The answer▚
Dictation only saves time if the words appear quickly. When a cloud transcription service is slow, the pause after you stop speaking eats the whole advantage of talking instead of typing. A local speech-to-text app fixes that by running the transcription model on your own computer, so nothing waits on a round trip, and your audio is processed on the device.
Two open-source options the group has pointed to:
- 01Handy is free, open source (MIT), and describes itself as working completely offline. You press a keyboard shortcut, speak, release, and it pastes the text into whatever field you were typing in. Check its download page for your platform.
- 02Hex is free and open source (MIT) for Apple Silicon Macs only. Install the download from its site or run `brew install --cask kitlangton-hex`. Press and hold your hotkey to record, or double-tap it to lock recording and tap again to finish. It transcribes on the Mac, and it needs microphone and accessibility permissions so it can hear you and paste into other apps.
Both are actively maintained.
How to test one properly
- 01Install one tool, not both, and set a hotkey you can reach without thinking.
- 02Dictate the thing you actually dictate most: a short WhatsApp reply, or a two-line email.
- 03Compare three things against your current tool: how long until the text appears, whether the punctuation is usable, and whether it got the names right.
- 04Keep it only if it wins on turnaround without losing accuracy you depend on.
What to watch for
A model running on your laptop is smaller than one running in a data centre, so accuracy is where you pay. Test names of people and places, punctuation in longer sentences, and any switching between English and Hebrew or Yiddish before you trust it for anything that goes to a member. When accuracy matters more than speed, a good cloud service on a solid connection is still the better choice.
For transcribing a whole shiur rather than dictating a message, that is a different job with different tools. See What is the best way to transcribe a shiur in Hebrew or Yiddish?.