Self-hosted
Our apps never send your words or tasks to us. Where they need a server, you choose it: a service you pay for with your own key, or one you run yourself. This page is about the second. Self-hosting is optional; everything below also works without it.
What you can run yourself
- Speech recognition · 4Dictate
- Any speech server that speaks the OpenAI transcription format, such as Speaches. Add one or more in ⚙ → Speech; they are tried in your order before your provider. A server that is down is skipped at once, so it costs a moment, never the dictation.
- Tidy-up · 4Dictate
- A model you run yourself, such as Ollama, tidies each dictation with your profile’s instructions. It is tried first, before any provider.
- Grammar check · 4Dictate
- ✓ Check works with your own LanguageTool server (or a LanguageTool subscription), set in ⚙ → Grammar.
- Task sync · 4Tasks
- Any CalDAV server that follows the standard, such as Nextcloud or SOGo (mailcow). Your tasks go straight from your phone to your server, over an encrypted connection.
What we run, and how fast it is
We use our own apps this way every day, with speech recognition on two machines of our own:
- A workstation’s graphics card (RTX 3060), Whisper large-v3: 0.8–1.3 seconds per dictation.
- A small rented server, processor only, Whisper small: 2.3–3.5 seconds.
The moment you press to start, while you are already speaking, 4Dictate checks every server at once and gives each one second to answer. By the time you stop, it knows which are up: it uses the workstation first, the rented server next, then a paid provider, and one that did not answer is skipped straight away. So a machine that is switched off never makes you wait. Grammar checking runs on our own LanguageTool server, and our tasks sync with the CalDAV server in our own mail system.
Or no server at all
4Dictate can also work entirely on your phone: download a speech model (Parakeet) and, if you like, a tidy-up model (Qwen3), and use the Offline profile. Nothing leaves the phone. 4Tasks needs no server either: sync is optional.
Keeping your servers private
A server you run does not need to be on the open internet: a private network such as Tailscale lets only your own devices reach it, with encrypted connections throughout.
More
- 4Dictate manual
- mr-biz.uk/4dictate/manual
- 4Tasks manual
- mr-biz.uk/4tasks/manual
- Contact
- [email protected]