Every fraction of a second between speaking and seeing text is time your brain waits instead of thinks. Cloud dictation adds network round-trips, upload time, and server queues. On-device skips all of that.
BYOK cleanup
60ms RTT · 5 Mbps up
Cloud dictation
Upload audio → cloud STT
Voice Type
Local STT → LLM rewrite
Audio stays on your Mac. Only text goes to your LLM.
Voice Type is 11s faster (80% less wait)
Calculation details
• Cloud audio: 128 kbps, STT ~50× real-time
• On-device: ~1.2s finalize on M1 Pro
• LLM: Cerebras ~1000 tokens/sec
• Speech: ~225 wpm (fast talker)
The bottom line
Cloud dictation depends on your network. Fast fiber? Fine. Café Wi-Fi? Noticeable lag. Airplane? Doesn't work.
On-device takes ~1-2 seconds to finalize, regardless of network. Same speed in your office or at 35,000 feet.
Voice Type processes everything on your Mac. No upload, no waiting.
Try the free 7-day trial