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Hands full? Say the answer, check what it heard, and tap once.
You are standing in an engine room with a flashlight in one hand and a strainer basket in the other. Typing is the last thing you want to do. YachtGrade has a microphone for exactly that moment. Say what you see, check what it heard, and tap once. This is how it works, what it records and when, and what to do when it does not.
What comes back is a proposal, not an answer. Under "You said:" you see the answer your words fit best and what they said as a note. Then you choose.
Nothing is ever recorded as an answer until you tap. If the question needs a photo, the photo is still owed after Use this, the same as always. If you have already tapped an answer, your tap wins, and the voice note is offered as the note only, under Add as the note. For a question that asks for a reading, there is no answer to propose, so the words are offered as the note.
The microphone is on only between your two taps. If you leave the screen in the middle of a sentence, the half-said recording is dropped. YachtGrade does not listen in the background.
The recording is saved on the phone first, before anything touches the network. That is the same rule every photo and answer follows. The app then sends it when it can, and the server turns the speech into text. Your words become text there, not on the phone.
One setting is worth knowing. In Account, under Voice recordings, an owner or admin can choose whether the company's recordings may be used to improve YachtGrade's own speech recognition. It is on by default. Turn it off and your recordings still work exactly as before. They are only left out of that training. It is described there in full.
Recording works with no signal. The app saves it and shows "Voice note waiting to send". When signal comes back, it says "Sending your voice note", and then your proposal appears on that question. Until then, tap your answer as usual and keep moving. The checklist never waits on the microphone.
Because the words are made on the server, you do not get a proposal until the recording has been sent. If you walk off the boat with notes still waiting, keep the app open with signal and they go. See using YachtGrade with no signal for how the phone's queues work, and what to do when photos will not upload if something seems stuck.
The microphone on a question is for checklist answers. There is a second one with a different job.
Talk a list is a round microphone button for the owner approval lists, the things a boat needs that the owner approves. It sits on Today for owners, admins and techs, on the boat's page, and on the Items tab of a list. Tap it, walk the boat saying what it needs, and tap again. A recording can run up to five minutes. When it is heard, a card titled "Items heard" shows what you said and the items it made, each with a name, a quantity and a category, and a Safety item box. Fix anything that is wrong, pick the boat and the list, and tap Add to list. Nothing reaches a list until you do. Items arrive without prices, and the app reminds you to price each one before the owner sees the list. A recording still waiting for signal says "Saved on this phone. It will be read when there is signal." It can be played back, retried or discarded.
The "How did that go?" question after a check, and the beta feedback chat, also have a microphone. They are for telling us how the app did, not for the boat.
Can I answer a boat inspection checklist by speaking instead of typing?
Yes. Tap Talk instead of typing on a checkpoint, say what you see, and tap again. YachtGrade proposes an answer and a note, and you tap Use this to record it.
Does YachtGrade record my voice all the time?
No. The microphone is on only between the two taps. If you leave the screen mid-sentence the recording is dropped.
Does voice work with no signal?
Recording does. The recording is saved on the phone and sent when signal returns. The proposal appears after that, so tap your answer in the meantime.
Will it save the wrong answer if it mishears me?
No. It only proposes. Nothing is saved as an answer until you tap Use this, and Change lets you pick a different one.
Where is the microphone for approval lists?
Talk a list is the round microphone button on Today, on a boat's page and on a list's Items tab. It is for the owner approval lists, not for checklist answers.
YachtGrade was designed by a USCG 100-ton captain who spent five years managing, detailing, running and selling boats in South Florida, after four years building IT systems for businesses. Who built it →
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This describes how the current YachtGrade app works. It is general guidance, not a survey and not a substitute for one.
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