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Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android

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Maria Sophia wrote:
> This is getting long so I'll see what I can figure out about Futo.
> Thanks for that good advice. Much appreciated. We learn from each other.

I started looking more deeply at the Futo keyboard & whisper model
integration and found it works differently than HeliBoard/WhisperIME does.
 <https://explore.market.dev/ecosystems/whisper/projects/whisperime>
 <https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20260328-voiceinput/>

Have I ever mentioned how complicated Android speech-to-text really is?

If you ask 1 million people if they think keyboards on Android are
complicated, only 3 will tell you that they are, because, they are.

Heliboard + whisperIME is a separate keyboard + voice-input IME combo.
Futo/Whisper is an integrated keyboard with built-in Whisper voice input.

They're completely different beasts. 
Even though, on the surface, they may appear to act the same way.

If that wasn't enough variety, Sayboard is a keyboard that integrates Vosk,
as its own offline speech-to-text engine but Sayboard's Vosk models can
work with HeliBoard's mic also because Sayboard's keyboard is coded to
allow external voice input providers.

Meanwhile, Samsung Keyboard is hardcoded to only work with either Samsung
voice input or Google voice input. They won't work with anything else.

At the same time, apps like Copilot have a mic, but that mic ties only to
it's own cloud-based speech-to-text service, although you can trick it by
using Cromite set to the Microsoft URL and set as a desktop app, and first
type any character to set the focus before using voice to text engines.

And then there are apps like Google Voice Access or Vocal (open-source)
which don't care about your keyboard. They use Android's Accessibility
Service permissions to look at the screen to reach into any text box.

There are others like Transcribo, which is a file-based Transcriber that
uses whisper offline using Android's share intent to process recorded audio
to text.

All this is because Android handles voice input through two primary
channels, one being the system-level RecognitionService and the other being
the individual Keyboard (IME) implementations.	 

If that sounds confusing, it's because it is. 
I can't summarize it better, yet. 

Because it's very confusing when you're trying to use it to do stuff.

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Thread

Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-04-27 18:58 -0600
  Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2026-04-28 09:48 +0200
    Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-04-28 14:48 -0600
      Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-04-28 19:05 -0600
  Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-04-28 09:05 +0100
    Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-04-28 13:32 -0600
      Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-04-28 21:20 +0100
        Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-04-28 19:34 -0600
          Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android AJL <noemail@none.com> - 2026-04-29 02:56 +0000
            Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-04-29 01:25 -0600
              Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Richmond <dnomhcir@gmx.com> - 2026-04-29 09:28 +0100
                Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android AJL <noemail@none.com> - 2026-04-29 16:02 +0000
                Re: Curious what you use for offline keyboard/STT (speech to text) on Android Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-04-29 12:15 -0600

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