Microphone always on when Simulator is playing

SDK Development Discussion
1

While I was fiddling around Windows 11 Privacy settings, in the Microphone section I saw there were around 100 requests, and mostly from Playdate SDK.

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And it's constantly in use even when no game is running, like in Settings menu or such.
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If I understand correctly, this is be needed for the [micinput](https://sdk.play.date/2.1.1/Inside%20Playdate.html#_mic_input). But in my game I'm not using this particular function.

I'm wondering about the following things.

  1. Even if I had microphone functions in use in game, why is it always using it even when game is not running?
  2. How do I disable microphone access completely for the Playdate SDK? As Windows 11 only gives me a blanket off switch for all PC apps (all Win32 apps I guess?) Maybe there should be a off switch within the simulator?
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  3. While it may not be a big deal for everyone and I keep Panic in high regards for respecting my privacy, I would like them to at least mention somewhere in the SDK regarding this behaviour. As I wouldn't want any app constantly using my microphone.

I honestly tried searching for microphone related stuff for this topic but there wasn't any posts I could find. But if there is any info already, it'd be really helpful if you could share those.

2

This came up in Turn off mic listening in Simulator when mic isn't being used by the SDK and @willco said it was fixed in the 2.0 SDK.

3

Thank you for sharing that link!

I’m currently using the latest 2.1.1 and Windows 11. Maybe it needs another look.

5

It was fixed in the Mac sim specifically. I'll take a look at the Windows sim, thanks.

2 Likes
6

Circling back on this; we open a connection to the microphone but don't read from it until a game requests it. However, it appears just opening a connection is enough to trigger the prompt. I've changed the Sim to only open a connection when a game requests reading the mic.

1 Like
8

@willco thank you for the response!
Just to confirm, have you fixed this for Linux as well?
I haven't tested it myself as I've just started working with Playdate on Linux.

9

Just checked on Linux. The microphone stays on while the sim is on.

10

I assume the fix will arrive in a future version of the Simulator.

11

I understand. Was just testing for the current version as it wasn't addressed above.

12

Yup, my change will also fix the linux version.

1 Like