Mobile Dictation
Dictate on your iPhone, iPad, Android phone or Apple Watch. The text appears at the cursor on your Mac, Windows or Linux computer.
Mobile Dictation turns your iPhone, iPad, Android phone or Apple Watch into a microphone for Spokenly on your computer. You speak into the phone or the watch, and the text appears at the cursor on your Mac, Windows or Linux computer.
Why use it
- Better recognition. The phone is closer to your voice than the computer's microphone, so Spokenly understands you better.
- Whisper or dictate in noise. Speak quietly when others are near, or dictate in a noisy room.
- Move freely. Dictate while you walk around the room, away from the computer.
- No pairing. Both devices only need the same Spokenly account.
What you need
- iPhone or iPad: install Spokenly from the App Store. For Apple Watch, the Spokenly watch app and the iPhone it is paired with.
- Android: for now, open spokenly.app/mobile-dictation in the browser on your phone and sign in with your email. The Android app is coming in the next few days.
- Spokenly running on your Mac, Windows or Linux computer.
- The same email account on the phone and on the computer.
- An internet connection on both devices, with Local-only mode off.
Set it up
Sign in on both devices
Sign in with the same email in Spokenly on your phone and on your computer.
Check the computer
On the computer, open Settings and click Mobile Dictation. Check that Allow Mobile Dictation is on. It is on by default.
Choose the computer on the phone
Open Spokenly on your iPhone or iPad. Tap the device menu above the microphone, and under Insert text on, choose your computer. The menu appears when a computer with Spokenly is online.
The phone is now connected. The connection stays on while Spokenly is in the background, and a Live Activity shows it when Live Activities are on.
Dictate from iPhone or iPad
- On the computer, click the text field where the text should go.
- On the phone, tap the microphone and speak.
- Tap the microphone again to stop. The text appears at the cursor on the computer, and the phone shows the app where it went.
While you record, you can also:
- Tap the return arrow (Insert and send) to insert the text and press Return, for example to send a chat message.
- Tap X to discard the recording.
Dictate from Apple Watch
The watch sends the audio through its paired iPhone, so keep the iPhone nearby.
- In Spokenly on the watch, tap the round button next to the record button. On the Dictate To screen, choose your computer.
- Tap the record button and speak.
- Tap the stop button. The text appears at the cursor on the computer. To insert the text and press Return, tap Insert and send instead.
If the computer is offline, the iPhone transcribes the recording itself and saves the text in History. To always keep watch dictations on the iPhone, choose iPhone on the Dictate To screen.
Use the computer's shortcut
While a phone is connected, the dictation shortcut on the computer records from the phone's microphone instead of the computer's. Press the shortcut, speak into the phone, and press the shortcut again to stop.
If the phone does not respond within 5 seconds, Spokenly disconnects it. Press the shortcut again to record with the computer's microphone.
How it works
- While you speak, the phone streams the audio to your computer through the Spokenly server. The server only passes the audio on and does not store it.
- The computer transcribes the audio with its own transcription model and inserts the text at the cursor. A dictation started on the phone or the watch uses the computer's main mode. A dictation started with a computer shortcut uses the mode of that shortcut.
- The computer sends the text back, so the phone can show where it went.
- One phone at a time can be connected to a computer. A new phone replaces the previous one.
Free plan, Local+ and Pro
On the free plan, each Mobile Dictation uses 1% of the free trial. When the free trial is used up, get Local+ or Pro to keep dictating from your phone. Local+ and Pro have no limit.
Stay connected or disconnect
- The phone disconnects after the idle time in Settings > Keyboard > Auto-disable after in Spokenly on the phone. The default is 1 hour. When you open Spokenly again, the phone connects to the same computer.
- To disconnect on the phone, choose the phone itself in the device menu, or tap the power button in the Live Activity.
- To disconnect on the computer, click Disconnect next to the phone in Settings > Mobile Dictation. You can also choose Disconnect Phone in the menu bar on Mac, or in the tray menu on Windows and Linux.
Mac App Store version
The Mac App Store version can't type into other apps. When you dictate to it from the phone, the phone shows Press ⌘V on and the name of your Mac. Press ⌘V on the Mac to stop the recording and paste the text. Insert and send is not available.
Troubleshooting
The computer is not in the device menu
Open Spokenly on the computer. Check that it is signed in with the same email as the phone and that Allow Mobile Dictation is on. While the computer is offline, the phone shows Open Spokenly on and the name of the computer.
