Bluetooth Headset Microphone for dictation.
I’ve been looking at getting a Bluetooth Headset microphone I can use while I’m walking to dictate into my iPhone. I already have wired microphones I can use including the marvellous Giant Squid clip-on microphone, but I’ve heard people having good success with Bluetooth microphones. You have the large over ear type of microphones like the Logitech H 600 and the H 800 and both of these are raised highly on the DragonDictate compatibility page. The H600 can be bought for around about €80 and I didn’t really want to spend that much. A number of people on the Dragon Authors Facebook have said they are getting good results with the cheap headsets. I had a look at a few and there were some available at around €15-€20. These are the sort that hang over one ear and have the microphone on a small boom extending out towards your mouth. I got one called the EX 01 and it’s kind of worked. I’ve decided to send back because it didn’t work well enough. I performed a number of tests on the Bluetooth Headset Microphone and compared it with my wired microphones by looking at the waveforms in an audio editor and also seeing how good it was for the dictation. It proved to be difficult to pair up with my iPhone as sometimes I thought I was recording with that microphone, but I wasn’t. The recording was going through the microphone on the iPhone itself. The way the small boom sticks out means that the microphone will rub against your skin while you are walking. This is not good as it introduces scratchy sounds which interfere with the dictation process. So that’s why it’s going back. I’m not sure if I would be tempted to dish out the €80 to get the expensive Logitech device.
GiantSquid or Samson microphone for dictating
I have a good microphone in the form of the Samson C03U which is a good quality USB condenser microphone (Samson C03U Multi-Pattern USB Studio Condenser Microphone
Setting up DragonDictate for Transcription
What you do is to click on the plus button and you see the dialog to name the profile. I used the name of the iPhone with the mic used –
When you Accept the text it moves on automatically to the next section. Do the same again. Rinse and Repeat until finished. When you have gone through all of the text you may click on the blue Train button to the right above the converted text. In the instructions it says not to add punctuation symbols but my audio had them in anyway and it has not been a problem.
Training the software while using your Bluetooth Headset Microphone will take a few minutes to complete. When it is finished you are ready to go. Choose the transcription profile you use most often to be the default. When the training is finished the converted text will pop up in TextEdit application ready for you to work with.
You will still need to edit that text if it is to be used in one of your documents.