Make your Joplin notebooks hands-free!
With this solution, you can dictate text directly from your IOS/Watch OS/Android and have it automatically added to your Joplin notebook.
It is ideal for users who need to quickly jot down notes while on the go or for those who prefer dictation over typing.
Disclaimer
Don't expect to see the guide on how to install this at the end of this overview.
This solution requires your likes on the post to analyze the impact and decide whether to move forward.
Features
- Hands-free dictation: Seamlessly dictate text directly to your Joplin notebooks.
Works with Windows + IOS/Android: Use your iPhone/Apple Watch/Android as a microphone to add notes wherever you are. - Fast and efficient: Say goodbye to typing — just speak and see your text added to your Joplin notebook when you're back to your desktop.
- Dashboard: have an overview of your voice inbox in your favorite note
Prerequisites
- Joplin Desktop (Windows)
- IOS/Watch OS/Android
- Open AI token for speech recognition (very cheap, quick setup, guide included)
Components
- Open AI account with at least 5$ on balance - is going to be used for speech recognition. Costs in my experience ~1 cent/dictation on average.
- iPhone/Apple Watch/Android- we'll create a shortcut here that records your speech
- AirTable - web service with a generous free tier (no payment card required) and both in-transit and at-rest encryption that stores our transcriptions. Up to 2 weeks of snapshots for data recovery;
- Joplin Desktop app (Windows) - we'll configure it to listen to incoming requests by utilizing its WebClipper API.
- Note Overview plugin for Joplin (optional) - allows us to have kind of a dashboard where all your voice inbox is displayed
- Python Sync Script - can be copied from the repo somewhere on PC. It's going to read all available transcriptions from AirTable and push it to a specific Joplin notebook.
- Task Scheduler (Windows) - Windows native app that lets us call synchronization script automatically when you log in to the PC, or based on a configured schedule.
How It Works
- On your phone, you tap a button/call by voice the shortcut (automation)
- Your phone records the audio
- Your phone asks the Open AI Whisper model to transcribe the recording
- Your phone sends transcription to the AirTable database
- When you log in to PC (or per schedule) your PC asks AirTable for available notes using Python Sync Script
- Script adds all collected notes to Joplin Desktop's configured notebook through WebClipper API.
- Script marks collected notes as "Processed" in the AirTable database so they are not processed the next time the script is triggered
- Script keeps the total transcriptions count in AirTable to be around 900 records to comply with free tier limits
Dashboard
Using the "Note Overview" plugin you can filter your voice notes inbox and display it in a table.
Example configuration:
<!-- note-overview-plugin
search: notebook:Unsorted -title:"Joplin Voice Inbox"
fields: title, updated_time
sort: updated_time DESC
-->
<!--endoverview-->
Result:
Limits
Sync Times to Notes/Day ratio
If you lock your PC each time you step away then it makes sense to configure the synchronization on system login.
If you don't have a lock screen it makes sense to configure the synchronization based on schedule.
In either of these scenarios, you might need to understand the Sync/day to Notes/day estimated ratio.
Because of AirTable free tier monthly limitations here's a rough estimate of how many voice notes per day we can make & how many system logins (synchronizations) that relate to:
| Sync/day | Notes/day |
|---|---|
| 3 | 26 |
| 4 | 24 |
| 5 | 22 |
| 6 | 20 |
| 7 | 18 |
| 8 | 16 |
| 9 | 14 |
| 10 | 12 |
| 11 | 10 |
| 12 | 8 |
| 13 | 6 |
| 14 | 4 |
| 15 | 2 |
These limits are rough estimates assuming a heavy user that uses Joplin every day of the given month. Each day off slightly increases the number of voice notes you can make till the end of the month.
How To Setup?
As mentioned in the disclaimer this solution would require the author some time to prepare a good setup guide so it's easy for the average Joplin user.
If you like the idea please like the post for the author to analyze the potential impact and bookmark this thread to stay updated if an author decides to add steps to the How To Setup? section .