2026.3.8 made talk.silenceTimeoutMs a top-level config you can tune deliberately.
That is a good change, because Talk Mode frustration is often not a model problem or a TTS problem — it is simply that the pause window does not match how you speak.
This guide helps you tune that one variable without making Talk Mode feel robotic or laggy.
Official default behavior is:
700 mson macOS and Android900 mson iOS
If you leave talk.silenceTimeoutMs unset, OpenClaw keeps those platform defaults.
1) What this setting actually controls
Talk Mode is a loop:
- listen for speech,
- build the transcript,
- wait for a silence window,
- send the transcript,
- speak the response.
talk.silenceTimeoutMs controls step 3 only.
It is the amount of user silence OpenClaw waits before treating the current utterance as “done enough to send.”
This setting does not decide:
- how fast the model thinks,
- how fast TTS starts,
- or whether the assistant stops speaking when you interrupt it.
2) The two failure modes
Most Talk Mode complaints fall into one of these buckets:
A) It sends too early
Symptoms:
- you pause briefly to think,
- Talk sends mid-thought,
- you end up with fragmented turns.
Fix direction:
- increase
talk.silenceTimeoutMs.
B) It feels sluggish and waits too long
Symptoms:
- you finished speaking,
- but Talk keeps listening,
- the whole flow feels sticky or hesitant.
Fix direction:
- decrease
talk.silenceTimeoutMs.
The trick is not to “optimize for low latency” blindly. The trick is to match the pause window to your speech rhythm.
3) Start with small changes
Good tuning pattern:
- change by
200–300 ms, - test with real speech,
- keep the rest of the setup constant.
Example config:
{
talk: {
silenceTimeoutMs: 1200,
},
}If you jump from 700 to 2500 immediately, it becomes hard to tell whether you improved the experience or just made it slow in a different way.
4) Practical presets by use case
4.1 Fast conversational back-and-forth
Best when:
- you speak in short bursts,
- you want quick turn-taking,
- you are optimizing for responsiveness.
Try:
- stay near the platform default,
- or raise only slightly if you keep getting accidental early sends.
4.2 Slower, thoughtful speech
Best when:
- you pause mid-sentence often,
- you speak while thinking,
- you want fewer broken-up turns.
Try:
1000–1500 msfirst,- then move upward only if you still get premature sends.
4.3 Dictation-style use
Best when:
- you are speaking longer chunks,
- you want coherent transcript blocks,
- and speed matters less than chunk quality.
Try:
- a longer silence timeout than conversational defaults,
- but keep testing because very high values can make the experience feel unresponsive.
4.4 Multilingual speech or frequent self-correction
Best when:
- you switch languages,
- restart phrases,
- or insert filler pauses while searching for words.
Try:
- a somewhat longer timeout than your first instinct.
These workflows often need more patience from the silence detector.
5) Keep interruptOnSpeech separate in your head
This is a common debugging mistake.
interruptOnSpeech answers:
Should the assistant stop talking when I start talking?
silenceTimeoutMs answers:
How long should OpenClaw wait before deciding I finished my turn?
Those are different behaviors.
If your complaint is “the assistant keeps talking over me,” changing the silence timeout may not fix the real problem.
If your complaint is “my own sentence gets sent too early,” that is exactly where silenceTimeoutMs matters.
6) A reliable tuning routine
Use one test script like this:
- say one short sentence normally
- say one sentence with a deliberate thinking pause in the middle
- say one longer, more natural multi-clause turn
- repeat after each config change
Do not test only with clipped demo phrases. Real speech has hesitation, resets, and uneven pacing.
7) When not to tune this yet
Do not touch the timeout first if:
- microphone permissions are broken,
- Talk Mode itself is unstable,
- TTS is the real bottleneck,
- or the device/platform path is not healthy yet.
In that case, you are tuning around a deeper problem.
Quick checklist
- I know whether the problem is early send or delayed send
- I started from the platform default
- I changed the timeout in small steps
- I tested with real speech, not one perfect phrase
- I did not confuse silence timeout with interruption behavior