This week
Shipped v0.4.4 with live meeting Q&A, richer transcript tools, and a more resilient AI pipeline. The full external changelog lives on Featurebase.New features
- Ask questions live during meetings (Pro) — Ask Vowen anything mid-meeting and get streaming answers grounded in the live transcript, without leaving the call. Available while real-time transcription is active. See Ask AI live during a meeting.
- Follow-up questions in Command Mode — Refine a command-mode result by holding the shortcut again and speaking a follow-up, instead of starting over. See Command Mode.
- Search within transcripts — Press
Cmd/Ctrl+Finside any transcript to find text, with match counts and next/previous navigation. See Manual Transcription. - Audio playback & scrub controls — Play back transcription audio with a waveform, skip buttons, and click-to-seek, synced to the transcript. See Playing back the audio.
- Speaker diarization with Groq (Pro, macOS) — Groq Whisper transcriptions now support on-device, Pyannote-powered speaker diarization. See Diarization.
- Gemini speech models — Google’s Gemini is now available as a cloud transcription option, for both streaming and long-file transcription. See Models.
- OpenAI real-time streaming —
gpt-4o-transcribecan now power live transcription preview, not just file transcription. See Models. - Group notes by tags — Tag your meeting notes and filter the list by tag, with a search box and sort options. See Organizing notes.
- Merge speaker labels (Pro) — Collapse two diarized speakers into one across a transcript in a single action. See Merging speakers.
- Add context mid-meeting — Type quick context into the recording indicator while recording, and it feeds into the AI summary. See Add context mid-meeting.
- Webhook delivery logs (Pro) — Inspect the last 25 webhook deliveries — status, trigger, payload, and response — from the webhook settings. See Webhooks.
- Hide the recording indicator — A new setting lets you suppress the floating recording indicator entirely. See Recording indicator.
- App-native timer — Command Mode timers now show as a draggable, always-on-top countdown pill that works across spaces.
- Cancel follow-ups midway — Stop a running command-mode follow-up mid-flight with
Escinstead of waiting for it to finish.
Improvements
- Auto-switch models on failure — Command Mode and custom utilities now fall back to another configured provider when one fails or hits a rate limit.
- Much lower Command Mode token usage — Default command-mode calls now use under 1.5k tokens (down from 8k) — faster, cheaper, and less rate-limit pressure.
- Smarter Command Mode banner — The result banner renders Markdown, and links open in your default browser. See Reviewing and refining the result.
- More reliable Parakeet streaming — Voice activity detection now drives Parakeet streaming for cleaner segments, plus long-audio chunking on Windows. See Models.
- Auto-translate for Parakeet (Pro) — Auto-translate-to-English now works with on-device Parakeet transcriptions. See Languages.
- Finer transcript segment controls — More precise splitting, deleting, and line-level speaker reassignment in the transcript editor. See Editing a transcript.
- Meeting notes settings, reorganized — Settings now live in a tabbed modal with Settings, Templates, and Integrations tabs. See Meeting notes.
- Slack & Discord webhook formatting — Paste a Slack or Discord webhook URL and summaries are posted as rich Block Kit or embeds automatically. See Webhooks.
- Obsidian sync improvements (Pro) — Notes now save into a per-note folder inside a configurable vault folder, with template and transcript carried through as frontmatter and a separate transcript file. See Obsidian.
- Pausing notes pauses everything — Pausing a note now pauses the recording indicator and timer too, so the UI stays in sync.
- Faster mic unmute — Your microphone unmutes the instant recording stops, instead of waiting for processing to finish.
- Friendlier summary empty state — A clear message appears when a recording had no speech to summarize, instead of a blank panel.
- Updated DeepSeek models — Refreshed the DeepSeek lineup (V4 Flash and V4 Pro) for AI enhancement and Command Mode.
- Halo on the recording indicator — A subtle glow makes it easier to tell at a glance when Vowen is live.
Fixes
- Fixed timestamps in Groq transcriptions, including long chunked files.
- Fixed an overlapping live-streaming bug with Parakeet that could duplicate or fragment segments.
- Fixed timing and auto-scroll of live transcription segments.
- Fixed broken Slack webhook payloads when delivered via POST.
- Fixed external speaker sources not being muted reliably before recording.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when
EscorTabwere part of globally registered shortcuts. - Fixed the recording / command-mode banner getting clipped when its container resized.
- Fixed the follow-up banner dismissing itself on an empty speech segment.
- Fixed Vowen’s own simulated copy/paste key events being mistaken for real key releases (macOS).
- Fixed meeting detection lingering after Vowen quits (macOS).
This week
Shipped v0.4.0 through v0.4.2 for Windows, with a revamped onboarding flow, richer meeting notes, and expanded language support. The full external changelog lives on Featurebase.New features
- Audio waveform in meeting notes — Meeting notes now show an audio waveform with a moving transcript that scrolls as audio plays. Waveforms also appear for manual transcriptions. See Meeting notes.
- Reassign speaker labels — Edit and reassign speaker labels directly from a transcript or notes session. See Diarization.
- Parakeet diarization — Speaker diarization is now available with the Parakeet model. See Diarization.
- Japanese and Mandarin support — Added Parakeet Japanese and CTC Mandarin for on-device transcription. See Languages and Models.
- Rich text editor — A new WYSIWYG editor with advanced rich text features for notes and expansions. See Text expander.
- Import/export expansions and utilities — Move your text expansions and custom utilities between devices via import/export.
- Movable recording indicator — Drag the meeting notes recording indicator to wherever it fits best on your screen.
- Cursor peek on Windows — Cursor peek is now available on Windows, matching the macOS experience.
- Double-tap shortcut transitions — Trigger actions with a double-tap on supported keys. See Shortcuts.
- More F-keys and modifier keys — Expanded the set of keys you can bind to shortcuts and expansions. See Shortcuts.
- Revamped onboarding — A redesigned onboarding flow that walks new users through setup and introduces Pro features.
- Share insights card — Generate a shareable card highlighting your transcription stats.
Improvements
- Speaker names in summaries — Notes summaries now reference actual speaker names instead of generic placeholders like “Speaker 1.” See Summaries.
- Sticky navigation — The top navbar in transcription and notes detail pages stays in view as you scroll.
- Tones respect auto-translate — Tones now honor your auto-translate-to-English setting.
- Confirmation before deactivation — Vowen now asks for confirmation before deactivating a device from your licence.
- Faster, cheaper AI calls — Reduced default prompt size and enabled prompt caching, lowering cost and rate-limit pressure for AI features.
- Focus on gated features — Clicking a Pro-gated feature now brings Vowen to the foreground so the upgrade prompt is visible.
- Cleaner short transcriptions — Trailing full stops are now stripped from short single-sentence transcriptions.
- More reliable recording indicator — The meeting notes recording indicator reasserts its position more reliably across screen changes.
- Updated AI model lineup — Refreshed the list of available AI enhancement models. See Models.
Fixes
- Fixed default state issues on the notes and transcription detail pages.
- Fixed importing notes failing in some cases.
- Fixed overlapping modals in the upgrade and Pro flows.
- Fixed reasoning effort not being applied for OpenAI models.
- Fixed payment validation clearing local licence state when the validation endpoint was temporarily unavailable.
- Fixed macOS accessibility permissions not re-prompting after being revoked.
- Fixed Windows build issues affecting SVG assets.
This week
A busy week focused on meetings, sync, and integrations. The full external changelog lives on Featurebase.New features
- Obsidian integration — Send your transcripts and meeting notes straight into your Obsidian vault. See Obsidian integration.
- Cloud sync across devices — Sync transcriptions and notes across your devices using iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive. See Cloud sync.
- Chat with notes and transcriptions — Ask questions about any past note or transcript and get answers grounded in that content. See Chat.
- Meeting detection — Vowen now detects when you join a meeting and prompts you to start recording. Available on both macOS and Windows.
- Workflows: webhooks & scripts — Trigger webhooks or run scripts at the end of a workflow. See Workflows and Webhooks.
- Custom utilities — Build your own utilities on top of transcription output, with sensible templates to get started.
- More custom API providers — Bring additional OpenAI-compatible providers into Vowen for AI enhancement.
- Manual transcription queue — Queue multiple files for manual transcription and get notified as each one finishes. See Manual transcription.
- Auto translate to English — A new option to translate transcriptions into English automatically. See Languages.
- UK English support — Added UK English as a supported transcription language.
- gpt-4o-transcribe — Added support for OpenAI’s
gpt-4o-transcribemodel. See Models. - Rich text in expansions — Text expansions now support rich text and multiple output formats. See Text expander.
- Cancel mid-transcription — Cancel an in-progress command-mode or regular transcription before it finishes.
- Switch models from the banner — Change your default transcription model directly from the in-app banner.
- Auto-add corrections to dictionary (beta, macOS) — Edits you make to transcripts can be automatically suggested as dictionary entries. See Dictionary.
Improvements
- Meeting notes experience — Removed the recording indicator during a notes session, added skeleton loaders, and you can now run regular transcriptions while a notes session is in progress. See Meeting notes.
- Menu tray indicator — The menu tray now shows a clear indicator while a meeting notes session is recording.
- Smarter recording start — Vowen briefly mutes system audio before recording so the first words of a video or call aren’t accidentally captured.
- Parakeet on macOS — Parakeet now runs as a background daemon with a shorter warmup interval, so the first transcription starts faster. See Models.
- Faster sync — Switched syncing to SSE for noticeably faster updates across devices, with an automatic fallback to HTTP.
- Keyboard layout-aware shortcuts — Shortcut UI now reflects your actual keyboard layout, and expansions work correctly across all layouts. See Shortcuts.
- Resume after sleep — Meeting detection now resumes correctly after sleep, wake, and AC power events.
- Standardized expansions UI — Refreshed the expansions screens for a consistent look and feel.
- Microphone connecting state — A loading indicator now appears while the microphone is connecting.
- 3-device activation — Pro licences now clearly support activation on up to 3 devices.
- Focus on Start meeting — Clicking “Start meeting” now brings Vowen into focus.
- Obsidian titles — Notes synced to Obsidian no longer prepend the date in the title.
Fixes
- Fixed Tones not working on Windows. See Tones.
- Fixed speaker labels missing from PDF exports.
- Fixed expansions not firing on certain keyboard layouts on Windows.
- Fixed modals closing unexpectedly when a text-selection drag ended over the overlay.
- Fixed an issue where meeting detection could swallow the
Esckey. - Fixed the recording banner appearing when recording from inside Vowen itself.
- Fixed the toolbar on custom API screens.
- Clamped enhanced silence-detection sensitivity to a maximum of 5 to prevent overly aggressive cutoffs.