Offline speech-to-text service on mobile

Question

My client's mobile network might not be good, so I want to integrate an offline speech-to-text SDK on mobile. Does Azure provide offline speech-to-text SDKs for iOS and Android?

Answer 1

@milker90 Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum, Thank you for posting your query here!

For using the Azure speech-to-text service offline, you can rely on the Azure Speech containers which can be deployed to a disconnected environment. Our documentation explains the process quite well:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/speech-container-howto#container-requirements-and-recommendations

Regarding the IOS and Android SDK, The Azure Speech containers are primarily designed for use in server or edge environments, and they require Docker to run. This setup is not directly compatible with Android or iOS devices because mobile platforms typically do not support running Docker containers natively. Given these limitations, running Azure Speech containers directly on Android or iOS devices is not feasible. Hope this helps.

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Answer 2

Hello milker90 ,

Thank you for reaching out on the Microsoft Q&A .

Unfortunately, Azure AI Speech currently does not support offline speech-to-text functionality in its mobile SDKs. However, you might consider exploring third-party SDKs that offer offline capabilities, such as Google Speech-to-Text API (with limited offline support), CMU PocketSphinx, or Vosk. Additionally, Microsoft offers limited access to embedded speech functionality, which might be relevant depending on your specific use case. You can explore this option further in the Microsoft Embedded Speech documentation. I hope this helps! If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.

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