AI-powered dictation tools have become popular over the past few years. In addition to existing dictation apps like Wispr Flow, Superwisper, Willow, and Monologue, new apps are released every week. On Thursday, hardware company Nothing launched its own competing product called Essential Voice.
The basic idea is similar to other dictation apps, and Essential Voice works with any app to convert audio into formatted text, removing filler words like “uh” and “ah” along the way. The company says you can also create custom audio shortcuts for words, links, templates, and repeated phrases. For example, you can assign the “My Address” shortcut to your full address.
Currently, this feature is available on Phone (3), with rollout to Phone (4a) Pro expected later this month, and support for Phone (4a) expected next month.
To access this feature, users press the Essential key on devices where this feature is present or activate this key from the keyboard. This feature is similar to one Superwisper released for iPhone users earlier this week, which allows users to map their iPhone’s action keys to an app’s keyboard for dictation.
Nothing’s new tools can also directly translate text from one language to another. At the time of release, nothing was said about this feature supporting over 100 languages. In the future, app-based custom styles will also be introduced. This means you’ll be able to change the tone of AI editing within app categories like Work and Messaging.
Nothing was one of the first companies to offer system-level integration for dictation. However, given Google’s recent release of an offline dictation app, it’s likely that more companies will release similar tools in the future.
