Best Speech to Text Apps for Android
You said something to your computer and it magically transformed that into text, ready to be used in your email, document, notes etc. This used to be one of the futuristic things for me back in early 2000 (before the advent of smartphones) and continued to be something I wished I had on my phone till recently.
With things like Siri and Google Now, voice recognition has reached new levels of accuracy, smartness and utility. Most of us use speech-to-text for search (Siri and Google Search) or for voice memo / notes (Evernote). There are also apps that allow you to send an email or a Whatsapp message by dictating to it.
We will look at some of the best speech to text apps that you can use on your Android smartphone/tablet.
Google Keyboard
Once you have Google Keyboard installed, there’s no point in looking further (and kind of beats the purpose of covering other voice-to-text apps). Google Keyboard replaces your default keypad with its own minimalist variant. Naturally, it also features voice dictation which is pretty accurate and corrects contextually.
One of the benefits of a voice-to-text feature on your keypad is that you can use this everywhere. There are two ways to trigger the voice-to-text: tap the microphone icon on the top-left of the keypad or tap and hold the comma (,) to get to settings where you can select Voice Input.
What’s in it:
- smart, context-aware voice-to-text conversion
- loads of customization options; learns from your voice inputs
- universal: can be used in any app that requires a keypad input
- can be used offline with the right voice data packages
Speech to Text
I have a general aversion to poorly designed interfaces even if the functions are great. Testing Speech to Text has helped me get rid of this aversion (even if by only a small amount). This app has just two purposes: convert your dictation to text and help you send the text as an SMS or Email quickly. And of the half-a-dozen apps I tested, Speech To Text had the second best processing. I am not too technical to understand why when all the apps rely on Android’s default voice-to-text engine the performance of each is so varied.
What’s in it:
- for SMS and Email only
- supports multiple languages (with their native fonts)
- very minimal without options (but that’s good in many ways)
Speech to Text/Whatsapp
There are speech-to-text apps dedicated to help you send quick messages over SMS or Whatsapp and this is one of them. I tested four more of these and Speech to Text/Whatsapp is the best one (relatively). In the general parlance of smartphone apps, you’d probably hate this app for its bad design but the way it works is cool that I couldn’t help but include this here.
It’s one-tap to record/transcribe and one-tap to send. The app listens to you and after transcription beautifully offers a list of phrases that it thinks you said. You can pick the right one. This is so much better than apps that make their own (wrong) judgments on transcriptions.
What’s in it:
- quick and easy to use
- one-tap to send message to Whatsapp contact
- occasional ads spoil the fun
- shows you a list of transcribed phrases to pick the correct one
Download Speech to Text/Whatsapp
Voice to Text
Voice to Text is pretty much redundant in the age of Google Keyboard, Dragon etc. but for folks that would still like a simple, no-frills speech-to-text app that sends an email message based on what you spoke into the mic, this is it. On my Asus Zenfone, Voice to Text kept throwing a “client error” despite transcribing accurately and sending an email too. The app pales in comparison to others on this list but is far better than some of the apps I tested.
What’s in it:
- can only send the transcribed text as email
- very simple to use (no options, really)
Others:
In general, speech transcription is very useful in transcribing recorded lectures and voice notes. You have a bunch of paid apps for the former. The latter (voice notes) can be done using an app like Google Keep and the Google Keyboard. But of course, there are also apps like Evernote and ListNote that feature voice-to-text.
Another app that is known for its speech recognition (and accurate transcription) is Dragon Mobile Assistant. The voice-to-text on Dragon is excellent but it does come with a ton of other features that you may or may not need. If you’re all about using pure voice commands to interact with your phone, this is an app you should check out.
23 Comments
Sir,
Can u suggest the best App for speech to text which will help in understanding the speech in video conference for working Hearing Handicapped Professionals who are good in written communication but are poor in verbal communication.
Regards.
CSSivakumar.
sir i want marathi language speach to text software …????
I need app that can convert my voice or audio recorded to text .I need it for my blog
Cissivakumar,
What you can do is place your phone next to the speaker on the television or the sound system and open up this app:
Notepad Text Editor
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.guruinfomedia.notepad.texteditor
When it’s open, touch inside the dialogue box, your Google keyboard should come up. Press the little microphone that is next to the suggestion boxes above the letter “p” then start the video and let the sound play directly into the phone’s mouthpiece. You should now see text starting to appear. You may need to watch it as a pause in the speaker of the video could cause the voice typing to time out and exit. So as long as you keep seeing the speaker’s mouth moving and the text being written them all is well.
Nilesh,
Unfortunately, Marathi has to be a language that Google will first be able to use in text-to-speech before it can be recognized by speech to text. At this time I cannot find any support for this language by Google. I would suggest dropping them an email and asking if Marathi will be supported soon.
Oha,
Download this app:
Notepad Text Editor
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.guruinfomedia.notepad.texteditor
The same goes with what I said at the top, start a new note then activate the voice typing key on your Google keyboard and start speaking. You will have to insert periods when needed as well as double checking grammar and punctuation. When you’re done talking, save the note on your sd card. It will save as a .txt file that you can now transfer to your computer and then open in your computer’s notepad. From there you simply cut and paste from the file to your blog.
Dear Chandrashekhar V,
i don’t know how to thank you enough!
you saved me big time and effort by writing this article, God bless you : )
i downloaded the google keyboard on my phone and make a test, finally something working!
some times solutions are waiting at the corner of the street but we cant see them or know who they are?
i will come again for this website defiantly.
thank you again : )
Reem
In all these apps there is the problem of punctuation.
How do you insert commas, full stops, question marks, capitalise after a full stop, change paragraphs etc
Thanks & regards,
i am looking to build an app that require speech to text
Vijay,
That is the problem with speech recognition. If the application manages to work right it still won’t exactly know how to understand the nuances of vocal tonality. One person’s slight uprise in tone at the end of a sentence is considered a questioning sound however a lot of people do not make those sounds and their questions don’t sound like questions.
While most voice recognition software can insert apostrophes in contractions such as, “don’t” or ” aren’t” not many are able to insert commas and other exotic markups like formatting a word to show emphasis like in italics.
For the most part, speech to text is a great way to cut back on time but it requires you to edit and proof the copy just like writing it by hand would.
Eli
Can you tell me the best app for my Mac laptop, for dicatation to word doc of tons and tons of journals?
blogger me likhne ke liye koi speech to text apps hai kya/
bigrock me maine domain name kharida hai par ishme aapne blog ko kaise setting karoo?
Hi, is there a way we can extract the audio from a youtube video and convert it to text
I am writing a book and have hand issues. I have investigated many APs voice to text but they only do short messages. I need to dictate and transfer to my email then cut and paste.
Is there any AP out there that does long entries via android phone?
Yes, I am writing a book too. I use an app called “ListNote Pro” it is the best one I found. Does a good job, better than typing by far. It has a built in feature for categories, I use it to break it down to different chapters. You can also share your voice to text notes. I use Google Keep to sync it to my laptop.
Im also writing a book like Kathleen Caulfield and I have the same problem.
I am using this for last 3 months and its working like a charm
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zilideus.speechtotext
well it definitely doesn’t like Southern Accents especially Texan accents,lol,other than that is there any other text talk to text app that you can use everywhere like in Facebook and stuff because the good ones just not cutting it for me it sends crazy messages to people and it causes no custody no I said custis no it’s like a bad childit also changes my words 2 crazy words that wouldn’t make any sense in the sentence I don’t understand why it does that thank you
Sir,
I want to develop a speechVoice to Text app which cn be loaded into the phone. This app shall able to convert english and Telugu words into the texts. This I want in the disability feild.
Atleast suggest how to go ahead with this project
Sir, Iam deafness myboth ear are failure pl sspeech to write in ttamil language
Hi. I need a Speech to Text App that can be used for my email, texting,, and especially Facebook and Facebook Messenger right away because my right hand is partially paralyzed and I can’t use my fingers very well and texting using a keyboard is almost impossible and causes A lot of pain and for some reason the microphone option literally disappeared from every one on the apps I use and neither Facebook nor Samsung can figure out why. I lol. The reason this is so urgent is because I am leading several mental health and suicide prevention groups on Facebook which I need to be able to communicate and help members dealing with serious problems that need my immediate attention for obvious reasons. I haven’t been able to lead the groups as effectively as usual because of the microphone option disappearing and because I deal with many people who may be of already are suicidal I REALLY NEED HELP WITH WHAT APP WILL COVER ALL the thing’s listed above if possible. Did I read it correctly that you said GOOGLE KEYBOARD will work anywhere? I did try it first before any other amp’s abs and it only worked for texting and Emailing. I’m so frustrated abs and need help and advice ASAP. I would be so grateful! Thank you!
Katie Dofredo
In all these apps there is the problem of punctuation.
How do you insert commas, full stops, question marks, capitalise after a full stop, change paragraphs etc
Thanks & regards,
i am not very good at fransh so i need this app
Thanks sir, it is very helpful! I used google voice because it is available in many languages. Even though it is somewhat inaccurate, but 5 minutes vs 1 hour full of writing is still very acceptable, and speech to text for me is very best tool if I need to write a blog from stratch.