Frequently asked questions
Short answers about dicto, the speech display for iPhone and iPad. Where there is more to read, the answer links to it.
What is a speech display?
A speech display shows input words as large, clear text on a screen as they are said. The focus is on displaying a conversation as it would be normally spoken, but as text.
Who is a speech display for?
A speech display is used when noise, distance, or hearing loss gets in the way of a person communicating, so they can read along instead of straining to hear.
How does this relate to dicto?
dicto is a speech display for iPhone and iPad: the person speaking holds the device or sets it on the table and talks at an ordinary level, and their words appear in big text, in colors the reader chooses. It is built for the hearing side of a conversation with someone who has acquired or age-related hearing loss and reads fluently.
Who holds the device, the speaker or the listener?
The speaker. dicto is the family member's, carer's, or receptionist's tool: they talk, the person with hearing loss reads. The reader does not need to do anything, learn anything, or own anything. See the User Guide for the controls.
Can I use dicto without speaking?
Yes. Keyboard mode lets you type a message, or paste any text, and show it on the screen at full size in your chosen colors. People use it to show a message across a counter, to read small print at a size that works for them, and in rooms too loud for dictation to be reliable. See Typing in the User Guide.
Does my parent or the resident need to learn anything?
No. They read the screen. Setup is two questions on first launch, the spoken language and a color scheme, and after that the screen has two buttons: one to speak, one to type. See Getting Started. See also dicto for families.
What is Solo?
Solo is dicto's hands-free mode for one voice. You enroll a voice by holding the microphone button and speaking for a few seconds; after that, Solo uses voice-isolation technology to help dicto focus on that enrolled voice, so you can talk without holding the device. Speech that does not match the enrolled voice is not shown and is never transcribed. The enrollment is a small set of numbers held in memory for the session and gone when it ends. Details are in the User Guide.
Can dicto show several people talking at once?
No. dicto shows one speaker at a time, and Solo focuses on one enrolled voice. For a group, pass the device to whoever is speaking, or use one device per speaker. See Solo in the User Guide.
Hearing aids, captions, and other tools
Does dicto replace hearing aids?
No. dicto covers the gaps around them: the device that is out or charging, the first days after a sudden change in hearing, the appointment where the explanation has to be understood, the restaurant that is too loud. Audiologists appreciate it for exactly those moments.
How is dicto different from Live Captions or a transcription app?
Live Captions and most transcription apps are built for the person who cannot hear, running on their own device and captioning whatever audio is around them. dicto is built for the other side of the conversation: the person speaking holds it, and the words are displayed rather than merely shown, at sizes that fill the screen, in high contrast, in color combinations the reader chooses, for someone reading at arm's length, or across a table. Nothing is recorded or kept. It is a speech display rather than a transcript.
Is dicto for Deaf people who sign?
dicto is designed for spoken conversations with people who have acquired or age-related hearing loss and read fluently. It is not a replacement for sign language or for an interpreter. For someone who signs and also reads, it can fill the gaps when an interpreter is not immediately available: the front desk, the quick question on a ward round, the minutes before the booked interpreter arrives.
How accurate is it?
Speech recognition comes from Apple's engine, the same one behind dictation on your device, and it is not perfect. Accents, background noise, uncommon names, very short phrases, and people talking over each other can be misheard. Speaking clearly at a comfortable pace, and choosing the Speaking pace setting that matches the speaker, gives the best results. See Speaking & Dictation.
Privacy
Is anything recorded, stored, or sent anywhere?
No. dicto has no server, no account, no cloud, no analytics, and no ads. Messages stay on screen until the app closes, then they are gone. Speech is processed on the device. Full details are in the Privacy Policy.
What about GDPR and HIPAA?
Because no personal data reaches BHB Technologies, there is no data transfer to assess and no data processing agreement to sign. Under HIPAA, dicto is not a business associate, because it never receives information. The institutions page answers the procurement questionnaire point by point.
Is dicto a medical device?
No. dicto is a general communication tool. It does not diagnose, treat, or monitor any condition and is not subject to medical device regulation. See the procurement review, answered.
Languages and working offline
Which languages does dicto speak and show?
The interface is translated into 14 languages, and speech recognition covers more than 50 languages and dialects through Apple's dictation. You can speak one language and run the interface in another. See the dictation languages and interface languages lists.
Does dicto work offline?
Yes. Typing works fully offline. Dictation runs on the device, with no connection, for every dicto language except Hindi and Taiwanese Mandarin, which Apple transcribes under Apple's privacy policy. The User Guide shows the one-time check: enable dictation, download your language, then try dicto in Airplane Mode.
Which devices does it run on?
iPhone and iPad running iOS 17.6 or later, so most devices a family or a care home already owns. It is optimized for iPad. VoiceOver and Dynamic Type are fully supported, and every color scheme meets the WCAG AA contrast standard, AAA at the sizes dicto displays.
Buying for a home, a clinic, or a family
How much does dicto cost?
$0.99 in the United States, once, at the equivalent price in your country's App Store. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no account. dicto on the App Store.
Can a care home or clinic buy it for many devices?
Yes, today, without a contract. Organizations buy any quantity through Apple Business (Apps & Services) at the same listed price, with no minimum order and no IT integration, and deploy silently through MDM. Smaller organizations install from the App Store on each device. The step-by-step is on the institutions page. See also dicto for care staff.
Can I try it before recommending it?
dicto is $0.99 and takes a minute to try: install it, say a sentence, read it back. Professionals and organizations evaluating it for others can write to bizdev@bhbtechnologies.com.