With the wake word switched on you can say "Alright Mucka" and it starts a voice chat — no tapping. It is for the times your hands are full: up a ladder, under a sink, arms in a boiler.
Is it recording me?
No. It is listening, not recording, and the difference is the whole point.
Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is saved. Mucka keeps a couple of seconds of sound on your phone, checks whether it sounded like its name, and throws it away — over and over, thousands of times an hour. Only when it actually hears "Alright Mucka" does anything leave your device, and at that point it is doing exactly what pressing the microphone button does.
It also only listens while Mucka is open on your screen and you have a signal. Switch to another app, lock your phone, or lose service, and it stops.
Why your phone says the microphone is on
Because it is. Listening for a wake word means holding the microphone open, so your phone shows its usual indicator — the orange dot on an iPhone, a recording dot on the browser tab.
That is not a fault. It only happens while the wake word is switched on and Mucka is open on the screen, and you can see or change that any time in Settings → Mucka → Wake word.
One side effect worth knowing: holding the microphone means other apps cannot use it. If you have the radio on in the van through your phone, Mucka may take the input.
Switching it on
Every business has the wake word. It starts off on every phone and computer, so nobody's microphone is opened without them choosing it.
Go to Settings → Mucka → Wake word and turn it on. Each device is separate: turning it on on your phone does nothing to the office computer, and vice versa. It saves the moment you tap it — there is no Save button on that one.
If there is no Wake word row in that list, it has been switched off for your business — ask Mucka to raise it with the team.
What happens when it hears you
The same thing that happens when you press the microphone button, deliberately:
- It rings, like a phone call, while it connects — usually a few seconds.
- Then Mucka says a short hello. You can interrupt it with your question.
- On a computer the Mucka panel opens. On a phone the bar at the bottom shows it, the same as if you had pressed the button yourself.
If it ever starts a chat you did not ask for, you will know immediately — that is why it makes the same noises. Tap Cancel during the ring. Once connected, say you are done or end it the way you would end any other voice chat.
If nothing happens when you say it
- Check the wake word is switched on in Settings → Mucka → Wake word. On an iPhone, the orange dot at the top of the screen shows it is listening.
- Give it a moment after switching it on. It needs about two seconds of sound before it can match anything, so saying it immediately will not work.
- Make sure Mucka is the app on screen. It stops the moment you switch away.
- Check you are online. It will not arm without a signal, because the voice chat it opens needs one.
- Say it as one phrase — "Alright Mucka", the way you would say it to a person, not spelled out word by word.