Subtle Voicebuds vs Mercury Voice

Subtle is the companion app for Subtle Voicebuds — a device that hears only you, even at your quietest. Subtle combines dictation, voice notes, and AI chat for a complete voice-first computing experience, letting you run your day with voice. WRITE WITH A WHISPER, IN ANY APP The Subtle keyboard turns your speech into text wherever you type — messages, email, notes, search, no app-switching required. Tap the mic, speak aloud or whisper, and see your words appear. Because the Voicebuds are tuned for your quiet voice, dictation works in a noisy café or a silent library without raising your voice. CAPTURE NOTES AS YOU THINK Record a thought the moment it arrives. Your recordings are transcribed into notes you can search, edit, and organize. Your notes and chats are encrypted in transit and at rest. BUILT FOR LOUD AND QUIET SPACES Traditional earbuds were built for listening. Subtle Voicebuds are built for speaking. The Subtle Voice Engine hears you and nothing else, even in loud environments where voice traditionally fails. Whisper-level dictation means your voice still gets through, even when speaking aloud isn’t an option. The Subtle app requires Voicebuds at this time. Pair your Voicebuds in the app to get started.

Mercury Voice is a native voice client for Hermes Agent — talk to your self-hosted AI agent hands-free, on your Mac or iPhone. Speak naturally and Mercury Voice listens, transcribes, sends your prompt, and speaks the reply back to you — then re-arms to listen again, so you can keep a real conversation going without touching the screen. FEATURES • Hands-free voice loop — listen, transcribe, submit, speak, repeat • Full-duplex barge-in — interrupt the agent mid-reply just by talking, no button required • Spoken stop words to end a turn without reaching for your device • Live captions of the agent's spoken reply as it streams • Lock-screen Live Activity on iPhone — see session status and mute, stop, or end the conversation without unlocking • Password and native OAuth sign-in for gated servers, or simple token login for local setups • Reconnects automatically and picks up right where a reply left off, even after a dropped connection • One native app, built for both macOS and iOS • Siri Shortcut support so you can start a new session using just your voice YOUR SERVER, YOUR DATA Mercury Voice connects to a Hermes Agent backend that you run yourself. Nothing is sent to a third-party service by this app — you point it at your own server address and sign in with your own credentials. REQUIRES A running Hermes Agent backend (see github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent). This app does not include or host a backend.