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 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 pick up what I’m saying.

That’s why when Notta-owned SpeakOn offered me to test a dedicated dictation device, I was intrigued by its capabilities. Unfortunately, I’ve had mixed experiences with the product due to the 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 meeting note-taking device. The device is very light, 25 grams, so you will not feel its weight even if you put it in your pocket separately.

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

To get started, press the button on your device to start dictating and release it when you’re done. The device has a single microphone and claims to pick up sound at a distance of two feet. Dictation works in any application as long as the software keyboard is active. Speech filtering is done automatically as the app removes filler words and can format the text output as a list if necessary.

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 the session time set by users. SpeakOn can help you avoid this.

My issue with the SpeakOn is that, despite having dedicated microphones, it doesn’t pick up sound very well — unless you place the phone within about two feet. Even within this range, microphones often perform poorly due to ambient noise. I hope for better quality microphones in the next release.

I also wish double-tapping the record button would bring the SpeakOn keyboard to the front if I’m using a text keyboard. Or if I could start speaking without switching keyboards, but that’s a system-level limitation that might be hard to overcome.

The app changes the editing and tone using AI based on the app you’re using, but you can also change this manually. I felt that sometimes the edits were forced and unnecessary. For example, when you said, “Does this app automate?”, the app converted that to, “Does this app automate?” In another case, the app converted “complicated” to “difficult,” and “sure, no need to worry” to “no need to worry.” I don’t want or need these types of adjustments. I eventually turned off the “harmonic” tone change feature for better results.

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

Besides 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 can be used for 10 hours straight and has a standby time of 20 days. But in my experience, the wait time was only a few days instead of 20 days. By default, the device never turns off. I would suggest adjusting this setting to turn off the device after a few hours of inactivity to save battery.

The device can be fully charged from 0 to 100 percent within one hour. But you can always plug it in for a few minutes to get enough juice for several minutes of infusion.

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

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