New in version 0.2.5
Cancel dictation while you are still speaking: the keyboard X now shows during Listening. Leaving a field mid-dictation saves the transcript to History instead of losing it, and failures say what went wrong and offer Retry. Pick a maximum recording length from 1 to 10 minutes (5 by default). Model downloads resume after a dropped connection. Also new: long-press space to switch keyboards, a setting to turn off auto-capitalization, and Traditional Chinese for Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Speak into your phone and the text shows up where you are already typing. VocaPhone is a system keyboard: switch to it in any app, dictate, and the transcript is inserted at your cursor through Android's normal input method interface.
Transcription never touches a cloud speech service. It runs either on your own device or on a machine you already own and administer via a self-hosted gateway. There are no accounts, no analytics SDK, and no subscription. The Play build offers optional anonymous usage reporting, off unless you turn it on, reporting to a server the developers self-host; it never includes your speech, your text, or your gateway address. The F-Droid build has it compiled out entirely.
Two ways to transcribe
- On device. Download a Whisper model once and dictate with no network at all. The speech engine is whisper.cpp, compiled from source as part of the app. Models range from a few tens of megabytes to several gigabytes, and the app recommends one that fits your phone's memory. Where available, the catalog also includes sherpa-onnx models such as Parakeet.
- Through your own gateway. Point the app at VocaGateway running on your Mac, Linux desktop, or home server, and that machine does the work. This is the faster option for large models and lets a phone use hardware it does not have.
You choose the network path to your gateway: a trusted LAN, a private Tailscale network, or HTTPS behind your own reverse proxy. Access uses bearer tokens issued per device, which you can name and revoke individually, and pairing can be done by scanning a QR code.
Dictation
- 54 selectable languages plus automatic detection: English, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, Greek, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Catalan, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Swahili, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Malay and Filipino, along with Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Urdu, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Assamese and Nepali
- Four writing styles: Formal, Casual, Very Casual and Excited, with punctuation that follows the script rather than assuming a Latin full stop
- Start, finish, cancel, retry and undo, all from the keyboard
- Automatic microphone routing, or pick an input explicitly, with the microphone in use shown in the app
- Bluetooth headset microphones are supported
Permissions
The keyboard writes through InputConnection and never reads the contents of the field you are typing into. Camera access is requested only when you tap "Scan QR" to pair with a gateway, and the microphone is used only while a dictation is running, with a foreground service notification for the duration.
About this build
The build distributed here is compiled entirely from source. It leaves out the optional sherpa-onnx speech engine, which upstream ships as a prebuilt binary library, so on-device transcription uses the Whisper model catalog. Gateway transcription is unaffected and can use any engine your gateway supports. On supported builds, sherpa-onnx models such as Parakeet are available alongside Whisper.
VocaPhone is part of the Voca family alongside VocaLinux and VocaMac. Report issues on the GitHub issue tracker.
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Versions
Although APK downloads are available below to give you the choice, you should be aware that by installing that way you will not receive update notifications and it's a less secure way to download. We recommend that you install the F-Droid client and use that.
Download F-Droid
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arm64-v8a
armeabi-v7a
x86_64
This version requires Android 13 or newer.
It is built and signed by the original developer, and guaranteed to correspond to this source tarball.
Permissions
-
view network connections
Allows the app to view information about network connections such as which networks exist and are connected.
-
take pictures and videos
This app can take pictures and record videos using the camera while the app is in use.
-
run foreground service
Allows the app to make use of foreground services.
-
run foreground service with the type "dataSync"
Allows the app to make use of foreground services with the type "dataSync"
-
run foreground service with the type "microphone"
Allows the app to make use of foreground services with the type "microphone"
-
have full network access
Allows the app to create network sockets and use custom network protocols. The browser and other applications provide means to send data to the internet, so this permission is not required to send data to the internet.
-
change your audio settings
Allows the app to modify global audio settings such as volume and which speaker is used for output.
-
show notifications
Allows the app to show notifications
-
run at startup
Allows the app to have itself started as soon as the system has finished booting. This can make it take longer to start the phone and allow the app to slow down the overall phone by always running.
-
record audio
This app can record audio using the microphone while the app is in use.
-
control vibration
Allows the app to control the vibrator.
-
prevent phone from sleeping
Allows the app to prevent the phone from going to sleep.
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com.vocahq.vocaphone.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION
Download APK
18 MiB
PGP Signature
|
Build Log
New in version 0.2.4
Dictation no longer swallows a half-typed word, and names like "Sarah" or "Paris" keep their capitals in every style. On-device models finish faster: Sherpa decodes at pauses while you speak, Fast and Accurate stream again, and Whisper skips slow efficiency cores. Cancelling an on-device transcription is instant and discards the audio. A mic tap that cannot start the microphone now says so, and VocaPhoneX's bubble costs less while you type.
-
arm64-v8a
armeabi-v7a
x86_64
This version requires Android 13 or newer.
It is built and signed by the original developer, and guaranteed to correspond to this source tarball.
Permissions
-
view network connections
Allows the app to view information about network connections such as which networks exist and are connected.
-
take pictures and videos
This app can take pictures and record videos using the camera while the app is in use.
-
run foreground service
Allows the app to make use of foreground services.
-
run foreground service with the type "dataSync"
Allows the app to make use of foreground services with the type "dataSync"
-
run foreground service with the type "microphone"
Allows the app to make use of foreground services with the type "microphone"
-
have full network access
Allows the app to create network sockets and use custom network protocols. The browser and other applications provide means to send data to the internet, so this permission is not required to send data to the internet.
-
change your audio settings
Allows the app to modify global audio settings such as volume and which speaker is used for output.
-
show notifications
Allows the app to show notifications
-
run at startup
Allows the app to have itself started as soon as the system has finished booting. This can make it take longer to start the phone and allow the app to slow down the overall phone by always running.
-
record audio
This app can record audio using the microphone while the app is in use.
-
control vibration
Allows the app to control the vibrator.
-
prevent phone from sleeping
Allows the app to prevent the phone from going to sleep.
-
com.vocahq.vocaphone.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION
Download APK
18 MiB
PGP Signature
|
Build Log
New in version 0.2.2
Android 13 keyboard setup now recognizes VocaPhone. Dictated corrections keep spaces around neighboring words. Automatic microphone routing uses the phone mic with Bluetooth connected; select Bluetooth explicitly for its mic. Dictation notifications clear when capture ends or startup needs repair. Long Whisper recordings preserve speech across 30-second windows. Model loading, setup, and custom words are improved; the catalog adds Qwen3-ASR and Omnilingual.
-
arm64-v8a
armeabi-v7a
x86_64
This version requires Android 13 or newer.
It is built and signed by the original developer, and guaranteed to correspond to this source tarball.
Permissions
-
view network connections
Allows the app to view information about network connections such as which networks exist and are connected.
-
take pictures and videos
This app can take pictures and record videos using the camera while the app is in use.
-
run foreground service
Allows the app to make use of foreground services.
-
run foreground service with the type "dataSync"
Allows the app to make use of foreground services with the type "dataSync"
-
run foreground service with the type "microphone"
Allows the app to make use of foreground services with the type "microphone"
-
have full network access
Allows the app to create network sockets and use custom network protocols. The browser and other applications provide means to send data to the internet, so this permission is not required to send data to the internet.
-
change your audio settings
Allows the app to modify global audio settings such as volume and which speaker is used for output.
-
show notifications
Allows the app to show notifications
-
run at startup
Allows the app to have itself started as soon as the system has finished booting. This can make it take longer to start the phone and allow the app to slow down the overall phone by always running.
-
record audio
This app can record audio using the microphone while the app is in use.
-
control vibration
Allows the app to control the vibrator.
-
prevent phone from sleeping
Allows the app to prevent the phone from going to sleep.
-
com.vocahq.vocaphone.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION
Download APK
18 MiB
PGP Signature
|
Build Log
