SpeakOn’s dictation device is a good idea marred by platform limitations

I constantly use dictation apps like Wispr Flow, Willow, or Typeless to respond to messages and emails on both my Mac and phone. But to do that, I have to use my phone’s microphone or AirPods to dictate my messages, and they often don’t understand what I’m saying.

That’s why when Notta belongs SpeakOn had me try out a special dictation device, I was intrigued by its capabilities. Unfortunately, I’ve had mixed experiences with the product due to form factor and platform limitations.

However, I think there is room for dictation devices like this in the future.

SpeakOn is a small pebble-like device that can be attached to the back of your iPhone via MagSafe, just like Plaud’s AI notebook. The device is very light at 25 grams, so you won’t feel its weight even if you put it in your pocket separately.

The device comes with a companion app on iOS, which takes the form of a keyboard like other dictation apps. You can also use the app without connecting the device if needed.

To begin, you press the button on the device to start dictation and release the button when you’re done. The device has a microphone and claims to record sound at a distance of 2 feet. Dictation works in any application as long as the software keyboard is active. Speech is automatically filtered as the app removes filler words and can format the text output as a list if needed.

One advantage is that the device does not use the iPhone’s microphone and instead relies on its own microphone. Other dictation apps need to keep the iPhone microphone active based on user-defined session time. The SpeakOn device can help you avoid this.

My gripe with the SpeakOn device is that, despite having dedicated microphones, it doesn’t pick up sound well — unless I bring the phone within about two meters. And even within that range, microphones often underperform due to ambient noise. I hope for better quality microphones in the next version.

I also wish double-tapping the record button could bring the SpeakOn keyboard to the fore if I was using a text keyboard. Or if I could start talking without switching keyboards, but those are system-level limitations that are likely hard to overcome.

The app changes the AI ​​processing and tone based on the app you’re in, but you can also change it manually. I felt that at times, the edits were forced and unnecessary. For example, when I said, “Does this app run automatically?”, the app turned it into “Does this app run automatically?” In another instance, the app changed the word “complex” to “difficult” and turned “Sure, don’t worry” into “You don’t have to worry.” I don’t want or need these kinds of edits. I ended up turning off the “attune” feature to get better results.

I would also use this device a lot more if it was Mac compatible and I could dictate in any application.

In addition to transcription, users can tap the translate button to automatically translate speech into supported languages, including English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Arabic.

SpeakOn says the device could be used for 10 hours at a stretch and has a standby time of 20 days. But in my experience, the waiting time was only a few days instead of 20 days. By default, the device is never turned off. I would suggest modifying this setting to turn off the device after a few hours of inactivity to save battery.

The device can fully charge from 0 to 100 percent within an hour. But you can always plug it in for a few minutes to get enough juice for several minutes of dictation.

The device is priced at $129 with a plan that allows you to dictate 5,000 words per week. Other apps like Wispr Flow typically allow 2,000 words per week on their free plan. There is also a $12 per month plan for unlimited words.

SpeakOn has an early advantage in launching a dictation device. But it needs to expand platform support and improve the software experience, because another company could easily source assets and put them in a different format to eat up market share.