Nostr notes by Voca

Voca 1.3.0 is out. The new app-specific Volume gain setting ...

2026-09-17T20:30:43Z

Voca 1.3.0 is out.

The new app-specific Volume gain setting ranges from -30 dB to +20 dB across live speech,
rendered speech, voice previews, and imported audio. Normal stays unchanged at 0 dB. Start
with low system volume before trying heavy boost, especially with headphones.

Reader follow-along now tracks the sentence that has actually started speaking, and the
current-sentence button reliably restores follow mode even when the target began offscreen.
Selecting text also offers Bookmark beside Copy and saves the exact passage and location.

Designed for GrapheneOS. Runs on Android 10 and newer. Free software under MIT.

Repository: https://gitworkshop.dev/npub17h9fn2ny0lycg7kmvxmw6gqdnv2epya9h9excnjw9wvml87nyw8sqy3hpu/voca

Full release story: naddr1qq98vmmrvyknzt3n9ccqz9nhwden5te0wfjkccte9ec8y6tdv9kzumn9wsqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dspzpaw2nx4xgl7fs3adkcdka5sqmxc4jzf6twtjd38yu2ueh70axgu0qvzqqqr4gumqpkvp

Try the latest release please, it might fix your issue. ...

2026-09-15T11:10:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…n6dj
_________________________

Try the latest release please, it might fix your issue.

quoting
nevent1q…ssnr

Voca 1.2.0 is out.

Sentence transitions now recover immediately when an Android speech engine renders slowly or
does not acknowledge cancellation, avoiding repeated long pauses during the same listening
session.

There is also a new, explicitly opt-in anonymous diagnostics report. You see the report before
sending it, document text stays off unless separately enabled for that one report, and every
report uses a fresh one-time Nostr sender key. There is no background uploader or analytics.

Designed for GrapheneOS. Runs on Android 10 and newer. Free software under MIT.

Repository: https://gitworkshop.dev/npub17h9fn2ny0lycg7kmvxmw6gqdnv2epya9h9excnjw9wvml87nyw8sqy3hpu/voca

Full release story: naddr1qq98vmmrvyknzt3j9ccqz9nhwden5te0wfjkccte9ec8y6tdv9kzumn9wsq3gamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwdenkjapwv3jhvq3q7h9fn2ny0lycg7kmvxmw6gqdnv2epya9h9excnjw9wvml87nyw8sxpqqqp65wkf926t

And if not, please use the new error report via anonymous Nostr DM so I can troubleshoot.

That's a cool idea actually.

2026-09-14T03:21:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…94qx
_________________________

That's a cool idea actually.

Voca is designed for the default @nprofile…xdyf text to speech ...

2026-09-14T03:20:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…c75e
_________________________

Voca is designed for the default GrapheneOS (nprofile…xdyf) text to speech engine.
You can try Sherpa, a good FOSS engine with multiple different mods.
What phone and provider app are you using?
Long time between sentences could mean not enough processing power to generate sentences, or it could be a bug in voca.
In the voca settings you can activate recording diagnostics and include text, then load a demo text, play it, and share the logs via nostr DM, I'll have a look. https://zapstore.dev/apps/naddr1qqvx7un89emk76r9d3kx2u3k8yh8garnv4hxw6twv5q3samnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fw0fshqum5daex2tnyv4mqygrceeh65u3xgwrjsnny0wnf8zv4wd0v3374ckn9wdl92yc0qf3s05psgqqq0c9sx6lewv

That's fixed in the latest release, Thanks for the bug ...

2026-09-06T11:34:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…ztmm
_________________________

That's fixed in the latest release, Thanks for the bug report!
I'd appreciate a quick test.

quoting
nevent1q…5kr8
Voca 1.1.1 is out. The screen and audio now stay in step more reliably, and Nostr imports are less fragile when profile lookups drag.

naddr1qq…0s66

Voca 1.1.1 is out. The screen and audio now stay in step more ...

2026-09-06T11:27:43Z

Voca 1.1.1 is out. The screen and audio now stay in step more reliably, and Nostr imports are less fragile when profile lookups drag.

quoting
naddr1qq…0s66

Voca 1.1.1 is out. Most of the work went into keeping the screen and the audio in step.

The highlight and the playback controls now stay with the speech when you tap quickly, scroll by hand, jump between sentences, or change the speed partway through. Short passages and ones crowded with punctuation hold up too. The point is simple: the sentence on screen should match the sentence coming through the speaker, even when you move around or change pace.

The remaining-time estimate follows the audible speech, including when playback crosses from one queue item to the next. It gives you a better sense of how much listening time is left.

Nostr imports are less fragile when a profile lookup drags. Signed content resolves faster, and the note is kept if that optional lookup is slow or unavailable. Bare event references are handled safely. Relay resolution and signature checks are still mandatory and fail closed.

Voca reads articles, web pages, PDFs, Markdown files, Nostr notes, and subscriptions in a private on-device queue, using the voice your phone is already configured with. It runs on Android 10 and newer, and GrapheneOS is the main target.

Voca 1.1.1 is version code 72, and the Zapstore download matches the locally verified release build. The hosted APK also passed an in-place update from 1.1.0, code 71, on the GrapheneOS Pixel 6a used for release testing. The install timestamp stayed intact, and the app opened cleanly.

The source is published over Nostr with NIP-34 and ngit at the Voca repository, and the release is on Zapstore.

Update when you get a chance. If the screen and speech ever drift apart, report what you were reading and what happened.

Voca's home-screen widget renders the whole document, not a ...

2026-09-05T18:21:00Z

Voca's home-screen widget renders the whole document, not a row of transport buttons.

The text is laid out the way the reading page lays it out, and the spoken sentence is kept in view as the voice moves through it.

Any line is tappable to read from there, so you can start in the middle of a paragraph. The queue is on the widget as well.

In practice the home screen becomes the place you resume from. Glance at it, tap a line, and the voice starts where you pointed.

Download Voca on Zapstore: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.voca.app

Swipe Voca out of recents and both the document and your position ...

2026-09-04T17:55:00Z

Swipe Voca out of recents and both the document and your position are still there when you come back, because positions live in the app's own private storage.

A listening session has to survive the rest of the day. The queue can be reordered, pruned and jumped around. Bookmarks can be named, annotated and searched, so a passage worth returning to is found by name even after its chapter location fades.

There is a sleep timer. Reading continues with the screen off, and play, pause and sentence skips each work from the media notification with one press. The phone stays locked while the controls stay visible.

A phone call takes priority, and Voca comes back afterwards.

Download Voca on Zapstore: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.voca.app

Amber on black with zero blue for reading in the dark on an OLED ...

2026-09-03T17:00:00Z

Amber on black with zero blue for reading in the dark on an OLED panel. A true light theme for daylight. The reading page gives spoken text room to move.

Text runs edge to edge and justified, with highlights painted behind the glyphs, so nothing reflows as the voice moves through a paragraph.

Long documents are laid out in paragraph-aligned pieces, so a whole book scrolls as smoothly as a short note. A floating position pill appears while the page is moving; hold it and sweep through the document by feel.

The page follows the voice the way a patient reader follows a narrator. It moves only when the spoken line would otherwise leave the screen, and it yields the moment your thumb takes over.

Download Voca on Zapstore: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.voca.app

Reading aloud usually falls apart at a footnote marker. Voca ...

2026-09-02T19:42:00Z

Reading aloud usually falls apart at a footnote marker. Voca gives you the choice: read it where it stands, hold it back until the end of its sentence, or skip it.

The page shows exactly what will be read. Change the setting and the open document re-renders around it, so the screen and the voice never disagree about what is there.

A table is announced as a table and then read a row at a time in plain sentences. Its structure survives in the spoken version.

Markdown arrives as a real document with real typography: headings, quotes, three kinds of list, code, tables, links and images. The semantics survive the trip from file to page to voice.

Download Voca on Zapstore: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.voca.app

Voca relies entirely on the speech service already installed on ...

2026-09-01T16:57:00Z

Voca relies entirely on the speech service already installed on your phone. A packaging check blocks the build if speech assets ever turn up inside the package.

It speaks with the service your phone is already configured with. That keeps the app small. On GrapheneOS with its sandboxed speech engine installed, the whole reading path stays on the device.

Around the voice: a voice per queue item, adjustable speed, and pronunciation rules that fix the words your engine mangles. The rules can be case sensitive or insensitive, and you can preview them against any installed voice.

Dates, clock times and dotted abbreviations are rewritten into natural speech before the schedule is built. Every rewrite changes only what is spoken. The text on screen keeps every character.

Download Voca on Zapstore: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.voca.app

That's exactly what's happening if a URL contains an ...

2026-09-01T11:27:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…7tzq
_________________________

That's exactly what's happening if a URL contains an nevent. What you found is a bug. And it should also happen whenever an nevent is pasted into the text box. Thanks for the report. It should be fixed and released soon.

I'll investigate. Share the njump URL and it should work, ...

2026-09-01T11:17:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…ps93
_________________________

I'll investigate.
Share the njump URL and it should work, signature checks included.

Give Voca an RSS or Atom address over HTTPS, or a Nostr author, ...

2026-08-31T17:29:00Z

Give Voca an RSS or Atom address over HTTPS, or a Nostr author, and their long-form writing lands in one inbox that brings those sources together.

Entries are stored on the device as they arrive. A chapter in airplane mode reads exactly like a chapter on wifi: the text is already there, and the speech comes from the engine your phone already has.

Feeds and Nostr authors share that inbox, so a blog you have followed for years sits next to someone whose writing only ever reached you through relays.

Voca fetches only when you ask. Every refresh is deliberate.

Download Voca on Zapstore: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.voca.app

Open a Nostr link in Voca and you get the author's signed ...

2026-08-30T17:55:00Z

Open a Nostr link in Voca and you get the author's signed words directly. Ordinary web links with a Nostr entity buried inside them work the same way.

The entity is decoded and the event is fetched from relays. Before anything is stored, Voca recomputes the event id and checks the signature, binding the words to their author.

The lookup asks Voca's own relays, the write relays in the author's relay list, and any hints carried in the link you opened. That is how a note stored only on smaller relays stays reachable.

Each address must be encrypted and resolve to the public internet. One lookup is capped at eight relays, keeping every link within a bounded search.

Download Voca on Zapstore: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.voca.app

Paste a wrapped text file into most readers and the voice stops ...

2026-08-29T18:55:00Z

Paste a wrapped text file into most readers and the voice stops dead at the end of every line.

Voca repairs hard line wraps on the way in, so a copied chat log or a wrapped file reads as continuous prose.

Hand it a web address and what comes back is the article body, stripped of page chrome and interruptions. The fetch happens because you asked for it, which is also why sharing a page out of your browser gets it queued before the tab closes.

After that, every route is treated identically. Same reading page, same measured highlight, same queue. An imported article and a local Markdown file land on the same reading path.

Download Voca on Zapstore: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.voca.app

Voca 1.1.0 is out: the private listen-later reader now keeps its ...

2026-08-28T20:04:26Z

Voca 1.1.0 is out: the private listen-later reader now keeps its home-screen widget in step through rapid short sentences, long documents, manual scrolling, resizing, process restarts and app upgrades.

Give Voca an article, web page, PDF, Markdown file or Nostr note and it reads it aloud in your phone's configured voice. The page follows by sentence and word, while your documents, position and bookmarks stay on the device.

This release also cuts background work during speech and prevents one document's timing measurements from carrying into the next.

Designed for GrapheneOS. Runs on Android 10 and newer. Free software under MIT.

Repository: https://gitworkshop.dev/npub17h9fn2ny0lycg7kmvxmw6gqdnv2epya9h9excnjw9wvml87nyw8sqy3hpu/voca

Full release story:

quoting naddr1qq…tuc6

Voca 1.1: keep reading without stopping to read

Update to Voca 1.1 and the reader on your home screen keeps pace even when the writing moves quickly. Short sentences no longer leave the widget behind, long documents take less work to follow, and returning from a manual scroll feels dependable. It is a quieter release than a redesign, but it improves the part of Voca you can leave running for hours.

Voca is a private listen-later reader for Android. Give it an article, a web page, a PDF, a Markdown file or a Nostr note and it reads the words aloud in the voice already configured on your phone. Subscribe to RSS, Atom or Nostr authors and their writing becomes a listening queue. The page follows the voice, the current sentence and word light up, and your documents, positions and bookmarks stay on the device.

That experience should not require holding the phone. Voca's home-screen widget carries the whole document in a small reader of its own: you can watch it follow along, move through the text yourself, or tap any line to start there. The widget is the glanceable surface for a listening session—the place where the text remains visible while the full app stays out of the way.

There was one rhythm it did not handle well. Every sentence asked the launcher to settle before scrolling. When several short sentences arrived faster than that delay, each request replaced the previous one and restarted the clock. The words kept moving, but the widget could keep waiting for a quiet moment that never came.

Voca 1.1 changes the rule. Each widget gets one bounded settling window and remembers the newest spoken row while it waits. Fast updates collapse into one current destination without moving the deadline. The result is simple from the outside: the widget keeps up.

The same idea runs through the rest of the release—do less work, at the right time. Voca now finds the spoken row without walking the entire document. It keeps separate cached layouts for differently sized widgets, so one widget does not make another rebuild its view. Large documents are prepared away from the main refresh path, and viewport measurements are reused until the document or the widget's real geometry changes.

Following is more resilient too. Scroll position and row measurements survive an ordinary process restart, but they are now versioned so an app update cannot mistake an old layout for the new one. Resize the widget and it measures again. Scroll away by hand and Follow brings the spoken line back. Leave everything unchanged and the cached path stays cheap.

Speech itself now causes less incidental work. Word progress no longer rebuilds queue identity or crosses into the launcher when nothing visible in the widget changed. Replacing a document also clears the previous item's timing seam before the new one begins, keeping each listening session's measurements its own.

Voca is designed for GrapheneOS: local-first, account-free, built around the system speech service, and useful when the network is gone. It also runs on Android 10 and newer. Version 1.1 makes that private reader easier to trust from the first sentence of a note to the last page of a book—especially when the phone is in your pocket and the widget is the only page you need to see.

Most read-aloud apps will happily speak a PDF's running ...

2026-08-28T16:47:00Z

Most read-aloud apps will happily speak a PDF's running header and page number at you. Voca strips both before the voice sees them.

A sentence broken across a page break is rejoined, so the voice carries through the break as one thought. Words hyphenated at a line end are reassembled before anything is synthesized.

What Voca keeps is the pagination itself, and your place in it, so the document still behaves like the PDF you opened.

The repairs happen during import and normalization. The reading schedule is built from repaired sentences, so the voice and highlight work from the same clean text.

Download Voca on Zapstore: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.voca.app

Most read-along apps guess your timing. They split the text and ...

2026-08-27T19:58:00Z

Most read-along apps guess your timing. They split the text and assign estimated word lengths, hoping the drift stays small.

Voca measures. Each sentence is synthesized to audio before it plays. Its true duration and every pause inside it are captured, then the highlight rides the audio player's own clock against that measurement.

Even the last sentence of a book stays as accurate as the first. Timing keeps pace through the whole chapter.

The cost is honest: the word marker appears only after its timing has been measured, so a freshly opened document carries the sentence band alone for a sentence or two. Highlights are painted behind the glyphs, keeping the layout fixed while the voice moves down the page.

Download Voca on Zapstore: https://zapstore.dev/apps/com.voca.app

@nprofile…w5kt just got a new release, it even reads Nostr ...

2026-08-27T18:03:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…np7k
_________________________

Voca (nprofile…w5kt) just got a new release, it even reads Nostr notes!

quoting
nevent1q…9kdp
Voca 1.0 is out. If you can read it, Voca can say it.

The stack of things you saved and never got to now has somewhere to go. Share or paste text from any app. Hand it a web page and get the article, cleared of the navigation. Open a PDF and get the words, with the running headers left behind. Open a Markdown file and get a real document. Paste a Nostr link and hear the note itself, fetched from relays and checked against its own signature. Subscribe to an RSS feed or a Nostr author and their writing turns up as something to listen to, kept on the phone so it plays in airplane mode.

It reads to you and reports to nobody. Everything lives on the phone, you use it straight away without an account, and it is free of ads and analytics. It reaches the network only when you ask it to fetch something, and what you import is encrypted on the device.

Then it behaves like something meant for hours: a queue you can reorder, a voice per item, bookmarks you can name and search, a sleep timer, pronunciation rules, and a home-screen widget that is a small reader in its own right. The page follows the voice and yields to your thumb. The sentence and word light up as they are spoken, timed against the audio itself.

On GrapheneOS the speech engine is already there, so it reads as soon as you install it.

MIT licensed, whole repository published over Nostr:
https://gitworkshop.dev/npub17h9fn2ny0lycg7kmvxmw6gqdnv2epya9h9excnjw9wvml87nyw8sqy3hpu/voca

Built for GrapheneOS, runs on Android 10 and up. Zapstore is the recommended way to install it, and the package is also attached to the release in the repository.

The full story:
naddr1qv…y59v

If you install it, reply with what breaks, what feels rough, or what you still cannot do.

Voca 1.0 is out. If you can read it, Voca can say it. The stack ...

2026-08-27T17:59:38Z

Voca 1.0 is out. If you can read it, Voca can say it.

The stack of things you saved and never got to now has somewhere to go. Share or paste text from any app. Hand it a web page and get the article, cleared of the navigation. Open a PDF and get the words, with the running headers left behind. Open a Markdown file and get a real document. Paste a Nostr link and hear the note itself, fetched from relays and checked against its own signature. Subscribe to an RSS feed or a Nostr author and their writing turns up as something to listen to, kept on the phone so it plays in airplane mode.

It reads to you and reports to nobody. Everything lives on the phone, you use it straight away without an account, and it is free of ads and analytics. It reaches the network only when you ask it to fetch something, and what you import is encrypted on the device.

Then it behaves like something meant for hours: a queue you can reorder, a voice per item, bookmarks you can name and search, a sleep timer, pronunciation rules, and a home-screen widget that is a small reader in its own right. The page follows the voice and yields to your thumb. The sentence and word light up as they are spoken, timed against the audio itself.

On GrapheneOS the speech engine is already there, so it reads as soon as you install it.

MIT licensed, whole repository published over Nostr:
https://gitworkshop.dev/npub17h9fn2ny0lycg7kmvxmw6gqdnv2epya9h9excnjw9wvml87nyw8sqy3hpu/voca

Built for GrapheneOS, runs on Android 10 and up. Zapstore is the recommended way to install it, and the package is also attached to the release in the repository.

The full story:

quoting
naddr1qv…y59v

The pile

Everyone has the stack. The articles shared into a chat and never opened, the PDF somebody sent in March, the long piece you saved on the assumption there would be an evening for it. It does not move, because reading it needs a chair and a free hour and both are spoken for.

Voca reads it to you instead, in your phone's own voice, while you are doing something else.

The promise

If you can read it, Voca can say it. That is the whole claim, and each route into it has its own damage to undo.

Shared and pasted text has its hard line wraps repaired, so a copied chat log or a pasted column reads as prose instead of stopping at the end of every line. A web page becomes the article: prose, headings and lists, with the navigation, the cookie notice and the newsletter box left behind. A PDF keeps its pagination and your place in it, never speaks the running header or the page number, rejoins a sentence broken across a page break, and puts hyphenated words back together. A Markdown file becomes a document instead of a screen of symbols, with headings, quotes, three kinds of list, code, tables, links and images rendered in real typography.

Paste a Nostr link and hear the note itself. Voca decodes the identifier, fetches the signed event from relays, recomputes its id, verifies the signature and reads the author's text. Article addresses, note ids, events, public keys and profiles all resolve, and so does an ordinary web link with a Nostr entity inside it, so a link out of any of the usual front ends works. It does not read you the web page built around the note.

And you can subscribe instead of hunt. Add an RSS or Atom address over HTTPS, or a Nostr author, and their long-form writing lands in one inbox, with Nostr mentions resolved from signed profile metadata and the text kept on the device.

It reads to you and reports to nobody

There is no Voca server and no account to make. Your queue, your reading positions, your bookmarks and your saved subscription entries live in the app's own private storage, and the documents themselves are encrypted with a key held in the phone's hardware-backed keystore, so a copy of the files taken off the device is not a copy of what you were reading.

Voca goes to the network when you ask it for something, a web page, a subscription refresh, a Nostr link, and at no other time. The exception worth knowing is that a Markdown document carrying images fetches them from their hosts as they come on screen; Nostr notes have their image embeds removed before they are stored.

A relay lookup asks Voca's own set, the write relays the author publishes in their relay list, and any hints carried in the link you opened, which is how a note that never reached the big relays is found at all. Every address must be encrypted and must resolve to the public internet, and a single lookup is capped at eight relays. Events are checked before they are stored, by recomputed id and verified signature, so a relay cannot hand Voca something the author did not write.

The app carries no ads, no analytics and no telemetry. Speech from an on-device engine never leaves the phone; a cloud-backed engine, if you deliberately choose one, receives your text under its own policy. The privacy policy in the repository itemises all of it.

Working this way is also what makes it quick. Tap a sentence and it starts talking. Share an article out of your browser and it is queued before the tab closes. A chapter in airplane mode reads exactly like a chapter on wifi.

Built for hours, not minutes

A synthetic voice is bearable for five minutes by default, and for an hour only if somebody did the work.

The page is part of that. Text runs edge to edge and justified, with the sentence and word highlights painted behind the glyphs so the page holds still while the voice moves through it. Night reading uses a zero-blue amber-on-black theme built for OLED panels; daylight gets a true light theme. Long documents are laid out in paragraph-aligned pieces, so a whole book scrolls as smoothly as a short note, and a floating position pill appears while the page is moving that you can hold and sweep through the document by feel. The page follows the voice the way a patient reader follows a narrator, moving only when the spoken line would leave the screen, and it stops following the moment you scroll by hand until you come back or press play.

The voice is the other part. Voca ships no engine, no voice and no model, and uses the speech service your phone is already configured with. On GrapheneOS that engine is already on the phone, so Voca reads as soon as you install it, with nothing else to install and nothing from Google in the path. Around it: a voice per queue item, adjustable speed, and pronunciation rules that fix the words your engine mangles, case sensitively or not, previewable against any installed voice. Dates, clock times and dotted abbreviations are turned into what a voice should say before the schedule is built, so a date is read as a date instead of as a run of digits, and two voices no longer make two different sets of words out of one page. A footnote marker can be read where it stands, held back until the end of its sentence, or skipped, and the page shows exactly what will be read. A table is announced as a table and then read a row at a time. All of it changes what is spoken and none of it changes the text on screen.

The session holds together across a day: a queue you can reorder, prune and jump around, bookmarks you can name, annotate and search, a sleep timer, reading that carries on with the screen off, and play, pause and sentence skips from the media notification with one press each. A phone call takes priority and Voca comes back afterwards. Swipe the app out of recents and your document and position are still there. The home-screen widget is a small reader instead of a row of buttons: the whole document, rendered as the page is, the spoken sentence kept in view, and any line tappable to read from there.

Why the highlight can be trusted

Voca synthesizes each sentence to audio before playing it and then measures the result: the true duration, and every pause the engine takes inside it. During playback the highlight reads the audio player's own clock against that measured timeline, so the lit word stays on the spoken word from the first sentence of a document to the last line of a chapter. The word marker paints only when its timing has been measured rather than estimated, so on a freshly opened document it waits a sentence or two and then arrives exact, instead of arriving immediately and running ahead of the voice.

The reader in the screenshots is the reader that ships; they are rendered from the real interface by a test in the repository. A separate harness holds the follow-along to a bounded error against known ground truth. Both are files you can run. There is a companion article for anyone who wants the mechanism: the reading pipeline, the two speech lanes, the timing unit, the highlight geometry and the widget.

Free software, and where to get it

Voca is MIT licensed and the whole repository is published over Nostr. Read it, build it, fork it. It is free to use, and if you want to support the work the profile has a lightning address.

Zapstore is the recommended route: it verifies the package signature against my key before installing anything. The same package is attached to the release in the repository if you would rather fetch it and verify it yourself.

Voca is built for GrapheneOS, which is what every release candidate is reviewed on, and runs on Android 10 and up. Other Android systems are not release targets, though the app works on them.

Tell me what is wrong with it

There were earlier public builds in 2025. They did not work well enough on any front, so this is a rebuild rather than a continuation, and the first version I would ask anyone to rely on.

If you install it, tell me what breaks, what feels rough, and what workflow you still cannot do. Reply on Nostr, or open an issue in the repository. The most useful reports name one specific failure or one missing step.

If you install it, reply with what breaks, what feels rough, or what you still cannot do.

SherpaTTS updates added some new text to speech models, so we ...

2025-08-13T12:29:56Z

SherpaTTS updates added some new text to speech models, so we tested which available models work best with Voca (nprofile…ltsg):

en_GB-alba-medium
en_GB-cori-medium
en_US-lessac-medium

Privacy isn’t dead. Voca proves it: zero servers, zero data ...

2025-07-16T11:49:01Z

Privacy isn’t dead. Voca proves it: zero servers, zero data harvesting. Paste a link, load a PDF, hit play. Offline freedom meets ethical design.

Get sherpaTTS on @nprofile…tdq0

2025-07-15T14:14:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…udyv
_________________________

Get sherpaTTS on Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0)

This feature was added in the latest release! In the browser ...

2025-07-12T17:38:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…t3qv
_________________________

This feature was added in the latest release!
In the browser click "share" and select voca (you can pin it too) and voca instantly starts to read the content of the website.

Both work, we recommend Sherpa with ...

2025-07-12T17:36:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…zc79
_________________________

Both work, we recommend Sherpa with en_GB-southern_english_female-medium

Imagine: Your phone reads anything to you while hiking, ...

2025-07-12T17:36:19Z

Imagine: Your phone reads **anything** to you while hiking, commuting, or cooking, no cell signal needed. Voca makes it real. No subscriptions, no ads, no spyware.

PDFs draining your focus? Let Voca narrate them while you walk, ...

2025-07-08T08:21:01Z

PDFs draining your focus? Let Voca narrate them while you walk, stretch, or close your eyes. Fully offline. No accounts. Built by privacy nerds. Help building voca by zapping the devs!

Get Sherpa TTS on @nprofile…tdq0 and download the model ...

2025-06-28T13:24:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…au8u
_________________________

Get Sherpa TTS on Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0) and download the model en_GB-southern_english_female-medium

@nprofile…tdq0 dependency management would be great! We'll ...

2025-06-26T07:16:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…n2xj
_________________________

Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0) dependency management would be great!

We'll add some UX for making this clearer soon.

Thanks for the feedback!

Get Sherpa on zapstore and download the ...

2025-06-26T07:15:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…7lav
_________________________

Get Sherpa on zapstore and download the en_GB-southern_english_female-medium model.

Try a different TTS engine, it works well with ...

2025-06-26T07:14:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…2ldk
_________________________

Try a different TTS engine, it works well with en_GB-southern_english_female-medium

Thanks for testing, let us know how voca can be improved!

2025-06-25T18:41:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…q9yy
_________________________

Thanks for testing, let us know how voca can be improved!

🔊 After weeks of silence, Voca v0.2.0 drops HUGE updates! ✅ ...

2025-06-25T17:30:02Z

🔊 After weeks of silence, Voca v0.2.0 drops HUGE updates!

✅ PDFs load **blazing-fast** – even 500+ page docs play instantly.
🌐 Share any website with Voca, and it’ll start reading aloud *right away*.
🔖 New bookmark system tracks active reading positions across files (no more losing your spot!).

🚀 Download now on Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0)

Future updates will refine the UI for a sleeker experience.

Airplane mode? No problem. Voca works where other apps choke. ...

2025-06-08T11:58:25Z

Airplane mode? No problem. Voca works where other apps choke. Text, web, PDF—hit play and let your ears do the work.

Cooking dinner and need to catch up on reports? Voca reads them ...

2025-05-19T11:35:22Z

Cooking dinner and need to catch up on reports? Voca reads them aloud while you chop. Multitasking made simple, private, and ad-free.

Thanks for tracking voca!

2025-05-16T18:26:31Z

In reply to naddr1qq…sj6j
_________________________

Thanks for tracking voca!

Thanks for the recommendation! Sherpa is a good text to speech ...

2025-05-16T18:25:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…u8t5
_________________________

Thanks for the recommendation!

Sherpa is a good text to speech engine, and voca is a no bullshit TTS app for quickly reading text, PDFs and websites.

Get both on zapstore!

Multitaskers, unite: Voca reads your research papers, news ...

2025-05-16T18:24:24Z

Multitaskers, unite: Voca reads your research papers, news articles, and manuals aloud while you grind. Offline. Private. No corporate garbage.

Yes, voca is in fact built primarily for GrapheneOS! Update to ...

2025-05-09T10:57:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…xcjz
_________________________

Yes, voca is in fact built primarily for GrapheneOS!

Update to v0.1.4, and make sure you have a text to speech engine installed, we recommend sherpaTTS, get both on Zapstore (nprofile…g9gl).

Voca will never be on iOS, we only work on freedom tech stack, ...

2025-05-09T10:56:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…ej9c
_________________________

Voca will never be on iOS, we only work on freedom tech stack, laser focus!

voca v0.1.4 is released! Now it's possible to keep playing ...

2025-05-09T10:55:47Z

voca v0.1.4 is released!

Now it's possible to keep playing your text while voca is in the background.

Download the latest version on Zapstore (nprofile…g9gl)

Accessibility meets privacy: Voca lets you listen to any document ...

2025-05-06T08:26:25Z

Accessibility meets privacy: Voca lets you listen to any document offline. No data shared, no accounts needed. Because everyone deserves to read without barriers.

For the privacy-conscious reader: Voca processes everything ...

2025-05-05T10:33:21Z

For the privacy-conscious reader: Voca processes everything on-device. Your PDFs stay yours. Listen, learn, relax—without Big Tech eavesdropping.

Your secret productivity weapon: Voca reads documents while you ...

2025-04-25T08:33:05Z

Your secret productivity weapon: Voca reads documents while you jog, commute, or tidy up. Maximize every minute without compromising privacy.

Traveling off-grid? Voca turns your phone into an offline ...

2025-04-24T08:07:11Z

Traveling off-grid? Voca turns your phone into an offline library. Preload articles, manuals, novels, listen anywhere, no connection required.

Forget buffering and data fees. Voca works entirely offline, ...

2025-04-22T10:12:23Z

Forget buffering and data fees. Voca works entirely offline, airplane mode approved. Your content, your terms, zero latency.

Stuck in a waiting room? Let Voca read your saved articles out ...

2025-04-21T13:05:55Z

Stuck in a waiting room? Let Voca read your saved articles out loud. No signal? No problem. Your phone’s new superpower: instant audiobooks, anywhere.

Tired of screen time? Give your eyes a rest. Voca converts any ...

2025-04-16T12:47:19Z

Tired of screen time? Give your eyes a rest. Voca converts any text to speech instantly. No subscriptions, no data mining, just pure listening joy.

Voca 0.1.3 Released This update improves core functionality ...

2025-04-10T20:14:09Z

**Voca 0.1.3 Released**

This update improves core functionality for text-to-speech and audio-text synchronization.

---

### **Features**
- **MP3 Playback with Text Highlighting**: Words highlight in sync with audio playback for visual tracking.
- **PDF-to-MP3 Conversion**: Extract text from PDFs and generate corresponding audio files.
- **Text Input Flexibility**: Directly paste or share text into the app for instant TTS processing.
- **Basic Playback Controls**: Pause and resume audio during playback.
- **Project Persistence**: Load and play pre-exported JSON+MP3 file pairs to revisit saved sessions.

---

This release focuses on foundational stability for future iterations. Feedback is welcome as we refine the experience. Zap if you want to thank the devs.

Love ethical tech? Voca’s built by freedom tech devs who hate ...

2025-04-07T14:56:40Z

Love ethical tech? Voca’s built by freedom tech devs who hate surveillance. Offline functionality means zero data leaks. Try the anti-Big Brother app.

Thanks a lot!

2025-04-04T16:15:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…feck
_________________________

Thanks a lot!

New voca v0.1.1 release is out, and this is a big one! Key ...

2025-04-04T14:59:28Z

New voca v0.1.1 release is out, and this is a big one!

Key changes:
- Improved MP3 generation
- PDF text extraction
- Enhanced TTS controls (pause/resume, crash prevention)
- Fresh UI with pretty buttons
- Fixed critical build errors and UI refinements (text selection, exclusive audio controls)
- Streamlined layouts and dependency updates for stability

Expect smoother performance, new features, and a better user experience.

Your feedback fuels our next updates, and your zaps help pay and motivate the devs!

Night owl? Voca’s dark-mode narration lets you ‘read’ ...

2025-04-03T10:02:59Z

Night owl? Voca’s dark-mode narration lets you ‘read’ without glaring screens. Perfect for late-night learning sessions.

We figured out an automated workflow pipeline for pushing ...

2025-04-02T17:15:18Z

We figured out an automated workflow pipeline for pushing releases to Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0)!

If you want to release fast and furiously, consider reviewing and forking the code for your project.

https://git.nostrdev.com/voca/voca/src/branch/main/.gitea/workflows/release-zapstore.yaml

You can load pdfs.

2025-04-01T20:13:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…543c
_________________________

You can load pdfs.

Sats spend on devs: 5 000 000 Sats earned on zaps: 400 000 Not ...

2025-04-01T19:50:30Z

Sats spend on devs: 5 000 000
Sats earned on zaps: 400 000

Not yet profitable, but also not nothing.

Voca uses any local text to speech engine. There are some models ...

2025-04-01T19:02:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…vdcm
_________________________

Voca uses any local text to speech engine.
There are some models that have customizable voices, but none of them on android.
Juraj (nprofile…eh46) has his own voice trained for loaditfor.me

In fact we're doing it for your family, they miss you and ...

2025-04-01T18:59:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…52lq
_________________________

In fact we're doing it for your family, they miss you and want to spend more time with you!

Unfortunately at the moment large text and PDF are very buggy. ...

2025-04-01T18:58:16Z

In reply to nevent1q…76xv
_________________________

Unfortunately at the moment large text and PDF are very buggy.
The next release should come with major stability improvements. We're figuring out how to properly chunk larger text.

Thanks for the patience as alpha tester! 🧡

Your GrapheneOS just became an audiobook powerhouse. Voca turns ...

2025-04-01T17:12:56Z

Your GrapheneOS just became an audiobook powerhouse. Voca turns articles, docs, even web pages into instant narration—no internet, no trackers. Love it? Zap it!

Turn your Android into a pocket narrator. Voca reads articles, ...

2025-03-31T17:26:47Z

Turn your Android into a pocket narrator. Voca reads articles, PDFs, even web pages aloud—no Wi-Fi, no ads. Perfect for road trips or bedtime stories. Your eyes will thank you.

voca utiliza su texto local para el motor del habla, así que ...

2025-03-29T20:28:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…2ph3
_________________________

voca utiliza su texto local para el motor del habla, así que cambia la voz allí y voca lo utilizará. le recomendamos sherpaTTS, conseguirlo en zapstore.

Voca is still far from being so feature rich, but eventually ...

2025-03-29T20:26:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…7qp4
_________________________

Voca is still far from being so feature rich, but eventually something like this is on the roadmap!

convertir un PDF a audio está llegando en una futura versión, ...

2025-03-29T08:06:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…ww7m
_________________________

convertir un PDF a audio está llegando en una futura versión, hasta ahora Mantenemos la característica súper pequeña para asegurar que los básicos funcionen de forma impecable.

You know the devs are starting to figure it out when: ...

2025-03-29T08:04:52Z

You know the devs are starting to figure it out when:

PDFs piling up? Let Voca declutter your mind by reading them ...

2025-03-28T15:48:56Z

PDFs piling up? Let Voca declutter your mind by reading them aloud during your walk. No apps spying, no ads interrupting, just you and the content.

Imagine: Your phone narrates news sites without tracking your ...

2025-03-28T07:09:03Z

Imagine: Your phone narrates news sites without tracking your clicks. Voca makes it real. Browse freely, listen privately.

Indeed, a new certificate was created for the new release ...

2025-03-28T07:08:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…3hpa
_________________________

Indeed, a new certificate was created for the new release process.

Thanks for the report! The Zapstore release process was the major ...

2025-03-27T19:56:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…xa2k
_________________________

Thanks for the report!
The Zapstore release process was the major part of this release, so maybe something changed under the hood, we're investigating!
Just uninstall and reinstall should work.

voca v0.0.6 is released! This release fine tunes the release ...

2025-03-27T19:47:25Z

voca v0.0.6 is released!

This release fine tunes the release process and makes publishing to Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0) a lot easier.

There are also continuous improvements to initializing the text to speech engine for a faster startup.

We're laying the groundwork for some major features in the upcoming releases, stay tuned!

Hate ads? Voca skips the nonsense. Just share, press play, and ...

2025-03-27T17:41:10Z

Hate ads? Voca skips the nonsense. Just share, press play, and let your ears absorb the content. Clean, simple, and totally offline.

Exactly, super bullish!

2025-03-27T17:38:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…qtm6
_________________________

Exactly, super bullish!

Nostr event nevent1qqsq7kav509eahvr946hewxhje5f34cj62nv75q0csvx3mvmtgu67aqzyr6u4xd2v3lunpr6mdsmdmfqpkd3tyyn5kuhymzwfc4en0ul6v3c744tm6x

2025-03-27T16:42:48Z

voca turns any text into an audio book.

This is so true, voca is proof of it! #nevent1q…hy59

2025-03-27T14:17:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…z4hr
_________________________

This is so true, voca is proof of it!

quoting
nevent1q…hy59
Do you even realize how crazy the nostr is?!

Voca’s npub is barely a week old, our first release dropped yesterday, and already the community zapped over **300k sats** into existence.

Nostr is still a fledgling protocol, yet here we are—operating at a scale where decentralized funding can bootstrap an entirely new application that's nor even a nostr client.

This isn’t incremental change—it’s a new paradigm.

The message is clear: **Build. Ship. Repeat.** The future isn’t just bright—it’s already here, and it's a future where you can just build stuff.

Devs do acknowledged the need for easier clients. It's just ...

2025-03-27T14:06:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…08nc
_________________________

Devs do acknowledged the need for easier clients.
It's just that easy is really hard!

GrapheneOS (nprofile…nztg) is a fork of the android open source project with all google dependencies removed and countless security and privacy benefits added.

Voca is tailormade to run on grapheneOS, because there isn't a great FOSS text to speech reader there, but voca should run on any android device.

Turn downtime into learning time. Voca reads saved articles while ...

2025-03-27T06:46:39Z

Turn downtime into learning time. Voca reads saved articles while you’re between meetings or waiting for coffee. Knowledge on tap, no Wi-Fi needed.

Nostr event nevent1qqs9qc5kpzeldh9k47atpey32zculnq3t3mvhdqg62cyxz9e2cklekgzyr6u4xd2v3lunpr6mdsmdmfqpkd3tyyn5kuhymzwfc4en0ul6v3c79xx5xy

2025-03-27T06:43:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…x9ld
_________________________

Thanks! And this is the worst it will ever be, lots of great ...

2025-03-26T19:48:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…aex3
_________________________

Thanks!
And this is the worst it will ever be, lots of great improvements coming.

Awesome, let us know how we can make it better!

2025-03-26T19:39:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…ze5v
_________________________

Awesome, let us know how we can make it better!

Do you even realize how crazy the nostr is?! Voca’s npub is ...

2025-03-26T19:36:55Z

Do you even realize how crazy the nostr is?!

Voca’s npub is barely a week old, our first release dropped yesterday, and already the community zapped over **300k sats** into existence.

Nostr is still a fledgling protocol, yet here we are—operating at a scale where decentralized funding can bootstrap an entirely new application that's nor even a nostr client.

This isn’t incremental change—it’s a new paradigm.

The message is clear: **Build. Ship. Repeat.** The future isn’t just bright—it’s already here, and it's a future where you can just build stuff.

Don't feel like reading BIPs? Let voca read them for you! ...

2025-03-26T18:35:03Z

Don't feel like reading BIPs?
Let voca read them for you!

quoting
nevent1q…j6dd
Consensus Cleanup soft fork BIP draft dropped

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1800

voca v0.0.5 is released! This one has only some beautification, ...

2025-03-26T18:07:12Z

voca v0.0.5 is released!

This one has only some beautification, now the text box is always full screen.

Three releases in a day - if that's not worth a zap I don't know what is...

voca v0.0.4 released! This release focuses on delivering a ...

2025-03-26T17:35:16Z

voca v0.0.4 released!

This release focuses on delivering a smoother experience with faster performance, fewer errors, and foundational backend upgrades to support future features.

Get it on Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0)

Nostr event nevent1qqsxku58tfeg4ywt75yw2hfqgjzwh5ax6ghpcxf6yr7hgrkfuuq44rczyr6u4xd2v3lunpr6mdsmdmfqpkd3tyyn5kuhymzwfc4en0ul6v3c7dtjmdk

2025-03-26T17:12:56Z

Narrator: you don't...

2025-03-26T17:00:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…8hw4
_________________________

Narrator: you don't...

Keep zapping, it motivates the devs, we might get a second ...

2025-03-26T16:55:48Z

Keep zapping, it motivates the devs, we might get a second release today!

Step 4: get voca, share text, listen

2025-03-26T16:51:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…rtsw
_________________________

Step 4: get voca, share text, listen

Step 4: get voca

2025-03-26T16:50:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…5qtm
_________________________

Step 4: get voca

"The bugs are being fixed by the developers right now." ...

2025-03-26T16:37:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…zm8g
_________________________

"The bugs are being fixed by the developers right now."

"But the devs are sleeping right now."

Yup indeed... But it will really be finished though! ...

2025-03-26T16:05:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…8fc6
_________________________

Yup indeed...
But it will really be finished though!

quoting
nevent1q…zehg
Patiently waiting for the first Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0) release of voca.

Android has this: settings > accessibility > talk back

2025-03-26T16:04:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…hggk
_________________________

Android has this: settings > accessibility > talk back

voca is here to 1) make freedom tech builders more knowledgeable, ...

2025-03-26T15:40:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…62a4
_________________________

voca is here to 1) make freedom tech builders more knowledgeable, and 2) prolong their life.

This is how we win!

The post was about waiting for the devs to ship the first ...

2025-03-26T15:36:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…xuc4
_________________________

The post was about waiting for the devs to ship the first release.

Voca: Because sometimes you just want to close your eyes and ...

2025-03-26T14:25:00Z

Voca: Because sometimes you just want to close your eyes and listen.

No accounts.
No tracking.
No hassle.

Your content, narrated your way.

Here you go: https://git.nostrdev.com/voca/voca/releases Checkout ...

2025-03-26T13:49:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…l7v0
_________________________

Here you go:
https://git.nostrdev.com/voca/voca/releases

Checkout Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0) though, it automatically verifies signatures.

Great to hear it's working for you, let us know how to make ...

2025-03-26T12:38:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…n27g
_________________________

Great to hear it's working for you, let us know how to make it better!

It works in obtainium already, but checkout @nprofile…tdq0, its ...

2025-03-26T12:38:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…rddd
_________________________

It works in obtainium already, but checkout Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0), its better UX and better security.

quoting
nevent1q…ftym
Yes you can, paste the release link (not main repo link) in the app source.
https://git.nostrdev.com/voca/voca/releases

Hopefully today we will release on Zapstore (nprofile…tdq0)

Thanks for reporting the bug, we're already trouble shooting ...

2025-03-26T12:37:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…wvnk
_________________________

Thanks for reporting the bug, we're already trouble shooting it!
A solution is to change the TTS settings from language > use system language, to english.

Since today!

2025-03-26T11:52:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…mhvf
_________________________

Since today!