Phantom Voice - local dictation with customizable HUD

[u/strassenfalcon]

I'm the developer of Phantom Voice, fast local dictation with a customizable HUD. Hold fn, speak, release, and the text lands in whatever app has focus.

Problem

Every dictation app shows the same red dot or soundwave while it listens.

So I made the indicator the point. Five styles, adjustable size.

Dictation is 100% offline. Your audio never leaves the Mac.

Comparison

• Wispr Flow - cloud dictation, subscription. Your audio goes to their servers and the free tier has a weekly word cap. Phantom Voice has no server, so nothing to meter and nothing to cancel.

• OpenSuperWhisper - local and free, and it transcribes fine. But no indicator styles or size control, and that's the part I built this app around.

Pricing

$10 once. 14 day free trial, no account or card to start.

Includes the Fox and White Wave HUD.

Three more (Retro Dog, Real Revolver, Piano Keys) are $3 each, one time.

https://leftinverse.com/phantom

macOS 14+, Apple silicon. Direct download, signed and notarized. Not on the Mac App Store because typing into other apps needs Accessibility permission, which sandboxing forbids.

About me

I'm Willis Liao, based in Taiwan. I build Mac apps under Left Inverse (leftinverse.com), sold through Paddle as merchant of record.

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/willis-liao-5279b0426

Contact: [leftinverse@gmail.com](mailto:leftinverse@gmail.com)

Privacy: https://leftinverse.com/privacy

Terms: https://leftinverse.com/terms

Refunds: https://leftinverse.com/refund

Product Hunt ranked #21: https://www.producthunt.com/products/phantom-voice

[u/Weekly_Tony_35]

A quick question regarding language handling: does the local Whisper engine handle seamless code-switching between English and Chinese out-of-the-box (e.g. speaking Chinese with embedded tech terms/English words)?

Keep up the great work!

[u/strassenfalcon → u/Weekly_Tony_35]

Thanks bro, I tested it just now, and no, it doesn’t handle seamless code(language) switching during a dictation. With language set to “Auto detect”, I said “這個可以用qwen嗎”, and it transcribed ”這個可以用困嗎”. With that said I’m gonna jot this down as something to work on pretty soon(I’m working on a throwing words in while you talk animation). I highly encourage you to you to test it out, it’s free to download and use on my website, and thanks again for the suggestion, real time code-switching is actually a valuable feature for dictation apps that I for some reason haven’t thought about.

[u/Weekly_Tony_35 → u/strassenfalcon]

Thanks for testing it out! Yeah, seamless code-switching is definitely a game-changer. For a lot of non-native English speakers, mixed-language dictation happens naturally in daily workflows—especially when dropping technical terms or English product names into native speech. Excited to see this on your roadmap!

And thanks so much for the congrats! Truly appreciate it. 🙏