Web Speech API brings voice dictation and text-to-speech to PWAs with caveats

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A developer has added voice input and audio playback to FieldKit, a field-notes progressive web app, using the browser-native Web Speech API. The SpeechSynthesis feature, which reads notes aloud, is broadly supported across major browsers and works offline, while SpeechRecognition is well-supported only in Chromium-based browsers and Safari, with Firefox offering no practical support. Implementing text-to-speech requires just a few lines of code, while speech-to-text needs vendor-prefix normalisation and careful configuration to stream words in real time as the user speaks. A key privacy concern is that Chrome sends audio to a cloud service for recognition processing, whereas Safari can perform on-device recognition after the user grants permission and installs the relevant language pack. The developer emphasises that apps handling potentially sensitive content must clearly disclose this cloud-processing behaviour to users rather than burying it in fine print.

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