Does anyone else use Dragon NaturallySpeaking?

@Adagio I’ve never used it, but often thought about it, does it work fairly well? What is the learning curve? Is it worth the money?

i used it for a while. i was not really impressed.
in fact, i found the vista inbuilt speech recognition solution more accurate and useful.

I bought it twice in the last 15 years or so. Never worked well for me.

@Adagio welcome to fluther. Lurve.

Just purchased version 10 and it’s amazingly accurate. I use it for dictation as well as general navigation of my computer. It’s fast and intuitive.

@evelyns_pet_zebra the learning curve is virtually non-existent. There’s a very short and easy 5 minute training session (for the software). It prompts you to read text, you read it, it calibrates itself. There are also tutorials to walk through to learn the basic commands, but most are very obvious and simple natural language commands.

For instance… From a bare desktop I can do the following:

(all spoken)
-Start Firefox (my browser of choice)
-Click Fluther (I have it as a bookmark button on my toolbar)
-Pagedown (to scroll down the Fluther front page and find this post)
-Does anyone else use Dragon NaturallySpeaking (this will click to this post)

Viola! I’m looking at this discussion! Easy as can be! And no hands.

Dictation is equally easy. Speak what you want. Need to delete something? Simply say “Select the-text-that-I-want” and then say “scratch that…”. Easy and casual.

Would I recommend it? Yes. @Quagmire I think that it’s come a long, LONG way in those years. I used to feel the same way you did. I used to spend more time correcting my work than composing my work. That’s no longer the case.

TIP: Use a good microphone (headset or otherwise). I’ve tried out several. What seems to work best is a USB input with a microphone that is positioned directly in front of your mouth. The included headsets are often some of the better performing ones, but I’ve swapped them out in order to try out the field. Stick with the one in the box, or go with my recommendation if you look for a new one.

Our radiologist at work uses it to dictate – I think he’s pretty happy with it.

Then it has come a long way. I know Radiologists use voice dictation these days.

I remember buying it years ago and it stunk. Then, a few years later, I saw it in the store and figured it would be better but it wasn’t.

Don’t you need an absolutely quiet environment?

@Quagmire while having a dead-silent environment would always help – much as it would when simply talking on the phone or, dare I say it, having a face-to-face conversation – it’s absolutely not necessary, especially given today’s noise canceling microphones. Likewise, you don’t need a BBC voice (or American Midwest Newscaster voice) either. It has indeed evolved well – I’d give it another try! You might just like it now!

I WILL look into it. Thanks!

Are we talking about PREFERRED or STANDARD?

Are you using the mic that comes with it or did you buy a better one?

I have been using the Dragon version 9 exclusively for 18 months. It is an absolute necessity for me and while it took some time to get my head around I have found that it has been completely wonderful, enabling me to do everything I need to do on the computer. Previously I had briefly tried version 6 and found it difficult but then again that might have been because I did not actually need to use it at that stage as I could still use my hands and so I never made a point of learning the system. For me personally, using Dragon has been like opening a window that had been closed, it has opened up the world to me again. (I’m not sure how to address people individually as some of you have by writing @adagio etc). I do find that the environment needs to be pretty quiet but you are right relax, when you say that you don’t need a BBC voice. Each user trains Dragon individually so the system recognizes individual voices.

@Quagmire – I use “standard”, and though I’ve tried out several mid-priced headsets for comfort, I haven’t actually found one that works better than the one in the box. I’m sure that one of the more pricey ($100+) headsets would show an improvement, but I must confess that though the included headset seems “basic”, it’s actually quite good.

The key, in my opinion, is the close proximity of the mic to the mouth. I tried some with more “cheek”-located mics and they weren’t nearly as good. Accuracy was fine, but there was delay as the software crunched away trying to analyze what I said. In the end it typically got it correct, but only after much thought.

@ralex I agree with you, microphone positioning seems to me the most critical aspect of successful use of the Dragon. I am also using the headset provided with the Dragon software, but with one major alteration. Because I am unable to use my hands and therefore remove the headset when it gets uncomfortable, I wear the headset around my neck, if that makes sense. Let me explain: the plastic collar sits at the front of my neck, at the very top of my chest, with the headset on the left-hand side. The microphone arm is raised or lowered and the microphone moved in closer or further from my mouth as need be, to position it correctly. I find this method between 80–100% successful depending on…. I’m not entirely sure what success is dependent upon but it is pretty good most of the time. I learnt this method from the person who set the system up for me and taught me to master the Dragon. As you will know though, the Dragon can be enormously wilful at times!

i use a soundmax hd stereo microphone attached to the top of my monitor. When i used it with vista’s inbuilt voice recognition engine it worked flawlessly, even from a metre away.
with dragon, it was horrible.

@ragingloli : I’ve thought of using a microphone fixed to a long flexible goose neck but because I am not always in exactly the same position it seemed preferable to fix the microphone in a position that would not change even when I change my position slightly. By the way what is Vista Inbuilt Voice Recognition? Did you get it by purchasing software? By the way, I am not particularly technically savvy. I know what I need to know and that is all.

it comes preintegrated with any version of vista and is free but you need to activate the function first in the control panel

here is an article

@ragingloli thanks for that, I will have a look tomorrow when I get a chance. Ciao

Yeah, @ragingloli, thanks for that.

So now the obvious question: Do you need Dragon Speak if you have Vista?

January 2015 update: I’m now using the most recent version of Dragon Naturally Speaking and love it, The Dragon does have a will of its own though, dammit!