I wrote this entire article on a Google Pixel Watch 3 and a Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra. I was inspired by ZDNET’s David Gewirtz, who recently wrote about Apple Watch’s transcribable voice notes. Google and Samsung offer similar capabilities with some elements that many may find even better.
Also: How iOS 18 turned my Apple Watch into the productivity tool of my sci-fi dreams
Voice recording applications have been available on a number of watches for many years. The key to using them now is the AI and the advanced transcription services that will accurately transcribe your speech into text.
David mentioned some of the many benefits of using your watch to record your thoughts, ideas, and articles on the go whenever an idea pops up. I often have those ideas while running.
If I don’t use a voice recording application or stop and enter those ideas on my phone (if I have it with me), then I often forget the thought and rarely remember it.
Recording and transcribing with the Google Pixel Watch 3
Let’s start with the Google Pixel Watch 3. Simply launch the voice recorder app on the watch, tap record, and speak. You can pause a recording, stop the recording, or delete the recording. You cannot rename the recording on the watch itself.
Also: One of the best Android smartwatches I’ve tested made me consider switching to the Pixel
After you stop recording, you’ll find an option in the menu that enables you to view the transcript. However, that voice recording first needs to sync to your Android phone and then get transcribed on the phone. You cannot view the text transcript on your watch. You can view it on your phone or the website and then copy and paste it wherever you want.
Visiting recorder.google.com allows you to share the voice recording or transcript with others, copy and paste that text into other documents, edit the recording, and download the recording.
Also: The best Android smartwatches you can buy
Another feature on the Google Pixel phone, thanks to the Google AI, is the ability to summarize the voice recording transcription with the tap of one button. This summarize option is not available on the website. I’ve found the summary very helpful for longer recordings. Given that Google supports voice recordings for as long as your battery lasts and the storage is available, summarization may be a key to your success, too.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra voice notes
Google isn’t the only one that supports voice recordings on the watch. Regular readers know that I have the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra and it’s one of my favorite watches ever. It also has a Voice Recorder app installed by default and it’s a fairly simple application. Simply launch the Voice Recorder app hit record and record your note.
One unique feature of the Samsung Galaxy Watch is the ability to tap the speech-to-text button on the lower left side of the watch face in the app. Once you hit that button, it highlights that icon, and a pop-up appears that says speech-to-text mode is enabled. Simply record your voice note as you would normally.
This feature has a 10-minute time limit for the recording. I’m not sure why I would necessarily need to see the text from this directly on my watch, so I do not use this mode, which limits the time of my voice recordings.
Also: I’ve tested dozens of smartwatches, but I’m wearing the Galaxy Ultra Watch long-term
The Samsung Voice Recorder app on the Galaxy phone shows you the transcript, with the option to tap once for a Galaxy AI-generated summary. You can choose to edit the transcript text, hide speaker labels, add to Samsung Notes, share the voice and/or text files, and more. There is no website, so you have to copy and paste from your phone to a computer or share the text file to use it in an article or essay.
Don’t forget about Garmin
The Garmin Fenix 8 now has a voice notes application, but the notes are stored in the watch’s internal memory and can only be accessed manually. To work around that, I played the recording on the Fenix 8, which has a speaker, and recorded the voice memo on the Pixel 9 Pro XL using the Google Recorder app. Now, I can fairly easily enjoy transcribed voice recordings with one extra step.
David has inspired me to use the voice recording capability on all of my watches to improve my productivity and this may be a new metric for measuring which watch is best for me.
