Best Voice Recognition Software for 2017

There are countless reasons one might need voice recognition or dictation software. Maybe you are a terrible typist and want to be more efficient. Perhaps you’ve gotten so accustomed to using Siri that you want something similar on your desktop as well. Or could it be that the mafia broke you thumbs? Hey, you never know. Just be glad is was only you thumbs.

Whatever the case may be, you’re in luck because today there are several great options for voice recognition software—from fancy with bells and whistles to straightforward and easy to use. So let’s check out your options with today's top voice recognition and dictation software.

Might as well start with the industry leader, the fanciest of the fancy with the shiniest bells and loudest whistles. From the company Nuance comes Dragon Speech Recognition Software.

They offer a range of products—from the basic Home edition to the rather pricey Professional—so you’re welcome to see what features you may or may not need and what best fits your budget. But with all of the Dragon products you’ll still be getting some of the most accurate voice recognition out there.

In fact Nuance claims up to 99% speech recognition right out of the box. When speaking at a normal speed, the text will appear on screen almost instantly with minimal latency.  Features like a punctuation tool that automatically add commas and periods help dictation run smoothly. Of course there are commands to manually add punctuation: question marks, hyphens and dashes, exclamation points, etc.

Use it to open and close programs, switch between or minimize windows, edit and format documents, and more. You can even move the cursor around, hightlight text, bold, italicize. Really almost anything you would do with your mouse and keyboard you can do with you voice.

These are all features included in the most basic home addition, but if you go for the professional you’ll get Dragon’s most advanced features. Of these the coolest has to be the audio file transcriber. This feature uses the latest and greatest text-to-speech engine and automatically converts the speech contents of an audio file straight to text.

All the Dragon products are quality software from a top notch company, so if you want the best there is and are ready to lay down some cash, then look no further.

Next up is Tazti which is a less expensive competitor to the Dragon line. But of course with a lower price tag comes less features, so don’t expect to convert audio files here. Still, you can do all the basics of voice to speech: open files, run programs, navigate to a webpage, even play video games.

Tazti comes standard with more than 25 built in commands—things like closing a window or opening the calculator—and you can add up to a total of 300 custom commands. You can also download pre-built speech commands for popular programs and games. Check out this list if you’re interested in which ones (click on Games/Programs).

So with Tazti, you can really take full voice control of your PC. It has pretty good accuracy though not as good as Dragon. Still, most users find the accuracy acceptable for what you can do with the software.

The main complaint that users seem to have is the company’s lack of support; don’t expect much more than the FAQ section on their site. Bottom line, the reasonably price Tazti is a solid option, especially if your favorite game is on the list.

e-Speaking.com

Next up is e-Speaking, which is probably the most basic software on this list. E-Speaking seems like a pretty small company and I couldn’t even find a logo to put in the article. Still, it has the basic features and you can certainly get some stuff done with it.

The accuracy isn’t as good as its competitors and it lacks a voice training feature that is pretty much standard in voice recognition software. This means the software doesn’t adapt to your voice which certainly has an impact on accuracy.

Though e-Speaking does the job and has good support, there are better options on the market. The price is right though: 30 days free and then you’ll need a license to add, edit, or delete commands. This is a great option if you’re thinking about trying voice recognition software since you can download it for free.

Note that it doesn’t seem to be available on Windows 10 though, so there’s that.

Braina is a little different and defines itself as “an intelligent personal assistant, human language interface, automation and voice recognition software for Windows PC.” Interact with your PC using voice commands—perfect for those of you missing your girl Siri. Along with common features like dictation, opening programs, etc. Braina can also do things like play songs from your library, adjust volume, set alarms, and set and give reminders. Ask it what 2 + 2 is, it will tell you 4—amazing, I know. You can even teach it things that it will remember with its AI.

With Braina you can also use your Android device as a wireless microphone to control your computer, so you can control it remotely so long as both devices are connected to the same wifi. There is a limited free version and a paid version with all the features.

Braina also has quite good accuracy so feel free to download it and give it a whirl.

Honorable Mention

Cortana is Microsoft's answer to Siri and OK Google, and is available on Windows 10 desktop and Windows 10 phones (turns out that some people have those). Once it’s up and running on your system, just say “hey Cortana” and you ready to start giving commands.

Cortana is designed to be a digital assistant, but you can still use it to control your PC to a certain degree and you can dictate as well. It seems to be a bit buggy still, but I for one am not too surprised by that. Not sure how much it's going to really increase your productivity, but you can have some fun with it.

VoxCommando’s angle is that is lets you take control of your HTPC (Home Theater PC). “VoxCommando is able to achieve accurate speech recognition because it knows what media is in your library, so it knows what commands to listen for.”

Could be worth checking out if you happen to have an HTPC. It is currently priced at $40 Canadian dollars but you can try it for free before you commit.

That about does it. Voice recognition is a pretty cool technology that’s getting better each year. So whether you lost all your fingers in a tragic piranha tank incident or you just want to feel all futuristic like you’re on Star Trek, go ahead and give one of these a try and start yapping away at you computer today.