Devices
Herald for CarPlay lists your Hermes Agent bots and group rooms on the car’s screen. Pick one and Herald reads you what you missed, listens to your reply and speaks the answer through the car. It is voice-only by design: replies are never shown as text. You need an iPhone on iOS 26.4 or later and a Herald build that includes Apple’s CarPlay entitlement.
Plug in your iPhone and Herald appears on the car’s screen. Pick a bot or a group room, hear what you missed, and reply by voice. Your eyes stay on the road and the work keeps moving.
Voice-only by design, as Apple requires for driving. Needs an iPhone on iOS 26.4 or later and a CarPlay-equipped car.
stt.enabled) with a working provider. Text-to-speech is optional.When your iPhone connects, Herald reopens the bot or room you last used in the car, if it is online, and leads with voice: it reads anything unread, or starts listening straight away. Apple asks voice apps to work this way, so you can start talking without touching the screen. Otherwise you see the list: your bots and group rooms, pinned ones first.
Pick one and Herald behaves like Messages. It reads out the newest unread replies, up to five, then waits for you to tap Listen. A room with nothing unread starts listening straight away. You speak, a pause ends your turn, and the clip goes to your Hermes to be transcribed, exactly like a voice note on the phone. The words also land in the chat on your iPhone, so nothing said in the car is lost.
The reply is spoken in the bot’s own voice from your Hermes text-to-speech, or by the iPhone’s voice if that fails, and then Herald listens again. In a group room, each member’s reply is read in turn. Herald lowers your music while it speaks and never uses the phone’s own speaker.
| Screen | What it shows | Buttons |
|---|---|---|
| Bot list | Your bots and group rooms, pinned first, with photos or emoji | Tap a row to start talking |
| Voice | Listening, thinking, speaking, waiting or an error, with the bot’s pet when you talk to one bot | Listen, Stop and Bots |
This is Apple’s voice-based conversation category for CarPlay apps. It may only record from the car’s microphone while the voice screen is showing.
Run npx herald-setup on your computer and scan the QR code. Use Tailscale so the car can reach Hermes away from home Wi-Fi.
Open Settings › General. A CarPlay section with “Herald on CarPlay” means the build includes it; it reads “Connected to a car now” while CarPlay is connected.
Send a voice note in any chat. If transcription fails, Herald says why, for example “Speech-to-text is turned off”, and the car would fail the same way.
Open Herald from the CarPlay screen, pick a bot and talk. Tap Stop when you are done, or Bots to go back to the list.
Herald stops listening when you tap Stop, after two empty recordings in a row, if the bot gives no answer within three minutes (“The bot did not answer in time”), if the connection to Hermes drops, or when you disconnect. A phone call pauses it, and listening resumes when the call ends. While the car is talking, the phone’s own “Hey Herald” listener stays quiet so the two never fight over the microphone.
The car screen speaks the language you picked in Herald: English, Japanese or Brazilian Portuguese.
Audio from the car’s microphone goes to your iPhone and then to your own Hermes for transcription, and nowhere else. There is no Herald server in the path. Your Hermes uses whatever speech provider you configured, local Whisper included, so with a local provider the audio never leaves your machines.
Check three things: the iPhone runs iOS 26.4 or later, Settings › General in Herald has a CarPlay section, and Herald is connected to Hermes. No CarPlay section means the copy on your phone was built without Apple’s CarPlay entitlement.
No. Herald’s CarPlay screens speak replies and never show conversation text, even with Read replies aloud switched off on the phone. The full reply is in the chat on your iPhone when you park.
Yes. Pick a room and Herald reads the members’ new lines, then sends what you say to the room. See group chats.
The turn waits for you. CarPlay has no approval buttons, and after three minutes the car screen says the bot did not answer in time. Approve or deny on your phone once you have stopped.
No. It is part of the same App Store purchase as iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, CarPlay and Android. $12.99 once, no subscription, no account and no Herald server.
Herald is an independent, unofficial app. It is not made, endorsed or supported by Nous Research.