Push to talk
Hold the bar at the bottom of the working screen, or the headset button, speak, and let go. The microphone is only open while you hold it, so conversation in the barn has no way of changing anything.
Voice control
You talk, the app writes.
Voice control came out of one picture: the trimmer is holding the grinder, the cow is in the crush, and the tablet is three steps away. Putting the tool down and coming back costs more than the entry itself. Cownt listens and takes the note for you, entirely on the device.
Experimental featureTwo modes, depending on how you work
You pick the mode in settings and change it whenever you like. Voice is off by default.
Continuous listening
The microphone stays open, but every command has to start with the wake word. Without it, ordinary talk at the crush would change entries — which is why the wake word is not optional in this mode.
What a command is made of
Word order within one thing does not matter: “rear left” and “left rear” are the same. Order matters between things — a leg said before a treatment applies to that treatment.
- 01
Cow number
Dictate the digits one at a time. A twelve-digit number is checked against the ear-tag checksum. If it does not match, the command is rejected rather than saving the wrong cow.
- cow number 1 2 3 4 5
- 02
Legs
Build the scope from a row and a side. A row alone means both legs of that row, a side alone means both legs of that side, and together they give one specific leg. Saying just the scope selects it on screen.
- front
- rear
- left
- right rear
- 03
Treatments
Every code has a descriptive name and most also have a spelled form. Spelling is shorter but harder for the model — in noise the descriptive name is safer. A treatment given without a leg goes to whichever legs are currently selected.
- wrap
- block
- dermatitis
- sole ulcer
- 04
Grades and counts
Say the grade or count right after the treatment it belongs to, always with “grade”, “em” or “times”. A bare “two” is a digit of the cow number, not a grade — and it will be read that way.
- dermatitis em two
- block times two
- 05
Selecting and clearing
Without either word the treatment is applied, so “wrap” means the same as “set wrap”. The direction holds until the end of the utterance and does not carry over to the next one.
- set wrap
- clear sole ulcer
A whole sentence at once
Everything above can be combined into one utterance. That is the real reason voice earns its place at the crush: one cow is one sentence, not five separate taps.
“cow number 1 2 3 4 5 left front wrap block dermatitis white line”
Sets the number, selects the left front and applies four treatments in one go.
“rear legs dermatitis em two”
Both rear legs, dermatitis at stage M2.
“left front wrap right rear block”
Two different legs, each with its own treatment, in one sentence.
“clear sole ulcer”
Removes the treatment from the currently selected legs.
The whole utterance is accepted or rejected as one — never half-applied. A single “undo” reverses the entire sentence, not the last word.
Control commands
These three must be said on their own, with nothing else in the same utterance. That is a safeguard: “next cow” writes the animal to the database and must not attach itself to a misheard sentence.
- “next cow”Saves the cow and moves to the next one.
- “undo”Reverses the last command in full.
- “clear number”Clears the cow number.
Nine command languages
The command language is independent of the app language and of the report language. You can run the interface in English, print reports in German and speak Polish — three separate decisions.
- Polski
- English
- Deutsch
- Nederlands
- Français
- Español
- Italiano
- Português
- Русский
For Estonian, Latvian and Slovak there is no speech model we could use. Those three interface languages will not get voice until one exists — and we would rather write that plainly than promise a date.
What to know before you switch it on
Nothing leaves the device
Recognition runs entirely offline. The recording is never sent and never stored — there is nowhere to look for it, because it never becomes a file.
The model is about 50 MB
You download it once, on demand, and it is better done on Wi-Fi. The app warns you if you are on mobile data.
In noise the voice pauses itself
That is deliberate. In a loud barn recognition returns confident and wrong words, and a quiet pause does less damage than a recorded invention.
The app says what it wrote down
After every accepted command you hear a confirmation (“Selected: left front”, “Cow added”). If you hear something other than what you said, say “undo”. The read-back can be turned off; the tone and the vibration stay.
It does not work with a custom code catalogue
Voice recognises words from a prepared lexicon. If you built your own code list from scratch, voice control is not available for it.
It is still an experimental feature
That is how it is labelled in the app and that is how we treat it. The model can mishear, so it is worth glancing at the bar at the bottom of the screen after every command. For entries that matter, confirm on screen.
What works in the barn
- A Bluetooth headset works far better than the tablet microphone — closer to your mouth, further from the noise.
- Pause briefly after pressing, before you start speaking. Without it the decoder loses the first word.
- Speak short and normally. Shouting and over-articulating make recognition worse.
- An amber bar means repeat. Red means it cannot be done — read the message.
See whether it suits you
Voice control is part of the ordinary subscription, at no extra cost. You switch it on in settings whenever you want — and switch it off just as easily if it does not earn its place in your barn.
See the app screen by screen