BVoice

Local push-to-talk speech-to-text desktop app.
Hold a key, speak, release — the transcription is typed at your cursor.
Runs 100% offline using whisper.cpp.

Install

Grab the latest build from the Releases page.

Debian / Ubuntu — .deb:

sudo apt install ./BVoice_0.1.0_amd64.deb

Fedora / RHEL / openSUSE — .rpm:

sudo dnf install ./BVoice-0.1.0-1.x86_64.rpm

After install you'll find BVoice in your application menu. On first launch the selected whisper model (75–466 MB) downloads to `/.local/share/bvoice/models/`.

Features

• Push-to-talk trigger (default: Right-Alt), rebindable from the settings window
• Local transcription with whisper.cpp (tiny.en / base.en / small.en)
• Silero VAD trims silence before transcription
• FFT-based resampling (rubato) for high-quality 48 kHz → 16 kHz conversion
• Beam search (configurable size, default 5) or greedy decoding
• Live-applied settings for threshold, input device, and model swap — no restart
• Tray icon reflects state (idle / recording / transcribing) using the branded icon
• Single-instance enforcement; optional autostart on login
• Types output directly at the cursor — never touches your clipboard

Usage

1. Launch BVoice — a tray icon appears (no window by default).
2. Click the tray icon → Settings to configure model, hotkey, input device, beam size, and autostart.
3. Focus any text field (editor, terminal, browser, …).
4. Hold the trigger key for ≥ the arm threshold (default 1 s), speak, release.
5. The transcription is typed at the cursor.

Platform support

• Linux / X11 — primary target, tested on Ubuntu GNOME
• Wayland — not supported (global hotkeys and synthesized typing require compositor-specific portals)
• macOS / Windows — not yet ported

Configuration

Settings persist at ~/.config/bvoice/config.toml:

All fields are editable from the Settings window and persist on Save.

Build from source

Prerequisites

• Rust (stable) via rustup
• Node.js 20+ and npm
• Tauri CLI: cargo install tauri-cli --version '^2.0' --locked
• Linux system packages (Ubuntu/Debian):

  sudo apt install \
    libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libsoup-3.0-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev \
    libasound2-dev libxdo-dev libclang-dev libssl-dev libstdc++-12-dev \
    pkg-config build-essential
  

Run / build

npm install
npm run tauri dev          # development
npm run tauri build        # release bundles (.deb + .rpm)

Architecture

hotkey (rdev, X11 XRecord)  ─▶ state machine (arm-on-1s)
                                   │
                             armed ▼
                             audio::start   (cpal, dedicated thread)
                                   │
                          released ▼
                             audio::stop    (mono + rubato 16 kHz)
                                   │
                                   ▼
                             vad::trim_silence  (Silero VAD)
                                   │
                                   ▼
                             transcribe::transcribe  (whisper-rs, beam search)
                                   │
                                   ▼
                             inject::paste  (enigo — types at cursor)

License

MIT — see LICENSE.