns the camera off

Wake on Voice is toggled separately from the regular Voice Control setting. So turning on Voice Control does not automatically enable Wake on Voice.

It’s also important to know that because having Wake on Voice activated is essentially a standby mode rather than a full power off, it does drain battery power a little more quickly.

With Wake on Voice enabled, it will stay enabled for eight hours after the camera is powered off. During that time, the camera should respond to the “GoPro TURN ON” voice command.

Quick Reference

While I hope this page is helpful in laying out what voice commands are available on the HERO6 Black, there’s a quicker shortcut reference that’s especially useful if you’re out and about shooting on location.

The list is available directly through the HERO6’s menu system. Just go to:

Preferences > Voice Control > List of Commands

The photo at the top of this page is the list on the menu.

Things Worth Knowing

Every command needs to start with “GoPro . . . “. This alerts the camera to listen to the following command. The only exceptions are the “That was sick” and “Oh shit” commands to add a HiLight bookmark to the video–you don’t need to say “GoPro” before those.

The camera needs to pick up your voice cleanly for it to register. So you need to be quite close to your camera, and performance might be affected by wind noise or other noise. It also does not work very well if the camera is inside a protective housing.

Voice commands are the kind of things that GoPro can tweak with firmware. So it’s worth making sure that your camera’s firmware is up to date to ensure that the latest list of commands are available. ²

Unlike Siri or Alexa, the HERO6 doesn’t talk back. And if you’ve turned off the beeps, that can make it hard to know whether it has registered your command. So I often find it useful to enable beeps when using voice control.

You can also use the voice control functionality of the REMO remote (although that model is now discontinued).

HERO6 Voice Control Languages

GoPro Voice Control is also available in other languages.

There are two methods you can choose from in order to change the language of the voice commands. The first is to use the camera’s main menu system by going to:

Preferences > Voice Control > Language

The other method is to use the GoPro Quik mobile app by going to:

Camera Preferences > Setup > Voice Control Language

The available voice control languages on the HERO6 are:

• English (UK/US/AUS)
• French
• German
• Italian
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish (EU / NA)
• Chinese (Mandarin)
• Korean
• Japanese

The voice control language is set independently of the menu system language, so they don’t have to match.

1. There is only one camera in the HERO6 lineup: the HERO6 Black. In the HERO5 lineup, there were two: The HERO5 Black and the HERO5 Session.[↩]
2. For the list of available commands and languages here, I’m using firmware version 02.10 for the HERO6 Black.[↩]