I've looked into a few options, but none of them seem to provide the non-stop, real-time transcription I'm after:
- Siri/Google Assistant: They're great for short dictations, but they don't offer continuous transcription. - Otter.ai: This tool provides real-time transcription for meetings and interviews, but using it 24/7 could get expensive. - Rev Voice Recorder: It lacks real-time capabilities and needs to be manually activated. - The NSA: I won't be able to pass their security clearance because of that "classified" recording of my ex in bed... snoring like a freight train all night.
Before I decide to build or modify a tool myself, I thought I'd ask here:
Does anyone know of a tool that can provide 24/7 transcription?
I've started sketching out some initial ideas here:
https://github.com/8ta4/say
But my main goal is to find out if such a tool already exists so I don't end up reinventing the wheel.
Rewind.ai is ok (transcription accuracy is meh)
Voice Memos.app is ok (though no native transcription, and requires stopping and starting)
Otter.ai is ok (though there's a 4 hour limit on recordings, and there's no paid plan that allows for enough recording minutes to do 24/7)
My ideal solution would be that Otter comes out with a Pro 24/7 plan with 60,000 minutes per month and no max recording length, for $60-80/mo.
I would pay for this and have paid for alternatives, though I'd prefer to use an existing company that I've used for a while and that has lots of users, due to privacy/trust, or perhaps a small startup that publishes security reports and does everything on device.
As an aside:
I use 24/7 voice transcription as a kind of "extended context window" (to use an LLM analogy). While I'm working, I talk out loud to myself about what I'm thinking through, which I find allows me to effectively increase my working memory size to be much larger than otherwise. It's quite helpful.
if you do decide to, start with ggml/whisper