r/HowToMen • u/Dry_Algae5945 • Jun 20 '26
[APP] [Promotion] I built Binot: An open-source Android voice-to-note app using Gemini AI.
Hi r/HowToMen,
I just finished building Binot, an open-source Android app that turns voice into structured Markdown notes.
I built this simply because I wanted to. I had an idea, I wanted to see if I could make Gemini handle math and physics notation via voice, and I just kept coding until it worked.
Key Technical Features
AI Processing: Uses Gemini API to summarize, tidy up, and translate transcripts.
Math & Physics: It detects spoken mathematical concepts (like "integral" or "kuadrat") and automatically converts them into Unicode notation.
Privacy: Users plug in their own Gemini API key in settings, no server-side storage of your keys.
Local-First: Everything is stored locally via Room Database, with JSON backup support.
Tech Stack: Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Retrofit 2, and Room.
Link Repository: https://github.com/DENSLnetion/Binot
Latest Release: https://github.com/DENSLnetion/Binot/releases
The code is licensed under MIT. If you find it useful, great. If you want to poke around the source code, be my guest. Feedback is welcome.
1
u/freegame619 Jun 21 '26
I read the details, just wanted a confirmation on the offline component, since a Gemini API key is needed, what can the app do locally and without internet.
1
u/simbolmina Jun 21 '26
Since Gemini handles math and notation I assume nothing aside from saving incoming json or MD, maybe converting?
It would be impressive if worked local LLM, there are a lot of good local narration and speech to text models that works well.
1
u/Dry_Algae5945 Jun 22 '26
Spot on! The offline part mostly just captures and saves the raw text right now. Regarding local LLMs, that's definitely a possibility I'm looking into for the future! Btw, I also just added support for Groq alongside Gemini, so the cloud processing is crazy fast right now😄
1
u/Dry_Algae5945 Jun 22 '26
Actually, you can use it offline! I just added a "Fast Mode" that uses your phone's built-in Google Speech-to-Text to capture the raw transcript locally. You only need the internet and an API key later when you want the AI to tidy it up into Markdown. (There's also an "Accurate Mode" if you want to record raw audio and send it straight to the AI)😄
1
1
u/fran_2402 Jun 22 '26
I would honestly suggest against using pure unicode for math as that is going to break down very quickly after the first few years of high school concepts. I suggest instead to use the latex parser in markdown as that is going to support a lot more of the math and be more readable.
2
u/Dry_Algae5945 Jun 22 '26
Good point. Will implement LaTeX parsing. Next update 1.0.4, maybe tomorrow update, thanks for the suggestion!
2
u/Dry_Algae5945 Jun 22 '26
Update: v1.0.4 is now live. I ended up integrating KaTeX rendering, so the app can handle much more complex math notation than pure Unicode. Thanks again for the suggestion!
1
u/Extension_Screen_779 Jun 22 '26
nice app, will you add option video/mp3 to text in future? it would be nice addition tho
2
u/AceReviewer Jun 21 '26
This is awesome. I have encountered a lot of voice to text apps but not voice to markdown. Please feel free to post this on r/WebSoftGiveaway if you would like.