In recent years, AI-powered dictation tools have surged in popularity. Alongside existing apps such as Wispr Flow, SuperWhisper, Willow, and Monologue, new offerings are debuting weekly. On Thursday, hardware company Nothing introduced its competitive product, Essential Voice.
Essential Voice functions similarly to other dictation apps, converting speech into formatted text and eliminating filler words like “um” and “ah.” Users can also create custom voice shortcuts for words, links, templates, and repetitive phrases, such as setting “my address” to autofill their complete address.
Currently, the feature is available on the Phone (3), with plans to roll it out on the Phone (4a) Pro later this month and support for Phone (4a) next month.
Essential’s tweet highlights how the average person types 36 words per minute on a phone but can speak four times faster, with Essential Voice converting speech into clear, ready-to-use writing.
To use the feature, users can press the Essential key on compatible devices or activate it from the keyboard. This is similar to Superwhisper’s recent release for iPhone users, allowing them to map the iPhone’s action key to the app’s keyboard for dictation.
Nothing’s tool can also translate text between languages, supporting over 100 languages at launch. Future updates will introduce app-based custom styling to adjust AI editing tones within categories like work and messaging.
Nothing stands out as one of the first companies to offer system-level dictation integration. However, following Google’s recent release of its offline dictation app, more companies may introduce similar tools in the future.