Most dictation apps are push-to-talk: you hold a hotkey, speak, release. That works for a sentence or two. But the moment you want to draft a whole email, write meeting notes, or think out loud for five minutes, holding a key the entire time is both awkward and limiting. Hovor on macOS has two hands-free modes that remove the key entirely.
Push-to-talk dictation requires holding a hotkey for the entire recording — press, speak, release — which suits a sentence or two but costs more over longer sessions: one hand stays occupied the whole time, RSI is aggravated by a held modifier key, and rushing through pauses to avoid "wasting" the press lowers transcription accuracy. Four specific problems show up in longer sessions:
Hands-free modes flip this around. You trigger recording once (by pressing the hotkey, clicking a menu bar button, or using a shortcut) and then put both hands in your lap and just talk.
Hovor for Mac has two hands-free dictation modes: auto-stop, which ends the recording automatically once you pause past a configurable silence threshold, and continuous, which keeps the microphone open indefinitely and inserts each spoken phrase as a separate formatted chunk. Both start with a single hotkey press or menu bar click, and both support Hovor's on-device Parakeet model.
You trigger recording once. Hovor listens, transcribes, and then, as soon as it detects that you have been silent for longer than the configured pause threshold, it stops automatically, runs the cleanup pass, and inserts the formatted text into whatever app was active. You never touch the keyboard again for that dictation.
This mode is ideal for:
Under the hood, Hovor uses end-of-utterance (EOU) detection to decide when you have stopped speaking. It is not a simple volume threshold: it accounts for brief mid-sentence pauses (like a natural breath) versus a genuine stop.
The microphone stays active indefinitely. Each time you pause long enough, Hovor treats that as the end of one phrase: it processes and inserts that chunk of text, then immediately resumes listening for the next phrase. You keep dictating. The text accumulates in the focused field as a series of cleanly formatted insertions.
This mode is designed for:
To stop continuous mode, you either press the hotkey again or click the menu bar button. Hovor does not cut off in the middle of a phrase: it completes the current utterance first, then stops.
A continuous session runs up to 31 minutes regardless of subscription tier, because it transcribes on-device via Parakeet rather than through the metered cloud path. A single cloud recording is capped at 2 minutes on the free tier and 31 minutes on Pro.
The Pause length slider, in Hovor's Settings → Dictation menu, sets how many seconds of silence end a phrase in either hands-free mode: a short setting cuts off quickly for snappy insertions, a longer one adds thinking time before triggering. There is no single correct value — it depends on speaking speed, language, and background noise.
| Pause setting | Effect | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Shorter pause | Ends the phrase and inserts text sooner | Fast speakers with few mid-thought pauses |
| Longer pause | Waits longer before ending the phrase | Thinking out loud, second-language dictation, noisy rooms (open office, café) |
The slider is in the Hovor menu bar app under Settings → Dictation → Pause length. Changes take effect immediately; you do not need to restart.
Parakeet v3 is NVIDIA's 0.6B-parameter speech model, trained on 25 European languages; on Mac it runs through Apple Neural Engine acceleration, so once the model is loaded, audio processing happens entirely on-device — no internet connection required, no audio sent to any server. If the model is still loading (after an app relaunch, or while it is still downloading), that recording falls back to server transcription. Both hands-free modes support it. On-device transcription already works on the free tier under the same weekly quota as cloud; the one-time Local Unlock ($49.99 / 1999 UAH) or Pro removes that cap. Hovor's cloud dictation stays free for 2,000 words/week, unlimited on Pro ($11.99/month or $89.99/year).
The privacy implication is straightforward: if you dictate a confidential document, sensitive notes, or anything you would not want sent to a third-party server, on-device mode keeps that recording on your hardware once the Parakeet model is loaded, processed locally and discarded after transcription. The one gap is the model-loading window itself — right after an app relaunch, or while the model is still downloading — when that recording still goes to the server.
On-device dictation (Parakeet) works on the free tier under the same weekly quota as cloud; the one-time Local Unlock ($49.99 / 1999 UAH, family-shareable) or Pro removes the cap. Cloud dictation via Hovor's server is included in the free tier (2000 words/week) and in Pro.
Push-to-talk suits short, precise snippets where you hold a key and release for full control; auto-stop suits one message or paragraph ended by silence detection; continuous suits long sessions ended by pressing the hotkey again. The table below compares trigger, end condition, and best use case across Hovor's three Mac recording modes.
| Mode | Trigger | How it ends | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Push-to-talk | Hold hotkey | Release hotkey | Short, precise snippets |
| Hands-free (auto-stop) | Press once | Silence detected | One message or paragraph, hands free |
| Hands-free (continuous) | Press once | Press again to stop | Long sessions, accessibility, writing flow |
Push-to-talk is not going away; it remains the fastest option for very short injections where you want total control. The hands-free modes are additive: you pick whichever fits the session.
Hands-free dictation on Mac serves four groups: writers drafting long-form content, people with RSI or motor limitations who cannot hold a key, professionals dictating in noisy or mobile settings, and non-English speakers using Parakeet's 25-language coverage, including Ukrainian, Polish, German, and French. Continuous mode plus on-device Parakeet remove both the physical hold and network round-trip latency for all four groups.
Writers. If you draft anything longer than a paragraph (blog posts, newsletters, reports), continuous mode lets you get into a flow state where the keyboard disappears entirely for the drafting phase. You edit later, with your hands; you compose with your voice.
People with RSI or motor limitations. Holding a key for twenty minutes is not neutral. Auto-stop and continuous modes remove that load completely. Combined with on-device Parakeet, there are no server round trips adding latency between your speech and the text appearing.
Professionals dictating in noisy or mobile contexts. A Bluetooth headset, continuous mode on, walking between meetings: Hovor handles the segmentation so you can stay focused on what you are saying, not on managing the recording.
Non-English speakers. Parakeet v3 has strong coverage for European languages including Ukrainian, Polish, German, French, and others. Hands-free continuous mode in your native language, processed on-device once the model is loaded, with server fallback only while it's still loading.
These features are available on macOS only in the current release. iOS dictation uses the standard tap-to-record flow through the Hovor keyboard.
No. Hovor's two hands-free modes on Mac start with a single hotkey press or menu bar click; after that you speak with both hands free. Auto-stop ends the recording automatically once you pause past the configured silence threshold. Continuous mode keeps the microphone open indefinitely, inserting each spoken phrase as a separate chunk until you press the hotkey again or click the menu bar button to stop. Only the classic push-to-talk mode still requires holding a key for the entire recording.
Auto-stop records once, then stops automatically and inserts text as soon as it detects silence past your configured pause threshold — suited to a single message or short paragraph. Continuous mode keeps listening indefinitely, treating each pause as the end of one phrase: it inserts that chunk, then immediately resumes listening for the next, so you can dictate an entire document without touching the keyboard between phrases. You stop continuous mode by pressing the hotkey again or clicking the menu bar button.
Only if the Parakeet model isn't loaded yet. Once it's loaded, all audio processing happens locally via Apple Neural Engine acceleration — no data is uploaded and no internet connection is required. But if the model is still loading — after an app relaunch, or while it is still downloading — that recording falls back to server transcription. On-device processing already works on the free tier under the same weekly quota as cloud; the one-time Local Unlock ($49.99 / 1999 UAH, family-shareable) or a Pro subscription removes that cap. Cloud dictation through Hovor's server needs an internet connection but is included free for 2,000 words/week, and unlimited on Pro ($11.99/month or $89.99/year).
On-device dictation via Parakeet already works on the free tier under the same weekly quota as cloud dictation. Removing that cap costs either the one-time Local Unlock ($49.99, or 1999 UAH, shareable across your Apple family group with no recurring fee) or a Pro subscription ($11.99/month or $89.99/year), which also adds 5-device sync.
Parakeet v3, the 0.6B-parameter NVIDIA speech model Hovor runs on-device on Mac, was trained on 25 European languages, including Ukrainian, Polish, German, and French. Both hands-free modes — auto-stop and continuous — use the same model and the same language set, so switching modes does not change which languages are supported.
Not yet. Auto-stop and continuous hands-free modes currently ship on macOS only, in the current Hovor release. On iOS, dictation uses the standard tap-to-record flow through the Hovor keyboard: tap to start, tap again to stop. There is no hands-free auto-stop or continuous mode on iOS at this time.
Download Hovor for macOS. Free tier includes cloud dictation (2000 words/week); Local Unlock adds unlimited on-device Parakeet (one-time, family-shareable).
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