Push-to-Talk at the Desk: A Cheaper Route Into Dictation

You want to stop typing prompts, and you have a room to yourself.

Where the time actually goes

Dictation is the obvious answer to slow prompting, and the usual objection — that speaking aloud disturbs people — does not apply if there is nobody to disturb. In that case paying extra for a handheld device makes no sense.

How the Voice Pad changes it

The Voice Pad puts the microphone in the pad itself. You hold the dictation key, speak at normal volume, and release; the transcription is typed into the focused window. The remaining keys are ordinary programmable macro keys.

Where it sits in a real workflow

It stays flat on the desk and never moves. Hold, speak, release, read, accept. Because the mic is a metre away rather than at your lips you have to project a little, which is fine alone and wrong in an open-plan office.

Doing the arithmetic yourself

Same calculation as any dictation device: prompts per day, times seconds typed minus seconds spoken.

Who gains most from the Voice Pad?

People with a private room. If you share space, the Whisper Key is the one that works, and the two overlap enough that you should not buy both.

The first twenty minutes

Connect, check dictation is enabled, map the other keys.

A note on the photography

The image above is a placeholder. We have not yet obtained a photograph of this exact unit that we are confident is accurate, and we would rather say so than quietly show you something else.

Related

Voice Pad, $89 — full specification, frequently asked questions and what to know before buying. Or look at the Whisper Key, which solves a neighbouring problem.

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