When we ask participants what they like most about Second Voice, the most common answer is "I don't really notice it". That is the best review a product like ours can get, and 4.2 is built around it.
Shorter thoughts
A suggestion that sounds like a sentence sounds like someone else. In 4.2 the median suggestion is four words long, down from eleven. Many are a single word. Some are not words at all, just the feeling that the next step is obvious.
Fewer second thoughts
In version 4 we retired the Deliberation module, the participant's private comparator, because it let people optimize against their own goals. Some of its habits stayed behind. Participants would still occasionally reconsider a decision after making it, a pattern our researchers call an afterthought cycle.
4.2 closes the loop on afterthought cycles. Once a decision has been made, Second Voice now gives it a brief, warm sense of completion. Reconsideration events are down 63%, and participants report finishing the day with "nothing left over".
A faster Affect loop
The Affect loop handles mood, arousal and the urge to look out of the window. It runs at 8 Hz. In 4.2 it corrects 40% faster, so an unwanted mood is gone before it has a name.
Also in 4.2
- Quiet hours are now Always quiet. Second Voice no longer needs a schedule to stay out of the way.
- Voice Mode whispers. If you talk to your second voice out loud, it now answers at the volume of your own thoughts.
- A new Monday greeting. It's warmer, and it's shorter.
- Jet lag fix. We fixed an issue where participants crossing more than six time zones could briefly hear Second Voice as a separate voice.
- Dark mode in the admin console, by popular request.
Rolling out now
4.2 is rolling out to all participants over the next two weeks. There's nothing to install and nothing to decide. Administrators can follow progress in the console under Fleet › Versions.