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Posted by tin7in 10 hours ago

Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app(github.com)
143 points | 78 commentspage 2
aucisson_masque 6 hours ago|
It’s incredibly fast on my MacBook m1 air and more accurate that the native speech to text.

The ui is well thought out, just the right amount of setting for my usage.

Incredible !

Btw, do you know what « discharging the model » does ? It’s set to never by default, tried to check if it has an impact on ram or cpu but it doesn’t seem to do anything.

mixtureoftakes 4 hours ago|
the model is permanently loaded into ram for access speed. discharging it would unload it from ram and lead to longer start times
sipjca 4 hours ago||
It does unload it, and actually might be a good default for most people as the model loading does happen in the background as soon as you hit the key
Jack5500 8 hours ago||
The Parakeet V3 model is really great!
llarsson 7 hours ago||
A question because I'm not using speech-to-text, but find it intriguing (especially since it's now possible to do locally and for free).

How have your computing habits changed as a result of having this? When do you typically use this instead of typing on the keyboard?

tin7in 7 hours ago||
I use it all the time with coding agents, especially if I'm running multiple terminals. It's way faster to talk than type. The only problem is that it looks awkward if there are others around.
johnisgood 7 hours ago||
Interesting. I can think and type faster, but not talk. I am not much of a talker.
stavros 7 hours ago||
Same, whenever I try to dictate something I always umm and ahhh and go back a bunch of times, and it's faster to just type. I guess it's just a matter of practice, and I'm fine when I'm talking to other people, it's only dictation I'm having trouble with.
noneofyour 7 hours ago||
Part of my job is to give feedback to people using Word Comments. Using STT, it's been a breeze. The time saving really is great. Thing is, I only do this when working at home with no one around. So really only when WFH.
walthamstow 4 hours ago||
Nice. I spent most of Christmas vibe coding with Google Antigravity with one hand while holding a sleeping baby in the other. MacOS built in dictation is OK, but struggles with technical language.
dumbmrblah 8 hours ago||
I just set this up today. I had Whispering app set up on my Windows computer, but it really wasn't working well on my Ubuntu computer that I just set up. I found Handy randomly. It was the last app I needed to go Linux full-time. Thank you!
wi5eif6E 6 hours ago||
This looks and works great! A settings option to keep no recording history at all would be terrific.
qprofyeh 5 hours ago||
As a Mac user, am I missing something? macOS has Dictation built-in, when you short press F5 it should start transcribing your spoken words into text in real time. It even does non-English languages.
d4rkp4ttern 4 hours ago||
Besides being trash as others said, there’s a trade off with real time transcription word by word - there’s no opportunity for an AI to holistically correct/clean up the transcription
luigi23 5 hours ago||
it's trash if:

- you're not a native speaker or have accent

- using airpods mic

- surroundings is noisy

- use novel words like 'claude code'

- mumble a bit

ekjhgkejhgk 4 hours ago||
Explain to me why a speech-to-text app has 50% of its code in typescript...?
beklein 2 hours ago|
Not the author/contributor, but the app is built using Tauri for easy multi-platform support, so the backend logic is implemented in Rust and the frontend UI is implemented in TypeScript. I think it’s a valid choice. GitHub does not include any model _code_ in the stats; the models will be downloaded separately the first time you use them. Hope this helps.

I know many people hate sites like this, but I actually like them for these use cases. You can get a quick, LLM-generated overview of the architecture, e.g. here: https://codewiki.google/github.com/cjpais/handy

miniwark 7 hours ago||
Did this thing (or open-whispr) work well with other languages than english ?
wi5eif6E 6 hours ago||
German also works great.
dawkins 7 hours ago||
In Spanish works very well
vladstudio 8 hours ago|
Use it daily. Looks and works great.
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