@gmessier/nitro-speech

React Native real-time Speech Recognition Library powered by Nitro Modules

⚠️ This is @gmessier/nitro-speech package (npm). This package will be deprecated soon. Please switch to the new react-native-nitro-speech (npm)

The API is identical — no migration needed.

Key Features:

• ⚡ Built with Nitro Modules for low-overhead native binding
• 🌎 Supports 60+ languages
• 🍎 The only library implementing new SpeechAnalyzer with SpeechTranscriber or DictationTranscriber API for iOS 26+ (with fallback to legacy SFSpeechRecognition for older versions)
• 🧵 Full support of react-native-worklets - each method is accessible from any runtime
• ⏱️ Timer for silence
  • Configurable and mutable autoFinishRecognitionMs value (default: 8 sec)
  • Callback onAutoFinishProgress fires periodically with a configurable interval
  • Configurable and mutable interval autoFinishProgressIntervalMs value (default: 1 sec) allows changing the value on the fly
  • Method resetAutoFinishTime resets the timer to the threshold
  • Method addAutoFinishTime adds ms once without changing threshold
  • Configurable volume-based sensitivity resetAutoFinishVoiceSensitivity for the timer from 0 to 1
• 🎤 Rich user voice input management
  • Hook useVoiceInputVolume and method getVoiceInputVolume for displaying volume in dB and making smooth UI animations
  • Callback onVolumeChange for advanced use cases
• 🧩 Session Lifecycle methods: prewarm and updateConfig
• 👆 Configurable Haptic Feedback on start and finish
• 🎚️ Speech-quality features: see full list here
• 🔓 Embedded Permission handling
  • Callback onPermissionDenied and method getPermissions
  • Option requestPermission for prewarm method
• 📦 Everything else that could be found in Expo or other libraries

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Permissions
• Features
• Requirements
• Compatibility
• Contributions and feedback
• Troubleshooting
• Usage:
  • Recommended: useRecognizer Hook
  • With React Navigation (important)
  • Cross-component control: RecognizerRef
  • Multithreading (react-native-worklets)
  • Voice input volume
  • Is active
  • Direct access to SpeechRecognizer

Installation

npm install @gmessier/nitro-speech react-native-nitro-modules
# or
yarn add @gmessier/nitro-speech react-native-nitro-modules
# or
bun add @gmessier/nitro-speech react-native-nitro-modules

Expo

This library works with Expo. You need to run prebuild to generate native code:

npx expo prebuild

Note: Make sure New Arch is enabled in your Expo configuration before running prebuild.

iOS

cd ios && pod install

Android

No additional setup required.

Permissions

More about permissions here

Android

No actions required. The library declares the required permission in its AndroidManifest.xml (merged automatically):

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.VIBRATE" />

iOS

Add the following keys to your app's Info.plist:

<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
<string>This app needs microphone access for speech recognition</string>
<key>NSSpeechRecognitionUsageDescription</key>
<string>This app needs speech recognition to convert speech to text</string>

Both permissions are required for speech recognition to work on iOS.

Features

| Feature | Documentation page | iOS | Android | | --------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------- | -------- | | Real-time transcription | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Full worklets support | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | New advanced iOS models | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Locale support | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Auto-finish on silence | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Auto-finish progress | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Auto-finish progress interval | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Add Auto-finish Time | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Reset Auto-finish Time | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Reset Auto-finish Sensitivity | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Voice input volume | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Prewarm | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Update config | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Active state | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Haptic feedback | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Permission handling | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Background handling | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Repeating word filter | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Offensive word masking | Link 🔗 | iOS 26+ | ✅ | | Contextual strings | Link 🔗 | ✅ | ✅ | | Language model selection | Link 🔗 | Auto | ✅ | | Batch handling | Link 🔗 | Auto | ✅ | | Formatting quality | Link 🔗 | Auto | ✅ | | Transcription preset | Link 🔗 | ✅ | Auto | | Automatic punctuation | Link 🔗 | ✅ | Auto | | Atypical speech hint | Link 🔗 | ✅ | Auto | | getSupportedLocalesIOS | Link 🔗 | ✅ | X |

Requirements

• React Native >= 0.76
• New Arch Only
• react-native-nitro-modules

Compatibility

react-native-nitro-modules published a version 0.35.0 that is incompatible with older versions.

If your project can't migrate to the latest version of react-native-nitro-modules, you can use the older versions of @gmessier/nitro-speech

| nitro-speech | react-native-nitro-modules | | ----------------------------------| -------------------------------------- | | @gmessier/nitro-speech < 0.3.* | react-native-nitro-modules < 0.35.0 | | @gmessier/nitro-speech >= 0.3.* | react-native-nitro-modules >= 0.35.0 | | react-native-nitro-speech * | react-native-nitro-modules >= 0.35.0 |

Contributions and feedback

If you hit an issue or want to request a feature, please open a GitHub issue or reach out to me on Discord / Twitter (X) — response is guaranteed.

• GitHub Issues
• Twitter (X)
• Discord: @gmessier

Troubleshooting

Android Gradle sync issues

If you're having issues with Android Gradle sync, try running the prebuild for the library that causes the issue:

e.g. failed in react-native-nitro-modules:

cd android && ./gradlew :react-native-nitro-modules:preBuild

e.g. failed in react-native-worklets:

cd android && ./gradlew :react-native-worklets:preBuild

License

MIT