I’m not really having a good time with the newest version of Dragon Naturally Speaking.
I spent the last hour struggling with my computer trying to get Dragon 12 to work with the new “enhanced” Bluetooth Plantronics Calisto two headset. The new headset does work. I can listen to music in the earpiece and I can go through the Dragon Naturally Speaking check microphone process without any problems.
Unfortunately, once the volume has been adjusted successfully and the microphone check is complete, Dragon Naturally Speaking 12 doesn’t actually transcribe what I say. It just looks pretty, it thinks, and then sometimes I get an error saying that there’s a problem, or it’s low on system resources. Other times, it’ll record the sentence that I said several minutes later.
Mind you, this post is being written using Dragon Naturally Speaking 12 and my old Calisto Plantronics Bluetooth headset (from Dragon Naturally Speaking 11) – so Dragon Naturally Speaking 12 does actually work on my computer. It just looks like there’s a glitch trying to use the new enhanced Bluetooth headset.
I’ll have to call nuance technical support sometime to see if they can help me. Unfortunately, the new school year is around the corner and one of the programs that I was hoping to use (aviary) is shutting down in September 2012. I’ve got to find alternative so playing around with Dragon will have to wait. Bummer.
(On a side note, I wrote last week that it seemed like Dragon Naturally Speaking 12 was a lot slower when correcting mistakes. It looks like that glitch only happens when I use the new enhanced Plantronics Calisto BT 300 II headset. Correcting mistakes works just fine in Dragon 12 if I use my old Calisto BT 300 I headset. Good to know. Definitely something going wrong with the new headset. Driver conflict anyone?)
This blog post was dictated using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 premium and the old Dragon 11 Wireless Premium bluetooth headset (Plantronics Calisto BT 300 I – not enhanced) in Microsoft Word.
- There were 324 words in the first draft of this post.
- Dragon Naturally Speaking made 6 word errors which mean that it transcribed 98.1% of the words correctly.
- The voice recognition software also made an additional 4 punctuation errors meaning the total accuracy rate was %.
Click here to find out more about the Dragon NaturallySpeaking Student / Teacher version.
Hi,
What is the latest word on Dragon 12? Did you talk to Nuance tech support about the Calisto 2 headset?
Are you recommending the upgrade to Dragon 12?
I’m trying to decide if I should upgrade to 12 and if I should I buy the new headset.
Thanks,
Phil
Hi Phillip – I still haven’t had a chance to contact Nuance tech support. It’s on my list of things to do. For people who don’t have Dragon Naturally Speaking and they’re interested in voice recognition software, I definitely recommend Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12. If you have Dragon 11.5, I’d upgrade if you wanted the new features (i.e. enhanced webmail support) but otherwise Dragon Naturally Speaking 11.5 is still comparatively accurate.
I think the new headset will rock if I can actually get it to work properly. (You need Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 to use the enhanced bandwidth with the new Calisto Plantronics headset.) Right now, my new “enhanced” headset isn’t working, so Dragon 12 is actually better with my old Dragon 11 wireless headset. Sorry I couldn’t be more help right now. I’ll post an update after I chat with Nuance tech support.