Offline Voice

Offline voice lets you run a voice survey with no network. The phone listens, works out which field you mean, and saves your answer. Nothing is sent anywhere while you talk.

It is for sites with no signal: plant rooms, basements, rural buildings.

Who Can Use It

Offline voice is on only when all three of these are true:

Check	What it means
Your organisation	Your organisation has offline voice switched on. If it hasn't, you won't see the setting at all.
Your phone	An iPhone 13 or newer, or an iPhone 12 Pro or 12 Pro Max. An Android phone passes this first step, then a short speed check decides (see below).
You	You tap Set up now when the app offers it, or turn on Offline voice in Settings. It is off until you do.

An administrator turns offline voice on for the organisation in Settings → Features in the web app. See Turning It On for Your Organisation.

Offline voice is in the HAMI Voice Inspector mobile app. It isn't available in the web app or in HAMI Voice Lite.

Turning It On for Your Organisation

An administrator with the settings administrator role does this once, in the web app.

Open Settings → Features.
Switch on Offline voice.

The change saves as soon as you switch it. Phones pick it up the next time they sign in or sync. Every change is logged. Switch it off the same way.

Settings → Features lists only the features in your organisation's plan. If Offline voice isn't there, or the page says your plan has no features you can switch, ask IPGN to add it. Anyone without the settings administrator role sees the message Only an admin can see or change features.

Turning It On

Do this once, while you have Wi-Fi.

When the App Offers It

When you sign in, or open the app already signed in, the app offers set-up on the survey list if offline voice isn't set up on your phone yet. The Set up offline voice sheet says what it does, the download size, the speed check and the voice print.

Tap Set up now. The download runs in the background. Settings → Voice → Offline voice shows how it's going.
Tap Not now to skip. You can set it up in Settings at any time.

When the download and the speed check have finished, the app offers Finish set-up: the last step, your voice print. Tap Make your voice print, or Not now to skip it.

The app offers set-up only when you have a network, and never while a survey is open. It shows at most one offer each time the app opens. After Not now, it doesn't offer that step again until an app update brings newer speech models.

In Settings

Open Settings in the mobile app.
Under Voice, switch on Offline voice.
Wait while the app downloads the speech models. This is about 690 MB, so use Wi-Fi.
The app then checks your phone's speed. The row shows Checking this phone's speed (about 10 s) while it does.
When the row says On. Voice surveys carry on with no network., offline voice works.
Make your voice print under Voice check, in the same card.

The Download

A progress bar shows each file and the total, with speed and time left.
Wi-Fi only is on by default, so the download doesn't use your mobile data. If you aren't on Wi-Fi, the download waits.
Tap Pause download to stop. What's downloaded is kept, and Resume download carries on from there.
If the download fails, tap Retry. It carries on from what's already on the phone.

The Speed Check

After the download, the app times how fast your phone turns speech into text. If your phone is fast enough, offline voice turns on. An Android phone about as fast as a Snapdragon 778G (the chip in the Samsung Galaxy M52) or faster passes. Slower phones don't.

If it isn't, you see This phone is too slow for offline voice. Online voice still works. The switch stays off. Tap Delete the speech models to get the space back. Online voice isn't affected.

Turning It Off

Switch Offline voice off. The app asks first, because the speech models (about 690 MB) are deleted from the phone. Switching it back on downloads them again.

You can also tap Delete models in the Installed panel under the switch, which shows the version and the storage used.

Updating the Speech Models

An app update can bring newer speech models. When it does, the app offers Update speech models with the size it downloads, for example Update speech models, 40 MB. Only the files that changed download.

Tap Update now to start it, or Not now to skip. After Not now, the app doesn't offer it again until an app update brings newer models still.
The same button is in Settings → Voice → Offline voice, under Speech models, for as long as the update is due.
The update follows Wi-Fi only, as the first download does. Off Wi-Fi, it waits and carries on when you connect.
Offline voice keeps working on the models you have until the update is in.

The app offers the update only when you have a network. With no network, it can't tell whether an update is due.

Your Voice Print

Your voice print lets offline voice tell your voice from other people's. Without one, every voice counts: speech from people nearby can be saved as your answers.

What It Does

Offline, the app checks each turn of more than about 2 seconds against your voice print.

When the whole turn is your voice, it's used as normal.
When any part of it isn't, the app holds the whole turn back. It shows the words in a highlighted bubble that asks Was that you?. When the app speaks its questions aloud, it also says "Was that you? Say yes, or tap."
Tap Yes, or say "yes", to use the words as said. Tap No, or say "no", to drop them. A spoken "yes" counts only in your own voice.

Short answers of about 2 seconds or less aren't checked, so a quick "Four" from you saves first time. A short answer from someone else isn't checked either.

Making It

Open Settings → Voice → Offline voice. Under Voice check, tap Make your voice print. The app also offers this at the end of set-up.
Tap Start and read the lines on screen aloud at your normal pace, holding the phone as you do in a survey. It needs about 12 seconds of your speech. A bar shows how far you've got.
When it says Done, the voice check is on. Voice check shows when your print was made.

Your voice print stays on this phone and is never sent anywhere. Each person who signs in on the phone makes their own. If someone else has already set up offline voice on the phone, the app offers you just this step.

To make a new one, for example if the app often asks Was that you? about your own words, tap Make it again.

If Voice check says the voice check needs the latest speech models, update them first (see Updating the Speech Models).

Deleting It

Under Voice check, tap Delete. The app asks first. Until you make a new one, offline voice doesn't check whose voice it hears.

Using It With No Network

Offline voice: keep talking with no signal

Start a voice survey as you normally would. With offline voice on, voice surveys carry on when the network drops.

The app asks a question and speaks it.
When the app has finished speaking, the screen shows Listening. Answer then.
The app hears you, decides which field you mean, and saves it.
It asks the next question.

Answer once Listening shows. Words spoken while the app is still talking can be taken for the app's own voice and thrown away.

A Bluetooth headset works too.

If the Signal Drops

If the network goes during an online voice survey, the app waits about 8 seconds. If the signal hasn't come back, it says Signal lost, carrying on offline. and asks the current question again. Your answers so far are kept.

While you're offline, the screen's title reads Offline voice, and a band under the header says This section: field name, then value. Tap How it works in the band for a short guide to what offline voice can and can't do.

When the signal is back and the app can reach the server for 5 seconds, a Back online button appears. Tap it between answers to go back to online voice. Your answers sync, the app says Back online. and asks the current question.

Going Offline Yourself

If you know you're heading somewhere with a poor signal, switch before you lose it, so the change doesn't happen in the middle of an answer.

On the voice screen, tap the Audio settings button in the header.
Under Offline voice, tap Go offline.

The app says Carrying on offline. and asks the current question. Your answers are kept. It stays offline until you tap Go online, even if you leave the voice screen and come back, open another survey or restart the app. When the signal is back, the band's How it works link changes to Go online. Tap it, or Go online in Audio settings. If your answers can't sync yet, the band says Couldn't sync yet. Still offline.

Go offline only shows on a phone where offline voice is set up.

What You Can Say

Answer the question the app asks, or say the name of a field in the current section and then its value, for example "opening width 300". A field in another section is saved only when it corrects an answer you've already given. To give two values at once, name each field: "opening width 300, opening height 400". Offline voice doesn't pick values out of a loose sentence.

Skip. Say "skip" to leave a field blank and move on. A field that offers an option such as N/A saves that option when you say it.
Choices. At a choice field, say the option. The app listens for the options of the question it is asking. If you say a word that sounds like one option, that option appears first among the taps. Tap it to save it. Nothing is saved until you tap.
Batches. For a group of items you answer together, say it once, for example "No defects on any bolt" or "36 HRC for all bolts". The app fills every item.
Corrections. To correct an earlier answer, name the field and say the new value, for example "The name is Lounge". The app saves it to the right field, including a field in another group.
Another room. If you said no to adding another item, such as a room, you can say "another room" to add one after all.

When the App Isn't Sure

The app doesn't guess. When it isn't sure, it asks again and shows something to tap or type.

Taps. For a choice, a yes or no, or a rating, the options appear as buttons. Tap one.
A text box. For a name, a number or other text, a keyboard appears. Type the value. After Sorry, I didn't get that. at a text field, the words the app heard are already in the box. Tap Send to save them as they are, or change them first.
Which field? If your answer could belong to a different field, the app asks which field it was for and names up to 3 fields. Say a name, or a name with its value ("opening width 300"), or tap one. Tap None of these if none is right. Nothing is saved until you choose.
Skip. Wherever taps or a text box show, you can also tap Skip, or type "skip", to leave the field blank.

If the app still can't save an answer to the question it asked, it helps you in 3 steps:

It says what it heard and gives an example, for example I heard 300 and 400. Say which field each is for, like 'opening width 300'.
It asks for that one value on its own, for example Just the opening width, please.
It opens the form at that question's field. For a field in a repeating section, such as a window, the form scrolls to that window's field. Fill it in there, then tap the microphone to carry on by voice.

If it heard nothing at all, it asks again and that doesn't count as a try.

Finishing

When you reach the end, the app offers Finish and Not yet. Saying "no" or "not yet" never finishes the survey. Tap Finish to finish it.

If the App Heard Nothing

Say the answer again. If it still doesn't catch it, tap or type instead.

Tips on Screen

Offline voice shows its own short tips in the tip strip, such as 'Skip' to leave a field blank. Each tip shows once on a phone or computer. Tips about online voice don't show while you're offline.

Check What Was Saved

With your voice print, the app holds back a longer turn that isn't all your voice and asks Was that you?. A short answer from someone nearby isn't checked, and without a voice print no turn is. So check the saved values shown on screen, and correct any that are wrong.

When the Office Sees the Survey

The survey is stored on your phone as you go. At the next sync with a network, it goes to the office like any other survey done on the phone.

Where It Doesn't Work

The web app in a browser. Offline voice is for the mobile app only.
HAMI Voice Lite.
A phone below the minimum. An iPhone older than the iPhone 13 (other than the 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max), or an Android phone that fails the speed check, keeps using online voice.
An organisation that hasn't switched it on. An administrator can do it in Settings → Features.

Tips

Turn it on and let the download finish before you leave the office, not at the door of the site.
Check that Settings → Voice → Offline voice says On before a day with no signal.
Keep about 690 MB of space free for the download.
Make your voice print before your first survey with no signal.
Work in a quiet spot. Offline voice can still save someone else's short answer as yours.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to do
No Offline voice row in Settings	Your organisation hasn't switched it on, or your phone is below the minimum. Ask your administrator to check Settings → Features.
The download doesn't start	You may not be on Wi-Fi. Connect to Wi-Fi, or switch off Wi-Fi only if you accept using mobile data.
The download stopped	Tap Resume download or Retry. What's downloaded is kept.
This phone is too slow for offline voice	Keep using online voice. Tap Delete the speech models to free the space.
The app keeps saying Sorry, I didn't get that.	Tap or type the answer instead.
Was that you? about your own words	Say "yes" or tap Yes. If it happens often, tap Make it again under Voice check.
I tapped Not now and want to set it up	Open Settings → Voice → Offline voice. Every option is there.

See also Voice Assistant and Mobile App.