The short answer
A normal office, café or open-plan room is fine. Loud music, a TV right next to you or several people talking over you will lower accuracy. A headset microphone makes the biggest difference.
What it copes with
| Setting | How it does |
|---|---|
| Quiet office or home | Best results with any microphone |
| Open-plan office, café | Fine with a laptop mic; better with a headset |
| Car, train (passenger) | Good with a headset, mixed with a laptop mic |
| Music or TV next to you | Words get lost, especially with lyrics or speech |
| Several people talking near you | The hardest case: it may pick up their words too |
Why other voices are the worst
Steady noise such as an air conditioner, traffic or a fan is easy to ignore, because it does not sound like speech. Other people talking is much harder, because it is speech. A song with lyrics or a TV news programme is similar. If you can, step away from conversations or turn the volume down while you dictate.
The biggest improvement: the microphone
A microphone close to your mouth hears you far more loudly than the room. That one change does more for accuracy in noisy places than anything else:
- A headset (wired or Bluetooth) with a boom microphone is the best for open-plan offices.
- Earbuds with a microphone are a good second.
- A laptop's built-in microphone hears everything around it, including the keyboard and fan.
Pick your microphone in the app's Settings, and use the mic test to see the level move while you talk.
Other things that help
- Speak a little closer to the microphone, at your normal volume. There is no need to shout.
- Media is paused for you: when you start dictating, Perfect Dictation can pause music and videos playing on your PC, so your own speakers are not picked up.
- Add hard words to your dictionary, so noise is less likely to tip them into the wrong word.
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