{"dataset":{"name":"Speech recognition accuracy through Bluetooth headset audio","title":"Bluetooth Headset Dictation Accuracy, Tested","question":"How much accuracy does dictation lose when your voice goes through a Bluetooth headset's call link, narrowband or wideband?","url":"https://yapapp.cc/data/asr-bluetooth-audio","measure":{"label":"Word error rate","unit":"percent","short":"%","decimals":2,"lowerIsBetter":true},"dimensions":[{"key":"engine","label":"Engine","values":["Parakeet TDT v3","Whisper large-v3-turbo","Apple SpeechTranscriber"]},{"key":"maker","label":"Maker"},{"key":"condition","label":"Audio path","values":["Original recording","Wideband (mSBC)","8 kHz, no codec","Narrowband (CVSD)"]},{"key":"language","label":"Language"}],"include":"Each engine on the 100 English recordings of our main benchmark, as recorded and after each Bluetooth voice path, every path starting from the same recording at the same speech level.","exclude":"Real headsets in real rooms (their microphones, noise suppression and radio dropouts), the newer LE Audio codec (LC3) and makers' own codecs, for now.","method":"When an app opens a Bluetooth headset's microphone, the link switches to the Hands-Free Profile, which carries voice narrowband (8 kHz, CVSD) or wideband (16 kHz, mSBC). Each recording is brought to a speech level of -26 dB below full scale, then encoded and decoded in software: mSBC with ffmpeg's SBC encoder in mSBC mode, CVSD with the Bluetooth Core Specification's parameters at 64 kbit/s. A fourth path cuts the audio to 8 kHz without a codec, to separate what the bandwidth costs from what the codec adds. Engines and scoring are the same as the main benchmark; the codec code and every file's checksum are in the full record.","limitations":"The codecs run in software on studio-clean read speech, so this measures the voice path alone: a headset's own microphone, its noise suppression and lost radio packets would add to these errors. One language and one Mac are tested. With 100 recordings (2,141 words) per path, a change of a few tenths of a point is within chance: the full record gives each engine's change from the original recording with its interval over the nine comparisons, and only a change outside that interval counts as measured.","sources":0,"updated":"2026-10-22","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","credit":"Yap (2026). Speech recognition accuracy through Bluetooth headset audio [Data set]. https://yapapp.cc/data/asr-bluetooth-audio"},"rows":[{"row":"Whisper large-v3-turbo, Original recording","value":3.92,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"3.92","unit":"percent","engine":"Whisper large-v3-turbo","maker":"OpenAI","condition":"Original recording","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Whisper large-v3-turbo had a word error rate of 3.92 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings as recorded (16 kHz, no Bluetooth codec).","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-whisper-clean-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Parakeet TDT v3, Original recording","value":4.11,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"4.11","unit":"percent","engine":"Parakeet TDT v3","maker":"NVIDIA","condition":"Original recording","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 had a word error rate of 4.11 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings as recorded (16 kHz, no Bluetooth codec).","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-parakeet-clean-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Apple SpeechTranscriber, Original recording","value":6.4,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"6.4","unit":"percent","engine":"Apple SpeechTranscriber","maker":"Apple","condition":"Original recording","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Apple SpeechTranscriber had a word error rate of 6.40 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings as recorded (16 kHz, no Bluetooth codec).","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-apple-clean-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Whisper large-v3-turbo, Wideband (mSBC)","value":3.69,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"3.69","unit":"percent","engine":"Whisper large-v3-turbo","maker":"OpenAI","condition":"Wideband (mSBC)","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Whisper large-v3-turbo had a word error rate of 3.69 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings after the wideband voice path of the Bluetooth Hands-Free Profile (mSBC codec, 16 kHz).","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-whisper-msbc-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Parakeet TDT v3, Wideband (mSBC)","value":4.2,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"4.2","unit":"percent","engine":"Parakeet TDT v3","maker":"NVIDIA","condition":"Wideband (mSBC)","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 had a word error rate of 4.20 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings after the wideband voice path of the Bluetooth Hands-Free Profile (mSBC codec, 16 kHz).","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-parakeet-msbc-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Apple SpeechTranscriber, Wideband (mSBC)","value":5.93,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"5.93","unit":"percent","engine":"Apple SpeechTranscriber","maker":"Apple","condition":"Wideband (mSBC)","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Apple SpeechTranscriber had a word error rate of 5.93 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings after the wideband voice path of the Bluetooth Hands-Free Profile (mSBC codec, 16 kHz).","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-apple-msbc-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Parakeet TDT v3, 8 kHz, no codec","value":4.39,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"4.39","unit":"percent","engine":"Parakeet TDT v3","maker":"NVIDIA","condition":"8 kHz, no codec","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 had a word error rate of 4.39 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings cut to 8 kHz audio without any codec, which removes every sound above 4 kHz.","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-parakeet-narrowband-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Whisper large-v3-turbo, 8 kHz, no codec","value":5,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"5","unit":"percent","engine":"Whisper large-v3-turbo","maker":"OpenAI","condition":"8 kHz, no codec","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Whisper large-v3-turbo had a word error rate of 5.00 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings cut to 8 kHz audio without any codec, which removes every sound above 4 kHz.","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-whisper-narrowband-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Apple SpeechTranscriber, 8 kHz, no codec","value":7.15,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"7.15","unit":"percent","engine":"Apple SpeechTranscriber","maker":"Apple","condition":"8 kHz, no codec","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Apple SpeechTranscriber had a word error rate of 7.15 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings cut to 8 kHz audio without any codec, which removes every sound above 4 kHz.","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-apple-narrowband-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Parakeet TDT v3, Narrowband (CVSD)","value":4.53,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"4.53","unit":"percent","engine":"Parakeet TDT v3","maker":"NVIDIA","condition":"Narrowband (CVSD)","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 had a word error rate of 4.53 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings after the narrowband voice path of the Bluetooth Hands-Free Profile (CVSD codec, 8 kHz), the one every hands-free headset must support.","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-parakeet-cvsd-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Whisper large-v3-turbo, Narrowband (CVSD)","value":5.18,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"5.18","unit":"percent","engine":"Whisper large-v3-turbo","maker":"OpenAI","condition":"Narrowband (CVSD)","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Whisper large-v3-turbo had a word error rate of 5.18 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings after the narrowband voice path of the Bluetooth Hands-Free Profile (CVSD codec, 8 kHz), the one every hands-free headset must support.","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-whisper-cvsd-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"},{"row":"Apple SpeechTranscriber, Narrowband (CVSD)","value":7.43,"low":null,"high":null,"as_written":"7.43","unit":"percent","engine":"Apple SpeechTranscriber","maker":"Apple","condition":"Narrowband (CVSD)","language":"English","conversion":null,"claim":"In our October 2026 test on a Mac with an M2 Pro, Apple SpeechTranscriber had a word error rate of 7.43 percent on 100 English FLEURS recordings after the narrowband voice path of the Bluetooth Hands-Free Profile (CVSD codec, 8 kHz), the one every hands-free headset must support.","quote":null,"where_in_source":null,"fact_url":"https://yapapp.cc/facts/m-bluetooth-2026-10-apple-cvsd-wer","source_title":null,"source_publisher":null,"source_year":null,"source_url":null,"source_doi":null,"checked":"2026-10-22"}]}