InkvoxBlog
Voice, ink & local AI.
Product updates, dictation guides and engineering notes from the workshop — everything we learn building on-device speech-to-text.
The SuperWhisper alternative for Windows
SuperWhisper is Mac-first — its Windows app is brand new and thin. The honest local dictation landscape for Windows in 2026, GPU support included.
Is Wispr Flow safe? A local alternative
Wispr Flow's own docs confirm audio always leaves your device — "zero data retention" is a setting, not the default. The sourced breakdown, plus four real local alternatives.
Why Windows Voice Typing needs the internet
Win+H dictation runs on Microsoft's cloud, and the old offline speech recognition is gone. What happened — and how to dictate fully offline on Windows 11.
NPU or GPU for local dictation?
Copilot+ PCs get the marketing, but any Vulkan-capable GPU — NVIDIA, AMD or Intel — runs Whisper in real time. What your machine actually needs.
Claude Code /voice vs local dictation
Anthropic's docs confirm /voice streams your audio to their servers. What that means next to a fully local, system-wide dictation tool — and when to use each.
Voice dictation in VS Code and Copilot Chat
VS Code's dictation extension struggles with technical prompts, and GitHub's community is asking for better. What works today for Copilot Chat, comments and commits.
Voice prompting: dictate richer AI prompts
You speak 3× faster than you type — Stanford measured it. How to turn that gap into richer prompts for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor, without your data leaving the machine.
Remove filler words from dictated text (not video)
Descript, Premiere Pro and Riverside all clean up recorded video — none of them touch live dictation. Here's what Whisper does with "um" and "uh", and what actually fixes it.
Hands-free coding with RSI: Talon or dictation?
Talon gives full voice control of your editor — with a real learning curve. Natural dictation covers the prompts, comments and commits that fill a dev's day. How to combine both.
"HIPAA compliant" dictation, unpacked
Compliance isn't a software feature — it's BAAs, subcontractors and retention policies. How to evaluate cloud dictation tools, and what changes when transcription stays local.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking alternatives in 2026
Dragon Professional v16 still works offline for $699.99 — but the Mac version is gone and Dragon Anywhere Mobile sunsets in 2026. The honest offline-vs-cloud choice, and the real free alternatives.
Dictation without internet: what actually works
Windows Voice Typing and Wispr Flow stop cold without a connection. Which tools keep working on a plane, a train or a locked-down network — plus the offline-ready checklist.
How to dictate in Notion and Gmail
Notion's voice input only talks to its AI, and Gmail has no dictation button. What a Chrome extension really does with your voice, versus a system-level tool that works in every app.
Dictation apps without an account
Wispr Flow, Willow and Aqua Voice all gate dictation behind a sign-up — even the "private" ones. Why accounts exist, what they cost you, and the honest no-account options.
Can AI clean up dictation without the cloud?
Wispr Flow formats your text on its servers, and even "local" apps route cleanup through OpenAI. What a quantized local LLM can — and can't — do on the same GPU as the transcription.
Voice typing in Discord chat: a gamer's guide
Discord has no built-in dictation and Windows Voice Typing needs the cloud. How to dictate Discord chat, LFG posts and stream titles with the GPU already in your rig.
Why Otter.ai gets blocked by company IT
Several universities officially ban cloud transcription tools, and Otter faces a federal lawsuit. What IT reviews before approving dictation software — and why local narrows the review.
ADHD and writing: start before you stall
Typing can feel like writing a report; talking doesn't. Why dictation lowers the friction of getting started, sourced from the community — with concrete brain-dump techniques.
Dictate your novel's first draft
Speech beats typing roughly 3× — and dictating fiction is a learnable skill. Spoken punctuation, dialogue, pacing, and why your manuscript shouldn't pass through a cloud server.
Introducing Inkvox
Tap a key, talk, and your words land in whatever app you're using — transcribed by Whisper on your own GPU, never in the cloud. Here's why we built it.
Nothing in this category yet — more soon.