Google announced an interesting update for its voice recorder app during the Pixel 7 series launch in October. The company said the app would soon be able to identify multiple speakers and add voice labels for them in the recording transcript. Called “Speaker labels,” the new feature is now rolling out to users.
As Google explains, Speaker labels are an optional Recorder feature that, if enabled, will “automatically detect and label each speaker when recording”. Speakers are identified in real time with the app automatically starting a new line within your transcripts on each speaker switch. The labels appear as Speaker 1, Speaker 2, etc. in the transcript. They are color-coded to make it easy to distinguish between multiple speakers. You can also edit and change the name of each speaker in a recording.
The Recorder app will compare the voices throughout the recording to identify different speakers. It will create voice models so the transcript can reflect what each voice said and when. Google says the voice models are temporarily stored on the device until the speaker labeling is completed. Once the process is complete, the app deletes the voice models. The speaker labels, meanwhile, will be saved in your transcript. You can edit those whenever you want, with Google letting you split transcripts if the app incorrectly labels a speaker.
As said earlier, this is an optional feature. Once you install the latest update for the Recorder app, you will get a prompt to enable it. This adds a button to the recording UI from where you can quickly turn on/off Speaker labels. You can also disable the feature from the Recorder settings. According to 9to5Google, which first reported this update, Speaker labels do not work “if your device is too hot”. It’s unclear what’s the temperature threshold for this feature to work properly.
Pixel’s Recorder app is getting speaker labels
Pixel users are getting Speaker labels with version 4.2 of the Recorder app. The new version also reportedly brings minor changes to the Microphone settings sheet, though there’s no change to the functionality. The new update started rolling out via the Google Play Store yesterday and has yet to be available widely. But it shouldn’t be too long before the changes reach everyone. If you’re using a Pixel smartphone, you can click on the button below to download the latest version of the Recorder app. If you don’t see an update option, check again a few days later.
2022-12-02 15:06:24