Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.
Voice input errors on Samsung are mostly tied to the Samsung Keyboard or the Galaxy Wearable app, not to Android in general. There are 3 common cases: recognition does not start for your native language, it disappears after a keyboard update, or the microphone button on Galaxy Watch does not respond because the connection to the phone is lost. Potok (potok.now) does not fit these cases: it has no Android app.
For Samsung owners, voice input usually means the Samsung Keyboard, not Gboard, and the errors here are their own: recognition does not turn on for the native language, it disappears after a firmware update, or the microphone button on Galaxy Watch does not respond to a press. Three cases come up more often than the rest.
Where the problems in this topic come from
The first common cause is the native language setting. In the Samsung keyboard you can set several input languages, and one of them is marked as the main one; if voice input is set up only for the main language and you try to dictate in another, recognition may simply not start, although the keyboard types normally.
The second cause is updates. After an update of the Samsung keyboard or of the whole phone firmware, voice input settings are sometimes reset together with the microphone permission, and a feature that worked yesterday stops responding for no visible reason. Check this first, before looking for a more complicated breakdown.
The third cause is the connection with Galaxy Watch. Voice input on the watch works only through the connection to the smartphone: if Bluetooth is broken or the Galaxy Wearable app is not synchronized, the microphone button on the watch does not respond to a press, although the watch itself looks connected.
The fourth cause is confusion between keyboards: if besides the Samsung Keyboard the phone also has Gboard installed, voice input may start in a keyboard other than the one you expect and look broken, although in fact a different program is active.
All articles in this section (3): potok.now/oshibki/samsung
When the program is not the problem
Sometimes the cause is not the keyboard but the input field itself: into some protected fields, such as passwords and certain banking forms, voice text is not inserted by any program, and this is a limit of the field, not a recognition failure. Potok (potok.now) is not an option for Samsung devices either: it has no Android app, only for a computer (Windows, macOS, Linux). Potok is a cloud service, recognition runs on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet; for a smartphone you need the system voice input or a third-party Android program such as Talkpad.
Breakdowns of individual errors
- voice input on the Samsung keyboard does not work for the native language: recognition is set up only for the main keyboard language.
- Samsung keyboard voice input stopped working after an update: an update can reset the microphone permission together with the other settings.
- voice input on Galaxy Watch does not respond to a microphone press: without a stable connection to the phone through Galaxy Wearable the button does not work.
Frequently asked questions
In the Samsung keyboard you can set several input languages, but one of them is treated as the main one for speech recognition. If you try to dictate in a second, non-main language, the feature may not start at all, although the keyboard itself types in that language without problems.
First check the simpler things about the connection: whether Bluetooth is on, whether the watch is connected to the phone and whether the Galaxy Wearable app has been closed in the background. Reinstalling helps only if these three are fine and the button still does not respond.
Homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently) are a known limit of any ASR: the model picks the most likely variant from the context of the phrase and can be wrong without enough context; a personal dictionary and spelling a word out letter by letter reduce the frequency of such errors for specific terms.
Yes: speech recognition models are trained on a certain corpus of voices, and a noticeable regional or foreign accent can reduce accuracy if it is poorly represented in the training data of a particular model.
In some systems, yes, thanks to adaptation to a personal dictionary and the terms a user often says; in others the system is static and does not adapt to a specific person without manual dictionary setup.
Potok states about 900 characters per minute by voice versus about 200 when typing, roughly 4 times faster. This is the product's own estimate, not an independent measurement.
Try it on your own texts
Download Potok for Windows, macOS or Linux: full access for the first 14 days, no card needed. After that, 2500 words per week for free or Pro for 690 ₽ per month. Potok is a cloud service: speech is recognized on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokA voice message from a messenger or a call recording can be forwarded to the bot @potok_now_bot, and it sends back the text. The bot is part of the same subscription as the Potok app.
Related software: terms compared
| Service | Platforms | Free | Price | Payment from Russia | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed | Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly | Russian bank cards, rubles | cloud, servers in Russia; internet required |
| SpeakFlow | Windows, Web | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 690 ₽/mo (Personal (unlimited)) | rubles directly | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| Diktuy | Windows, macOS | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 239 ₽/mo (Profi (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)); 2870 ₽/yr (Profi (year, billed in full)); 479 ₽/mo (Max (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)) | rubles directly (not confirmed) | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| Talkpad | macOS, Windows, Android | 2500 words/week on desktop, 1500 words/week on mobile, free forever; plus a 14-day Pro trial | $6/mo (Pro (billed yearly, $72/yr)); $8/mo (Pro (monthly billing)) | unknown (not confirmed) | cloud (the legal entity is registered in Australia; the website is hosted on Cloudflare; the exact location of the ASR servers is not disclosed in the privacy policy) (not confirmed) |
| Voisty | Windows, macOS | 5 minutes of transcription (to judge the quality) | $6.7/mo (Pro); $67/yr (Pro (year)); $99/one-time (Lifetime) | Visa/Mastercard/Amex cards, PayPal; whether Russian cards are accepted is not stated (not confirmed) | device (offline, local models such as Whisper Large V3 Turbo / NVIDIA Parakeet) |
| WhispeRu | Windows | 7-day free trial (no card) | 290 ₽/mo (monthly license); 1990 ₽/yr (yearly license); 4990 ₽/one-time (lifetime license) | rubles directly (payment via YooKassa) | device (offline) |
| GigaType | Windows, macOS | free with no limits: open source under the MIT license (Copyright (c) 2026 Disrupt Builders), all features are available without payment | — | not needed: there are no paid plans | device (offline, Sber's GigaAM neural network) |
| Molvi | Windows, macOS | free forever, no accounts and no payment | — | not needed: the product is free; voluntary donations are accepted via Telegram Tribute or by card on the website, amounts are not fixed | device (offline; best quality on an NVIDIA GPU, otherwise a fast model on the CPU) |
Built-in dictation and Potok
| Tool | Where it works | Russian language | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows voice typing (Win+H) | Windows 10 and 11 | Windows 11 only | Microsoft cloud, does not work offline |
| macOS Dictation | macOS | yes | on the device or on Apple servers |
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | primary language | cloud, servers in Russia, does not work offline |
Primary sources: speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · blog.speakflow.ru