Relay launches a Mac voice-to-text app and previews Relay Q mic

In short: Relay has launched a Mac app that turns speech into text and it says a matching portable microphone, Relay Q, will arrive in early 2027.

What happened

Relay is a London startup founded by former Nothing employees Cookie Xu and Raymond Zhu. The company is starting with software first, a macOS app that lets you dictate into almost any text box by holding a chosen hotkey, like the Fn key.

Relay says the app is powered by Google’s Gemini models, which are large AI systems trained on lots of text so they can better understand speech and context. In practice, Relay can clean up some spoken “uh” and rephrasing, and it can sometimes tell when you are asking it to do an action instead of typing words.

Those actions, which Relay calls Skills, can do things like draft a message in Slack or create a calendar event. To do that, Relay may need broad permissions, including the option to capture a screenshot when activated, so it can “see” what is on your screen (like giving the app a quick glance at your desk so it knows what to pick up).

Relay also previewed a dedicated device called the Relay Q, a small cylindrical microphone meant for whispering in shared spaces. Relay says the hardware will cost $150 and includes one year of the software, then the software will cost $15 per month. The microphone and a mobile version of the service are planned for 2027.

Why it matters

Voice typing is getting better, and companies are trying to make talking to your computer feel as normal as typing. But tools that can act on your behalf often need deeper access to your device, so privacy and security choices will be a key part of whether people adopt them.

Source: Wired