A speech to text application or speech recognition software helps you type your words into the computer as if the computer heard you speak it. With such software, you can talk and type. It basically converts your voice to text.
This software enables you to use any computer such as a laptop, desktop, and tablet with ease. Good for writers!
Watson
Watson Text to Speech helps you in converting your text into natural-sounding voice speech in various languages. This API cloud service helps you convert your written text or any content into speech within Watson Assistant and an existing application.
Give your business a voice to improve customer experience and their engagement by enhancing interaction with the users in their language. It benefits your organization with many solutions such as improving user experience, boosting contact resolution, running it anywhere, data protection, and many more.
Watson Text to Speech helps you create your brand voice to make it unique. It also provides natural-sounding and multilingual support with the help of real-time speech synthesis. Adjust volume, pitch, pronunciation, speed, etc., efficiently by using Speech Synthesis Markup Language.
Personalize the voice quality by specifying attributes like pitch, strength, timbre, rate, breathiness, and more. Take the benefit of using 10,000 characters for FREE every month. If you require more characters, the price of 1000 characters will be $0.02.
iTranslate Converse
- PRICE: $5 per month or $40 per year
- FREE TRIAL: 7 days
- ACCURACY RATE: Not disclosed
Why We Chose It
We chose iTranslate Converse because it is designed to help you translate languages on the go in noisy environments.Pros & ConsPros
- Works well in noisy environments
- Enables real-time communication with someone in another language
- 38 languages recognized
Cons
- Subscription fee
- Unknown accuracy rate
Overview
Brought to you by the same developers behind the popular iTranslate app, iTranslate Converse is as close to real-time translation as you’ll get, which is convenient if you need to communicate with clients who don’t speak the same language as you or if you’re traveling abroad. All you have to do is set the two languages. Then tap, hold, and speak into your phone. The app will pick up on the language that you’re speaking, then issue out a translation — yes, even in noisy environments. The app is capable of recognizing 38 languages. After your conversation is done, you can download full transcriptions. It’s not always perfect, of course, but it’s faster than going through a personal assistant app to look up translations for you.
While it has a subscription fee, iTranslate won’t stretch your budget significantly. When you download it, you’ll receive a seven-day free trial. After that runs out, you’ll need to upgrade to the pro version for $5 per month or $40 per year.
Dragon Professional Individual
As the most popular dictation software in its space, Dragon Professional Individual allows you to do the majority of your job without even touching a keyboard.
By leveraging its Deep Learning technology that adapts to your specific voice, jargon, and work environment, you can create and edit documents with 99% accuracy, quickly and accurately transcribe recordings into text, and use voice commands to control your computer’s actions on programs and web browsers, like sending an email or creating a report.
Dragon also integrates with Microsoft Office, iWork, and other popular business applications, so you can do hands-free work without leaving your favorite programs.
Available On: Mac and Windows
Price: $300
SpeechTexter – Speech to Text
- PRICE: Free
- FREE TRIAL: N/A
- ACCURACY RATE: 95%
Why We Chose It
SpeechTexter is a useful tool to help you draft texts, tweets, emails, and more with your voice. Pros & ConsPros
- Ability to send out notes via your voice
- 60 languages supported
- Customizable commands
Cons
- Offline mode is less accurate
- Can take up sizable phone storage if you go offline
Overview
Need to send a quick message but find your hands occupied with other tasks? Here’s a quick solution. Using Google’s backend, SpeechTexter allows you to create SMS messages, text notes, emails, and tweets with your own voice. The easy-to-use app supports over 60 languages and has a 95% accuracy rate. You can customize your own commands for punctuation as well.
It’s possible to use the app when you’re not connected to the Internet, though keep in mind that the accuracy lowers in offline mode and the recognition speed depends on your Internet connectivity. To use the app offline, make sure that you install language packs of your preference. Keep in mind that this option is limited when it comes to languages, as you’ll only be able to choose from a dozen major tongues as opposed to over 60.
Amazon Polly
Amazon Polly provides an effective way of converting text into human-like speech, allowing you to create apps that can talk. Polly’s TTS uses deep learning to synthesize natural-sounding speech.
Develop speech-enabled apps that will work in different countries. The API also offers NTTS (Neural Text-to-Speech) to deliver the best quality speech. It can generate a custom voice where you need to work with the Polly team to create a unique voice for your organization.
Get the benefits of using Amazon Polly, such as redistributing and storing speech, real-time streaming, control, customizing speech output, and low cost. Amazon Polly offers an API service that integrates speech synthesis into the application so that you can begin streaming the audio stream or store the file in a standard file format like MP3, raw PCM, and Vorbis.
The price for using Amazon Polly’s API service starts from $4 for 1 million characters.
Need to build more than speech-to-text? Check out these fantastic AI APIs to build smart apps.
Google Docs Voice Typing
Most writers rely on Google Docs everyday, so if you need a free yet powerful dictation tool, consider using Google’s Voice Typing tool. Not only does it let you type with your voice on Google Docs, but you can also leverage over 100 voice commands to edit and format your document in almost every way possible, like making bullet points, italicizing or bolding text, and moving your cursor to different parts of your document.
To use Voice Typing on Google Docs, all you have to do is click on “Tools”, “Voice Typing”, and let Google access your laptop’s microphone.
Available On: The Internet
Price: Free
Voice Notes
- PRICE: Free
- FREE TRIAL: N/A
- ACCURACY RATE: Not disclosed
Why We Chose It
We chose Voice Notes for its efficient layout to help you store notes.Pros & ConsPros
- Recognizes 119 languages
- Free app
Cons
- Only available on Android phones
- Takes up a considerable amount of space on your phone
Overview
If you have an idea, but no pen or paper on hand, you can always use your voice. Voice Notes has speech recognition that allows you to create notes efficiently. You can then organize your notes into categories and create reminders by customizing alerts synced with your phone calendar. The interface is intuitive and easy to use; you press the microphone button and speak to record. You’ll even be able to make your notes with the phone screen turned off. The app can recognize up to 119 languages, just in case you need to record notes in something other than English. The app is free, though you can subscribe to a premium plan to support the developer.
Of course, there are a few caveats. Voice Notes is a popular app, but the one major limitation is that it’s only available on Android phones. Plus, you need to have Google voice search installed to use it, which will take up more space on your phone.
Apple Dictation
Apple’s Dictate comes pre-installed on all Apple devices, and it works on the same servers used by Siri. On the basic version, you will need to be online to dictate up to 30 seconds of speech, which is extremely limited and geared towards taking short notes or transcribing quick text messages.
There is an upgraded version known as the Enhanced Dictate that works in Mac OS X 10.9 and higher, and it is designed to create longer-form voice-to-text content. When using the Enhanced Dictate tool, you don’t need to be connected to the internet or have any time constraints. It supports more than 70 voice commands for your Mac and allows you to edit and format documents easily.
To upgrade to Enhanced Dictation, open the Apple Menu and go to the System Preferences, click on the keyboard, and select Dictation. Once there, switch on Dictation and choose Enhanced Dictation.
Available on Mac
Price: Free
Temi
Temi works well for automated transcription (i.e., transcribed by a computer, not a human).
They charge $.25 per audio minute, and their turnaround only takes a few minutes.
Their transcripts are easy to read with clear timestamps and labels for different speakers. They also provide an online editing tool that allows you to easily clean up your transcripts. For example, you can easily search for all the “um”s and remove them with the touch of a button.
You can also listen to your audio alongside the transcript, and you can adjust the playback speed. This is very useful if you’re a fast talker.
If you prefer to work on the go, Temi also offers a mobile app.
Rev
Rev offers many of the same features as Temi for automated transcripts. They call this option “Rough Draft” transcription, and it also costs $.25 per audio minute. The average turnaround time for a transcript is 5 minutes.
What sets Rev apart is that they also offer human transcription. This service costs $1.25 per minute, and Rev guarantees 99% accuracy. The average turnaround time is 12 hours.
Human transcription is a great option if your audio file has a lot of background noise. It’s also great if you have a strong accent that automatic transcription software has trouble recognizing.
Google Docs Voice Typing
This is currently the best voice typing software, by far. It’s driven by Google’s AI software, which applies Google’s deep learning algorithms to accurately recognize speech. It also supports 125 different languages.
One of the best aspects of Voice Typing is that you don’t need to use a specific operating system or install any extra software to use it. You just need the Chrome web browser and a Google account.
It’s also easy to use. Just log into your account and open a Google Doc. Go to “Tools” and select “Voice Typing.”
It’s also easy to use. Just log into your account and open a Google Doc. Go to “Tools” and select “Voice Typing.”
A microphone icon will pop up on your screen.
Click it, and it will turn red. That’s when you can start dictating.
Click the microphone again to stop the dictation.
Voice Typing is highly accurate, with the typical caveats that you have to speak clearly and at a relatively slow pace.
It’s free, and because it’s embedded in the Docs software, it’s easy to integrate into your pre-existing workflow. The only potential downside is that you need a high-quality internet connection for Voice Typing, so you won’t be able to use it offline.
Conclusion
Software can transcribe recorded audio files in a variety of different formats. When doing dictation, it’s important that the software you use is compatible with your specific device or computer. The two main types of dictation software are digital and analog. You can use either version to dictate your book, article or other writing project. Dragon is the most well-known commercial brand for this type of dictation software.