What The Tech App of the Day: Wispr Flow
BY JAMEY TUCKER, Consumer Tech Reporter
If you’ve ever tried dictating a text message on your phone, you know how quickly it can go wrong. Background noise, misunderstood words and awkward punctuation can leave you spending almost as much time fixing the message as you would have spent typing it.
An app called Wispr Flow is trying to make voice dictation much smarter. Instead of simply converting every word you say into text, Wispr Flow uses artificial intelligence to clean up your speech as you talk. That means you can pause, repeat yourself, stumble over a sentence or even change your mind halfway through.
For example, you might say: “Tell the kids I’ll be home around six. I mean six-thirty.”
Instead of typing both versions, Wispr Flow is designed to understand the correction and produce the message you actually meant to send.
The app can also remove filler words, repeated phrases and some of the verbal clutter that normally shows up when we dictate. Works on iPhone and Android Wispr Flow is available for both iPhone and Android. On a phone or tablet, it can be used in places where you would normally type, including text messages, email and note-taking apps. One of the app’s biggest selling points is that it can understand speech even with background noise.
Wispr also says Flow can recognize your voice when you speak quietly or even whisper, which can make dictation more practical in public places.
Free, with limits Wispr Flow does offer a free version. Free users can dictate a limited number of words each week. Wispr has been testing different limits, but its current free tier generally allows around 1,000 words per week, with a higher hard limit before dictation stops.
For people who use it frequently, Wispr Flow Pro costs $15 a month, or $12 a month when paid annually. The Pro version includes unlimited dictation along with additional features. What about privacy? There is one important thing to know before using any cloud-based dictation service. Wispr Flow processes your voice using cloud servers rather than doing everything entirely on your phone.
The company says it does not sell user data, but users should still check the app’s privacy settings before dictating anything sensitive. There is also a setting that controls whether your audio, transcripts and edits can be used to help improve Wispr’s AI models.
That’s worth reviewing before you start using the app regularly. It works on computers, too Although Wispr Flow is especially useful on phones and tablets, it also works on Mac and Windows computers. That means the same voice-to-text system can be used for emails, documents and other apps where you would normally type.
For people who already rely on voice dictation, Wispr Flow may feel like a significant step up from the basic tools built into a phone. And for people who hate typing long messages on a small keyboard, it may be even more useful.
