I built a Windows dictation app with Groq Whisper — here's what I learned

I've been a bad typist my whole life. Not slow — just error-prone. I spend more time correcting than creating. So a few months ago I decided to build my own Windows dictation app powered by Groq's Whisper API. What shipped is dictate.app , and the journey taught me more than I expected.

Why not just use Windows built-in dictation?

Windows has had dictation since Windows 10. It works okay — until it doesn't. The accuracy drops on technical vocabulary, it doesn't handle punctuation well without training, and you can't pipe the output anywhere cleanly. I wanted something that:

Worked in any app, not just Microsoft ones

Had real-time transcription, not batch

Used a modern model, not a 2018-era acoustic model

Cost almost nothing per use

Groq's Whisper API fit every box.

The technical stack

The app is a lightweight Windows system tray application.…