I have dystonia which often stiffens my arms in a way that makes it impossible for me to type on a keyboard. TTS apps like SuperWhisper have proven to be very helpful for me in such situations. I am hoping to get a similar experience out of "Handy" (very apt maming from my perspective).
I do, however, wonder if there is a way all these TTS tools can get to the next level. The generated text should not be just a verbatim copy of what I just said, but depending on the context, it should elaborate. For example, if my cursor is actively inside an editor/IDE with some code, my coding-related verbal prompts should actually generate the right/desired code in that IDE.
Perhaps this is a bit of combining TTS with computer-use.
I use it all the time with coding agents, especially if I'm running multiple terminals. It's way faster to talk than type. The only problem is that it looks awkward if there are others around.
Part of my job is to give feedback to people using Word Comments. Using STT, it's been a breeze. The time saving really is great. Thing is, I only do this when working at home with no one around. So really only when WFH.
This looks great! What’s missing for me to switch from something like Wispr Flow is the ability to provide a dictionary for commonly mistaken words (name of your company, people, code libraries).
I dig that some models have an ability to say how sure they are of words. Manually entering a bunch of special words is ok, but I want to be able to review the output and see what words the model was less sure of, so I can go find out what I might need to add.
I just set this up today. I had Whispering app set up on my Windows computer, but it really wasn't working well on my Ubuntu computer that I just set up. I found Handy randomly. It was the last app I needed to go Linux full-time. Thank you!
On a M4 Macbook Air, there was enough lag to make it unusable for me. I hit the shortcut and start speaking but there was always a 1-2sec delay before it would actually start transcribing even if the icon was displayed.
Curious if you were using AirPods or other Bluetooth headphones for this?
If so, there should be "keep microphone on" or similar setting in the config that may help with this, alternatively, I set my microphone to my MacBook mic so that my headphones aren't involved at all and there is much less latency on activation
Which one? I did a quick search but that didn't turn up anything so perhaps it's a partial word overlap or something.
I did find the projects "user-facing" home page [1] which was nice. I found it rather hard to find a link from that to the code on GitHub, which was surprising.
Ah, that was a typo: you meant "GPU" (Graphics Processing Unit, not "GUI" which of course is Graphical User Interface) since that is listed in the system requirements. Explained implicitly by an existing comment, thanks!
I hear a CLI request? Tons of CLI speech-to-text tools by the way, really glad to see this. Excellent competitors (Superwhisper, MacWhisper, etc.) are closed/paid.
I do, however, wonder if there is a way all these TTS tools can get to the next level. The generated text should not be just a verbatim copy of what I just said, but depending on the context, it should elaborate. For example, if my cursor is actively inside an editor/IDE with some code, my coding-related verbal prompts should actually generate the right/desired code in that IDE.
Perhaps this is a bit of combining TTS with computer-use.
How have your computing habits changed as a result of having this? When do you typically use this instead of typing on the keyboard?
Handy first release was June 2025, OpenWhispr a month later. Handy has ~11k GitHub stars, OpenWhispr has ~730.
If so, there should be "keep microphone on" or similar setting in the config that may help with this, alternatively, I set my microphone to my MacBook mic so that my headphones aren't involved at all and there is much less latency on activation
I did find the projects "user-facing" home page [1] which was nice. I found it rather hard to find a link from that to the code on GitHub, which was surprising.
[1]: https://handy.computer/