Echo is a voice keyboard for iPhone that lets you speak and type in the same interface — no switching between dictation mode and your regular keyboard. It also uses AI to automatically polish your transcription: fixing errors, removing filler words, and cleaning up grammar.
Setting it up takes less than 2 minutes. Here's exactly how to do it.
What you'll need: An iPhone running iOS 16 or later and an internet connection for the initial download.
Open the App Store on your iPhone and search for "Echo Voice Keyboard". Tap Get to download — it's free and no account is required.
You can also use this direct link: Download Echo on the App Store
After installation, tap the Echo icon on your home screen. The app will walk you through a quick overview of its key features: real-time voice typing, the built-in keyboard, and AI polish. You can also skip straight to keyboard setup.
Go to: iPhone Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard. Scroll down to the "Third-Party Keyboards" section and select Echo.
After adding Echo, tap on it in the keyboard list and toggle Allow Full Access to on.
Open any app where you type — Messages, Notes, Mail, WhatsApp, Slack, anything. When the keyboard appears, long-press the globe icon (🌐) in the bottom-left corner and select Echo from the list.
On the Echo keyboard, tap the microphone button to start voice input. Speak naturally — your words appear in real-time with under 200ms latency. Echo streams the transcription as you talk, so you see text immediately.
Tap the microphone again (or just stop speaking) to end voice input. If AI Polish is enabled, your text will be automatically cleaned up within a second.
After voice input, you don't need to switch keyboards. Echo has a full QWERTY keyboard built right into the same view. Fix a typo, add a word, or adjust punctuation — all without leaving Echo.
This is Echo's core advantage: voice and text editing in one unified interface. No more switching between dictation mode and your regular keyboard.
Open the Echo app and navigate to Settings. Toggle on AI Polish. This enables Echo's 4-layer processing pipeline that runs automatically after each voice input:
That's it. Echo is now your voice keyboard. Open any app, switch to Echo, and start speaking. Your words will appear in real-time, and AI polish will clean them up automatically.
Real example:
You say: "Hey can you uh send me that report from last week the one about um quarterly revenue"
Echo outputs: "Hey, can you send me that report from last week? The one about quarterly revenue."
Echo learns from your corrections over time. The more you use it, the better it gets at recognizing your vocabulary, proper nouns, and speaking patterns.
Download Echo — Free on App Store
Yes. Echo is free to download and use with no account required. The free tier includes voice typing, the built-in keyboard, and basic AI polish. Echo Pro unlocks advanced AI rewrite styles and unlimited usage.
Yes. Full Access is required by iOS for any keyboard that uses network features like voice recognition and AI processing. Echo does not collect, store, or transmit passwords, credit card numbers, or personal data. Audio is processed for transcription only and is not stored on Echo servers.
The built-in QWERTY keyboard with autocorrect works offline. Voice recognition and AI polish features require an internet connection because they use cloud-based speech recognition engines (Volcano, Deepgram, Whisper) for maximum accuracy.
Echo works on any iPhone running iOS 16 or later. This includes iPhone 8 and newer models. For the best voice typing experience, iPhone 12 or later is recommended.
Echo combines voice typing with a full keyboard and AI text polish in one interface. Unlike Apple Dictation, Echo automatically removes filler words, fixes grammar, and can rewrite text in your preferred style. You never need to switch between dictation mode and keyboard mode.
Yes. Echo supports Chinese-English code-switching, meaning you can speak a mix of both languages and Echo will correctly transcribe each. This is powered by Volcano ASR, which is specifically optimized for bilingual voice input.
Long-press the globe icon on the Echo keyboard and select your default keyboard from the list. You can also tap the globe icon once to cycle between your installed keyboards.