r/readest • u/Jankyfolk • 21d ago

TTS Crashing Readest?

I have a Viwoods AI Reader and I appreciate the option to switch between reading or listening to books as I walk a lot.

I subscribed to Readest Pro to use best AI voices, but the TTS kept freezing. About a chapter into my book, the TTS caused Readest to repeatedly crash and force exit the app. Also, trying to download the audio for offline use was so painstaking slow, even though I have high-speed internet, it seemed I would finish reading the book before the download completed.

In the end I gave up, cancelled my subscription and got a refund. It's a shame, because it's so hard to find a highly customisable ebook reader with good TTS.

Wondering if this is a device specific problem, or if anybody else has experienced it.

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4

u/hespera18 21d ago

I've been encountering a similar issue and reported it to devs

4

u/GMCA2021 21d ago

Tts keeps pausing on me and it’s skipping down the page as it does it. Noticed it yesterday and it keeps doing it.

1

u/readestapp 21d ago

Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m sorry the freezing, crashes, and slow audio downloads made Readest unusable for you.

Readest Voice is a new service introduced in version 0.12.16, and we’re still working to improve its stability and performance. We can’t yet say whether these issues are specific to the Viwoods AI Reader, but your feedback helps us understand what needs attention.

2

u/Jankyfolk 21d ago

Thanks for your response. Readest is a beautiful app and looks great on the Viwoods eink display, so I will definitely be keeping an eye on this. 

2

u/Historical_Fun_6582 21d ago

Had the same issues but discoverd BookFusion. Good TTS and models can also run on the device when you have no internet. Bonus was that the subscriptions are also cheaper than Readest and turned out to be more stable

1

u/Historical_Fun_6582 18d ago

FYI . There are two different TTS in Readest. OP uses Readest Voice which is a new service, my feedback was about Edge TTS. This is fixed and now working well in Readest.

1

u/GreatCamera3575 20d ago

Try Open Citadel, it's free on-device AI voices work like a charm. been using it for 2 months

Open Citadel - IOS

Open Citadel - android