win-whisper

Record audio and transcribe speech to text using OpenAI Whisper models. Runs completely local — no API keys, no network required after setup.

Uses whisper.cpp v1.8.3+ for fast inference. Supports Intel GPU acceleration (12x boost), OpenVINO for NPU, and Voice Activity Detection.

Supported audio formats: WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG.

Setup (One-Time)

1. Download whisper-cli

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
$whisperDir = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force $whisperDir | Out-Null

# Download whisper.cpp pre-built binary (OpenBLAS accelerated, ~16MB)
$zipUrl = 'https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/download/v1.8.3/whisper-blas-bin-x64.zip'
$zipPath = \"$env:TEMP\whisper-blas-bin-x64.zip\"
Write-Host 'Downloading whisper-cli...' -ForegroundColor Cyan
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $zipUrl -OutFile $zipPath
Expand-Archive $zipPath -DestinationPath $whisperDir -Force
Remove-Item $zipPath

# Binary extracts to Release/ subdirectory — add that to PATH
$binDir = \"$whisperDir\Release\"
$userPath = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path', 'User')
if ($userPath -notlike \"*$binDir*\") {
    [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('Path', \"$userPath;$binDir\", 'User')
    $env:Path += \";$binDir\"
    Write-Host 'Added to PATH.' -ForegroundColor Green
}

Write-Host 'Done. whisper-cli installed.' -ForegroundColor Green
"

2. Download a Model

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
$whisperDir = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\"
$model = 'base'

$modelUrl = \"https://huggingface.co/ggerganov/whisper.cpp/resolve/main/ggml-$model.bin\"
$modelPath = \"$whisperDir\ggml-$model.bin\"
Write-Host \"Downloading ggml-$model.bin...\" -ForegroundColor Cyan
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $modelUrl -OutFile $modelPath
Write-Host \"Model saved to $modelPath\" -ForegroundColor Green
"

Change $model to tiny, small, medium, or large-v3-turbo. See Model Guide.

3. Verify

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "whisper-cli --help 2>&1 | Select-Object -First 3"

Record Audio from Microphone

Timed Recording (N seconds)

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
Add-Type -MemberDefinition '[DllImport(\"winmm.dll\", CharSet=CharSet.Unicode)] public static extern int mciSendStringW(string cmd, System.Text.StringBuilder ret, int retLen, IntPtr cb);' -Name WinMM -Namespace PCClaw

$outPath = \"$env:TEMP\pcclaw-recording.wav\"
$seconds = DURATION

[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('open new Type waveaudio Alias mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('set mic bitspersample 16 channels 1 samplespersec 22050', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('record mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null

Write-Host \"Recording for $seconds seconds...\" -ForegroundColor Yellow
Start-Sleep -Seconds $seconds

[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('stop mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW(\"save mic $outPath\", $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('close mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null

Write-Host \"Saved to $outPath\" -ForegroundColor Green
"

Replace DURATION with seconds to record (e.g., 5, 10, 30).

Interactive Recording (Press Enter to Stop)

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
Add-Type -MemberDefinition '[DllImport(\"winmm.dll\", CharSet=CharSet.Unicode)] public static extern int mciSendStringW(string cmd, System.Text.StringBuilder ret, int retLen, IntPtr cb);' -Name WinMM -Namespace PCClaw

$outPath = \"$env:TEMP\pcclaw-recording.wav\"

[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('open new Type waveaudio Alias mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('set mic bitspersample 16 channels 1 samplespersec 22050', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('record mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null

Write-Host 'Recording... Press Enter to stop.' -ForegroundColor Yellow
Read-Host

[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('stop mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW(\"save mic $outPath\", $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('close mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null

Write-Host \"Saved to $outPath\" -ForegroundColor Green
"

Transcribe Audio File

Basic Transcription

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
$model = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\ggml-base.bin\"
whisper-cli -m $model -f 'AUDIO_PATH' -nt -np 2>&1
"

Replace AUDIO_PATH with the path to an audio file (WAV, MP3, FLAC, or OGG). -nt = no timestamps, -np = no progress (clean output).

With Language Specification

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
$model = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\ggml-base.bin\"
whisper-cli -m $model -f 'AUDIO_PATH' -l LANG_CODE -nt -np 2>&1
"

Replace LANG_CODE with: en, zh, ja, ko, de, fr, es, or auto (auto-detect).

With Timestamps

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
$model = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\ggml-base.bin\"
whisper-cli -m $model -f 'AUDIO_PATH' -l auto -np 2>&1
"

Output: [00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000] Transcribed text here

Translate to English

Transcribe and translate any language to English:

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
$model = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\ggml-base.bin\"
whisper-cli -m $model -f 'AUDIO_PATH' -l auto -tr -nt -np 2>&1
"

Output as SRT Subtitles

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
$model = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\ggml-base.bin\"
whisper-cli -m $model -f 'AUDIO_PATH' -l auto -osrt -of 'OUTPUT_PATH' -np 2>&1
"

Replace OUTPUT_PATH with desired path (without extension). Produces OUTPUT_PATH.srt.

With Voice Activity Detection (VAD)

Skip silence and only transcribe speech segments:

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
$model = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\ggml-base.bin\"
$vadModel = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\silero-vad.onnx\"
whisper-cli -m $model -f 'AUDIO_PATH' -l auto --vad -vm $vadModel -nt -np 2>&1
"

Download the VAD model (one-time, ~2MB):

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/raw/master/models/silero-vad.onnx' -OutFile \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\silero-vad.onnx\"
"

Record and Transcribe (Combined)

Record from microphone then immediately transcribe:

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
Add-Type -MemberDefinition '[DllImport(\"winmm.dll\", CharSet=CharSet.Unicode)] public static extern int mciSendStringW(string cmd, System.Text.StringBuilder ret, int retLen, IntPtr cb);' -Name WinMM -Namespace PCClaw

$wavPath = \"$env:TEMP\pcclaw-recording.wav\"
$model = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\ggml-base.bin\"
$seconds = DURATION

# Record
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('open new Type waveaudio Alias mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('set mic bitspersample 16 channels 1 samplespersec 22050', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('record mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
Write-Host \"Recording for $seconds seconds...\" -ForegroundColor Yellow
Start-Sleep -Seconds $seconds
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('stop mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW(\"save mic $wavPath\", $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null
[PCClaw.WinMM]::mciSendStringW('close mic', $null, 0, [IntPtr]::Zero) | Out-Null

# Transcribe
Write-Host 'Transcribing...' -ForegroundColor Cyan
whisper-cli -m $model -f $wavPath -l auto -nt -np 2>&1
"

Replace DURATION with seconds to record.

Real-Time Streaming Transcription

whisper-stream.exe (included in the download) captures from the microphone and transcribes in real-time:

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
$model = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\ggml-base.bin\"
whisper-stream -m $model -l auto --step 500 --length 5000 2>&1
"

Press Ctrl+C to stop. Requires SDL2.dll (included in the download).

Model Guide

Model	Disk	RAM	Speed	Quality	Best For
`tiny`	75 MB	390 MB	Fastest	Basic	Quick notes, commands
`base`	148 MB	500 MB	Fast	Good	General use (recommended)
`small`	488 MB	1.0 GB	Medium	Better	Meetings, interviews
`medium`	1.5 GB	2.6 GB	Slow	Great	High accuracy needs
`large-v3-turbo`	1.6 GB	3.0 GB	Slow	Best	Professional transcription

For English-only, append .en (e.g., base.en) for better accuracy.

Download any model:

powershell

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "
$model = 'MODEL_NAME'
$dir = \"$env:USERPROFILE\.pcclaw\whisper\"
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri \"https://huggingface.co/ggerganov/whisper.cpp/resolve/main/ggml-$model.bin\" -OutFile \"$dir\ggml-$model.bin\"
Write-Host \"Downloaded ggml-$model.bin\" -ForegroundColor Green
"

GPU / NPU Acceleration

Intel GPU (Arc / Iris Xe) — via OpenVINO

For Intel GPU/NPU acceleration, use the --ov-e-device flag with an OpenVINO-enabled build:

powershell

# GPU acceleration
whisper-cli -m MODEL -f AUDIO --ov-e-device GPU

# NPU acceleration (Intel AIPC)
whisper-cli -m MODEL -f AUDIO --ov-e-device NPU

This requires building whisper.cpp from source with OpenVINO:

powershell

# Requires: cmake, Visual Studio Build Tools, OpenVINO toolkit
cmake -B build -DWHISPER_OPENVINO=1
cmake --build build --config Release

Pre-converted OpenVINO encoder models are available at huggingface.co/Intel/whisper.cpp-openvino-models.

Disable GPU

If you encounter GPU issues, force CPU-only:

powershell

whisper-cli -m MODEL -f AUDIO --no-gpu

Recommended Workflows

Voice memo → Text

code

1. win-whisper: record audio
2. win-whisper: transcribe the recording
3. Agent processes/summarizes the text

Voice command → Action

code

1. win-whisper: record 5 seconds
2. win-whisper: transcribe
3. Agent interprets the command
4. win-ui-auto: execute the action

Meeting notes

code

1. win-whisper: record with medium/large model
2. Agent summarizes key points and action items
3. ms-todo or google-tasks: create tasks

Multilingual transcription

code

1. win-whisper: transcribe with -l auto
2. win-whisper: translate to English with -tr
3. Agent processes both original and translation

Notes

•Requires one-time setup: download whisper-cli (~16 MB) and a model (75 MB – 1.6 GB).
•Audio recording uses Windows Multimedia API (winmm.dll) — zero external dependencies.
•whisper.cpp v1.8.3 includes 12x performance boost on Intel integrated/discrete GPUs.
•GPU and Flash Attention are enabled by default. Use --no-gpu to force CPU-only.
•Supported audio formats: WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG (built-in decoder).
•Recording format: 22050 Hz, 16-bit, mono. If your mic doesn't support this, remove the set line to record at default format — whisper-cli handles resampling.
•Thread count: -t N (default 4). Use -t 8 for faster inference on many-core CPUs.
•The download includes whisper-stream.exe for real-time mic transcription via SDL2.
•For Intel NPU: build with OpenVINO (-DWHISPER_OPENVINO=1), then use --ov-e-device NPU.
•Combine with win-screenshot + win-ocr for a complete See + Hear + Act agent loop.