7 ms·

Stt/tts systems always seem to me so promising, but I pretty much never use voice to interface with a computer. Sometimes instead of typing on my phone, I use a

by almogo 2mo ago

Stt/tts systems always seem to me so promising, but I pretty much never use voice to interface with a computer. Sometimes instead of typing on my phone, I use a voice dictation. I would be keen to use voice to control Claude code, but I've always felt that the way I speak is different from the way I write good prompts. Fishing for anecdotes here, does anyone have any good tts/stt experiences?

k9294 2mo ago
I'm founder of ottex.ai, I use stt pretty much all the time when work with AI and quite often for communications to draft emails and chat messages. I started ottex half a year ago after I tested gemini 2.5 flash native audio support. I was blown away by the quality of transcripts and decided to built an app to use it myself. Currently the default model in the app is Gemini 3 flash, but you can connect to 9 providers and God knows how many models to play with. I would suggest you to try this models for ai prompting: - Gemini 3 / 3.5 flash - Soniox rtt v5 - Mistral transcribe v2 - assembly 3.5 pro
DrSiemer 2mo ago
One of my side projects is a tool that lets you control your entire system with STT. It's built on Whisper and supports hot swapping custom profiles, so you can add easy commands for any software. I intend to use it to work on low stakes vibe coding projects while I'm doing other stuff. Todays LLMs are a lot better at interpreting rambling dictation with mid-message corrections. There are a few paid programs out there that do the same, but they made my vibe slop sense tingle and are not aimed at development.
arend321 2mo ago
I do a ton of coding (codex) with a tts/stt wrapper. During walks, cycling, in the car. Not every task is suited to this style of interaction, but many are. Long form codex replies are condensed, code blocks are suppressed all in the name of making it work for tts feedback. So it works best on well defined projects with guardrails, where you know the agent can perform well.
- fragmede 2mo ago
  During cycling! Do you have a phone mount on your bike that you use while biking or is it all in-ear?
  - cafebabbe 2mo ago
    ... I cannot think of an activity less suitable for coding (except scuba diving) I would die In minutes
    - arend321 2mo ago
      Think long winding, quiet, dedicated cycling roads in forested areas and natural parks. Not busy roads shared with cars and lorries.
  - arend321 2mo ago
    I have my phone in my pocket, no screen interaction is required. I use a headset (Shokz OpenComm2) with wind muff (when cycling). I made an Android app that listens for codex turn-complete or intermediate updates and plays them back to me. My answer is transcribed and pasted back to the relevant codex (tmux) session on the server (which I can select by voice) a tiny layer helps with things like /new, /plan, answer selection, etc.
    - fragmede 2mo ago
      I'd love to hear more about it!
      - arend321 2mo ago
        I'm still wondering if this is something the big AI companies will come out with tomorrow, if it has business potential (it's extremely niche I think) or if I should put it on GitHub and build a community around it. This is what the Android app looks like: https://imgur.com/a/qy8B2gt https://imgur.com/a/qy8B2gt https://imgur.com/a/C0eTPyn https://imgur.com/a/C0eTPyn
fragmede 2mo ago
For STT, wispr flow has a generous free tier. For TTS, I have Claude read out loud what it just finished as a stop hook, so I know which claude finished up.
Joel_Mckay 2mo ago
Industry leading Interactive Voice Response systems have become very good at filling in ambiguous information from context, and modulating pronunciation to Ape emotional information. However, being able to interact with these natural language systems in uncontrolled settings is still a fools errand. For STT, there is also regional dialect, slang, and individual differences. Witnessing blind users hit unrecognizable reading-speeds on old Gordon 8 TTS systems was surprising. I learned people adapt to imperfect systems pretty quickly. =3
kleiba2 2mo ago
I've always dreamed of having the ability to just talk to my computer (in the right circumstances) so I actually worked in the field for many years. The main reason I never use speech recognition today is because I have zero interest of sending recordings of my voice to the servers of some global corporations. Running speech recognition and TTS locally is quite feasible, as projects like this one show.
- sbarre 2mo ago
  If you want a local and open source option (MacOS only at the moment though), I've been happily using Keyscribe for dictation, which is built on Moonshine I believe. https://rsperko.github.io/keyscribe/ https://rsperko.github.io/keyscribe/
  - mistrial9 2mo ago
    > local and open source option (MacOS only) ouch - this is ironic in an extreme, given Apple's OS layers and anti-GPL efforts next, personal computers that come with a secret OS that can read all RAM by remote command?
scoriiu 2mo ago
[flagged]
paweladamczuk 2mo ago
On some days, half of my promts to Copilot at work are spoken to a local whisper medium model running on an Intel ARC GPU.
Avicebron 2mo ago
I (well CC and I) wrote a tts/stt pipeline for the CLI of CC. It's a lot more, immersive I guess, when I open my dev environment and it gives me a verbal walk through of what's going on. (this inspired some more demo-y stuff I have where claude can manipulate the mouse and audit things it's built visually in conjunction with that). I'm sure this has already been wrapped up into some MCP framework, but it was fun to build it super early on and it just sort of works for me. I don't use this in my day job, but it does feel very futuristic when I pull up my home lab.
d4rkp4ttern 2mo ago
I use the Hex[1] app on MacOs for near instant transcription with Parakeet V3. This is how I speak to Code agents at least 80% of the time. The idea is - I tend to be lazy if I need to type lots of details, so speaking lets me get into details that I otherwise wouldn’t and this helps give more useful context to the agent. This often tends to be an unstructured brain dump so I sometimes ask the agent to repeat back what it understood, so I can make sure, and this also likely helps it stay on track. [1] hex https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex I used to use Handy but as of a few months ago it had stuttering and other issues so I switched to Hex. Even for relatively long minute long dictation, transcription is near instant and accuracy is more than sufficient, especially when talking to AI since it that can “read between the lines “. Using voice with code agents is a huge unlock and I’m surprised to see some people I recommend it to, still resist it. As for TTS I found it fun to make a voice plugin for Claude Code that uses PocketTTS, so it can give brief updates whenever it finishes a turn: https://pchalasani.github.io/claude-code-tools/plugins-detail/voice/ https://pchalasani.github.io/claude-code-tools/plugins-detai...
collinmcnulty 2mo ago
What I want is a 1940s style “taking dictation” where the words I say go through a step where the goal is to create the text Im imagining. So if I say “… very significant, actually just significant…” what Claude Code receives is “…significant…”. I built this myself with whisper -> “secretary” prompt -> Claude Code, but having the first two steps be interactive is really what I would want.
- brookst 2mo ago
  I use dictation to drive Claude code frequently, and it’s never had a problem with stream of consciousness and retroactive correction. Maybe try just direct voice and see if you notice any difference versus pre-cleaning?
  - Wowfunhappy 2mo ago
    Claude Code's speech recognition works so well for me, I was blown away the first time I tried it. I wish I knew what model they were using (I assume it's not in house since they've never talked about it). I acknowledge this may just mean I haven't tried enough modern voice recognition systems. But I've used Whisper and I don't think it works nearly as well for real-time speech. (I still don't tend to use voice mode in Claude Code because I find typing more comfortable.)
  - collinmcnulty 2mo ago
    This reply helped me think more about what I want. I do my thinking when crafting the prompt, and I want to be able to do several passes. So the first draft I like to dictate and be able to live edit with my voice, but then I want to do a subsequent pass at the keyboard after the full prompt is written.
stavros 2mo ago
https://handy.computer https://handy.computer is the goto. It can even add an LLM pass (optionally) so if you say "remind me to buy three, actually, four, eggs" it'll type "remind me to buy four eggs".

by almogo 2mo ago

k9294 2mo ago

I'm founder of ottex.ai, I use stt pretty much all the time when work with AI and quite often for communications to draft emails and chat messages. I started ottex half a year ago after I tested gemini 2.5 flash native audio support. I was blown away by the quality of transcripts and decided to built an app to use it myself. Currently the default model in the app is Gemini 3 flash, but you can connect to 9 providers and God knows how many models to play with. I would suggest you to try this models for ai prompting: - Gemini 3 / 3.5 flash - Soniox rtt v5 - Mistral transcribe v2 - assembly 3.5 pro

DrSiemer 2mo ago

One of my side projects is a tool that lets you control your entire system with STT. It's built on Whisper and supports hot swapping custom profiles, so you can add easy commands for any software. I intend to use it to work on low stakes vibe coding projects while I'm doing other stuff. Todays LLMs are a lot better at interpreting rambling dictation with mid-message corrections. There are a few paid programs out there that do the same, but they made my vibe slop sense tingle and are not aimed at development.

arend321 2mo ago

I do a ton of coding (codex) with a tts/stt wrapper. During walks, cycling, in the car. Not every task is suited to this style of interaction, but many are. Long form codex replies are condensed, code blocks are suppressed all in the name of making it work for tts feedback. So it works best on well defined projects with guardrails, where you know the agent can perform well.

fragmede 2mo ago
During cycling! Do you have a phone mount on your bike that you use while biking or is it all in-ear?
- cafebabbe 2mo ago
  ... I cannot think of an activity less suitable for coding (except scuba diving) I would die In minutes
  - arend321 2mo ago
    Think long winding, quiet, dedicated cycling roads in forested areas and natural parks. Not busy roads shared with cars and lorries.
- arend321 2mo ago
  I have my phone in my pocket, no screen interaction is required. I use a headset (Shokz OpenComm2) with wind muff (when cycling). I made an Android app that listens for codex turn-complete or intermediate updates and plays them back to me. My answer is transcribed and pasted back to the relevant codex (tmux) session on the server (which I can select by voice) a tiny layer helps with things like /new, /plan, answer selection, etc.
  - fragmede 2mo ago
    I'd love to hear more about it!
    - arend321 2mo ago
      I'm still wondering if this is something the big AI companies will come out with tomorrow, if it has business potential (it's extremely niche I think) or if I should put it on GitHub and build a community around it. This is what the Android app looks like: https://imgur.com/a/qy8B2gt https://imgur.com/a/qy8B2gt https://imgur.com/a/C0eTPyn https://imgur.com/a/C0eTPyn

fragmede 2mo ago

For STT, wispr flow has a generous free tier. For TTS, I have Claude read out loud what it just finished as a stop hook, so I know which claude finished up.

Joel_Mckay 2mo ago

Industry leading Interactive Voice Response systems have become very good at filling in ambiguous information from context, and modulating pronunciation to Ape emotional information. However, being able to interact with these natural language systems in uncontrolled settings is still a fools errand. For STT, there is also regional dialect, slang, and individual differences. Witnessing blind users hit unrecognizable reading-speeds on old Gordon 8 TTS systems was surprising. I learned people adapt to imperfect systems pretty quickly. =3

kleiba2 2mo ago

I've always dreamed of having the ability to just talk to my computer (in the right circumstances) so I actually worked in the field for many years. The main reason I never use speech recognition today is because I have zero interest of sending recordings of my voice to the servers of some global corporations. Running speech recognition and TTS locally is quite feasible, as projects like this one show.

sbarre 2mo ago
If you want a local and open source option (MacOS only at the moment though), I've been happily using Keyscribe for dictation, which is built on Moonshine I believe. https://rsperko.github.io/keyscribe/ https://rsperko.github.io/keyscribe/
- mistrial9 2mo ago
  > local and open source option (MacOS only) ouch - this is ironic in an extreme, given Apple's OS layers and anti-GPL efforts next, personal computers that come with a secret OS that can read all RAM by remote command?

scoriiu 2mo ago

[flagged]

paweladamczuk 2mo ago

On some days, half of my promts to Copilot at work are spoken to a local whisper medium model running on an Intel ARC GPU.

Avicebron 2mo ago

I (well CC and I) wrote a tts/stt pipeline for the CLI of CC. It's a lot more, immersive I guess, when I open my dev environment and it gives me a verbal walk through of what's going on. (this inspired some more demo-y stuff I have where claude can manipulate the mouse and audit things it's built visually in conjunction with that). I'm sure this has already been wrapped up into some MCP framework, but it was fun to build it super early on and it just sort of works for me. I don't use this in my day job, but it does feel very futuristic when I pull up my home lab.

d4rkp4ttern 2mo ago

I use the Hex[1] app on MacOs for near instant transcription with Parakeet V3. This is how I speak to Code agents at least 80% of the time. The idea is - I tend to be lazy if I need to type lots of details, so speaking lets me get into details that I otherwise wouldn’t and this helps give more useful context to the agent. This often tends to be an unstructured brain dump so I sometimes ask the agent to repeat back what it understood, so I can make sure, and this also likely helps it stay on track. [1] hex https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex I used to use Handy but as of a few months ago it had stuttering and other issues so I switched to Hex. Even for relatively long minute long dictation, transcription is near instant and accuracy is more than sufficient, especially when talking to AI since it that can “read between the lines “. Using voice with code agents is a huge unlock and I’m surprised to see some people I recommend it to, still resist it. As for TTS I found it fun to make a voice plugin for Claude Code that uses PocketTTS, so it can give brief updates whenever it finishes a turn: https://pchalasani.github.io/claude-code-tools/plugins-detail/voice/ https://pchalasani.github.io/claude-code-tools/plugins-detai...

collinmcnulty 2mo ago

What I want is a 1940s style “taking dictation” where the words I say go through a step where the goal is to create the text Im imagining. So if I say “… very significant, actually just significant…” what Claude Code receives is “…significant…”. I built this myself with whisper -> “secretary” prompt -> Claude Code, but having the first two steps be interactive is really what I would want.

brookst 2mo ago
I use dictation to drive Claude code frequently, and it’s never had a problem with stream of consciousness and retroactive correction. Maybe try just direct voice and see if you notice any difference versus pre-cleaning?
- Wowfunhappy 2mo ago
  Claude Code's speech recognition works so well for me, I was blown away the first time I tried it. I wish I knew what model they were using (I assume it's not in house since they've never talked about it). I acknowledge this may just mean I haven't tried enough modern voice recognition systems. But I've used Whisper and I don't think it works nearly as well for real-time speech. (I still don't tend to use voice mode in Claude Code because I find typing more comfortable.)
- collinmcnulty 2mo ago
  This reply helped me think more about what I want. I do my thinking when crafting the prompt, and I want to be able to do several passes. So the first draft I like to dictate and be able to live edit with my voice, but then I want to do a subsequent pass at the keyboard after the full prompt is written.

stavros 2mo ago

https://handy.computer https://handy.computer is the goto. It can even add an LLM pass (optionally) so if you say "remind me to buy three, actually, four, eggs" it'll type "remind me to buy four eggs".