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Show HN: Aqua Voice 2 – Fast Voice Input for Mac and Windows

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Re: Show HN: Aqua Voice 2 – Fast Voice Input for Mac and Windows

#61

Post by e12e »

SCdF wrote: post #54
adamesque wrote: post #46

I was very delighted by Aqua v1, which felt like magic at first. But I’ve noticed/learned that I can’t dictate written content. My brain just does not work that way at all — as I write I am constantly pausing to think, to revise, etc and it feels like a completely different part of my brain is engaged. Everything I dictated with Aqua I had to throw away and rewrite. Has anyone had similar problems, and if so, had any…

I use my (work) computer entirely with my voice, and it takes a lot of effort to work out what to actually write and to not ramble. Like you I've found that it's better to throw out words in sort of half sentence chunks, to give your brain time to work out what the next chunk is. It's very hard, and I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to. (which is why I'm always perplexed by these apps which allow voice dictation or v…

Curious about your current setup, and if maybe adding a macro/functionality to clean up input via an LLM would help?

In my experience LLM can be quite forgiving when given some unfinished input and asked to expand/clean up?

Re: Show HN: Aqua Voice 2 – Fast Voice Input for Mac and Windows

#62

Post by razemio »

oulipo wrote: post #2

Interesting! A nice open-source alternative is VoiceInk, check it out: https://github.com/Beingpax/VoiceInk do you also plan to open-source part of your platform?

I just tried it on a M4 Max MacBook Pro. When you have such a processor, it seems to be even faster than Aqua Voice 2, does more, optional supports open router AND is open source? Thank you so much for the recommendation!

Re: Show HN: Aqua Voice 2 – Fast Voice Input for Mac and Windows

#66

Post by [deleted] »

adamesque wrote: post #46

I was very delighted by Aqua v1, which felt like magic at first. But I’ve noticed/learned that I can’t dictate written content. My brain just does not work that way at all — as I write I am constantly pausing to think, to revise, etc and it feels like a completely different part of my brain is engaged. Everything I dictated with Aqua I had to throw away and rewrite. Has anyone had similar problems, and if so, had any…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Aqua Voice 2 – Fast Voice Input for Mac and Windows

#67

Post by adamesque »

the_king wrote: post #47
adamesque wrote: post #46

I was very delighted by Aqua v1, which felt like magic at first. But I’ve noticed/learned that I can’t dictate written content. My brain just does not work that way at all — as I write I am constantly pausing to think, to revise, etc and it feels like a completely different part of my brain is engaged. Everything I dictated with Aqua I had to throw away and rewrite. Has anyone had similar problems, and if so, had any…

I think Aqua v1 had two problems: 1. The models weren't ready. 2. The interactions were often strained. Not every edit/change is easy to articulate with your voice. If 1 had been our only problem, we might have had a hit. In reality, I think optimizing model errors allowed us to ignore some fundamental awkwardness in the experience. We've tried to rectify this with v2 by putting less emphasis on streaming for every i…

Looking forward to giving it another try!

Re: Show HN: Aqua Voice 2 – Fast Voice Input for Mac and Windows

#68

Post by brianjking »

jrvarela56 wrote: post #64

Feedback: I use MacWhisper and Tiny wisperkit model (english only) is way faster than any cloud service on my M1 macbook pro. I’d say local is necessary for delightful product experience and the added bonus is that it ticks the privacy box

How much ram is in your m1?

Re: Show HN: Aqua Voice 2 – Fast Voice Input for Mac and Windows

#70

Post by rickydroll »

I've been using Aqua since it was announced on HNN. I've survived the teething pains by using a mixture of Aqua and Dragon, depending on what I was doing. With this new Windows app, I've given up using Dragon for anything.

Things I've learned are:

1. It works better if you're connected by Ethernet than by Wi-Fi.

2. It needs to have a longer recognition history because sometimes you hit the wrong key to end a recognition session, and it loses everything.

3. Besides the longer history, a debugging mode that records all the characters sent to the dictation box would be useful. Sometimes, I see one set of words, blink, and then it's replaced with a new recognition result. Capturing would be useful in describing what went wrong.

4. There should be a way to tell us when a new version is running. Occasionally, I've run into problems where I'm getting errors, and I can't tell if it's my speaking, my audio chain, my computer, the network, or the app.

5. Grammarly is a great add-on because it helps me correct mis-speakings and odd little errors, like too many spaces caused by starting and stopping recognition.

When Dragon Systems went through bankruptcy court, a public benefits corporation bid for the core technology because it recognized that Dragon was a critical tool for people with disabilities to function in a digital world.

In my opinion, Aqua has reached a similar status as an essential tool. Well, it doesn't fully replace Dragon for those who need command and control (yet). The recognition accuracy and smoothness are so amazing that I can't envision returning to Dragon Systems without much pain. The only thing worse would be going back to a keyboard.

Aqua Guys, don't fuck it up.

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