Text to Speech deep analysis - Speechify, Speech Central, ReadEra, Amazon Alexa
Introduction
In order to avoid a time loss, I want to anticipate that I couldn't test all the functionalities due to missing subscription or because they were not relevant to the TTS topic, but this review should give you all the info to use the most common features of these softwares. For example, I tried the premium version of Speechify and Speech Central, but I certainly didn't care to review the suggestions or mindful activities proposed by Speechify.
Speechify
This app has been developed with a lot of features and care, it has interesting features and an interesting huge selection of languages and voices, but it's a bit pricey, so let's start to talk about that.
Cost
It costs 130 British pounds yearly, it's quite a hit... Discounts may be available if you re-subscribe, but the initial price tag is certainly not inviting.
Side benefits
There is a lot of fluff, I didn’t buy this software to get suggestions on Anxiety, stress, meditation etc. Though it didn’t bother me much, I just don’t see why these things should be there, it's quite far from being a mindfulness app. This app aims also to help people with speech or eyesight difficulties.
Kindle book import - beta
The import of books from the Kindle service (or simply books from Amazon) is currently in beta, on my iPhone it fails most of the times and it’s also very slow, I suggest using the MacBook for that, in any case, it’s a beta, so don’t rely on it too much, they may also decide to decommission it completely if they can’t overcome such hard failures, or they will keep it on the platforms where it really works.
I didn’t test the website version.
Languages and voices
You can decide the languages by yourself, which is a plus, so you don’t bump into some wrong auto-recognition, which could happen with Speech Central.
There are many voices to select, I think that everyone could be satisfied by that, you’ll find the one you like.
Book summary feature
There is an interesting AI service to summarize a book, but I just wanted a text to speech, for such things is better to see summaries online that are audited, I wouldn’t trust an AI service as of today, which would be always not audited and this is the most important discriminant, regardless of how good it is.
Hardbook scan
It’s interesting the feature for taking a photo and let Speechify do the job, so far it’s the only tool I found that does it, so if you’ve put hands on many books due to offers or simply in the second hand market, it could be a nice idea. Considering that the listening speed is the same as the reading speed, and in my case even slower because tendentially we’re used to read to process informations, we don’t listen, I can say that this feature is useful to the people in need or people that spend many hours on a monitor working and don’t want to see a monitor again later, or not even a physical book with reflected light.
Speech Central
Developed by this gentleman from Serbia, this application could be the final humbly priced text to speech out there, and almost super reliable.
Cost
It costs only 10 British pounds, no further subscription required, please note that you may get even a better deal if you don’t subscribe from the Apple Store, as Apple takes its cut, this is valid for many services out there, I mention “Audible” just to remain in the topic.
Missing labels
In the macOS version I can’t see labels when I overlay with the mouse, so I had to discover what certain things do by myself and sometimes it disrupted my reading. From a developer perspective, it can’t be difficult to write labels, so I suspect more of a bug with the recent version rather than being absent. Some info are available in the settings, but it shouldn't be like that.
Anyway, if you’re a little comfortable with technology, you’ll be just fine after an hour of practice and the 10 pounds that I paid sounds right.
Crash on macOS
The macOS software crashes usually when you start to play around with the settings and listening at the same time (other users reported this issue too), so set it up and then don’t touch it when you’re listening, essentially this issue will be mostly visible the first times of usage, then you shouldn’t experience it again.
If it doesn’t crash by itself, I mean if the process doesn’t close correctly by itself, then you need to kill it by yourself from the Apple “Activity Monitor” software.
What about the iOS and Android app?
I’m not so much interested into the iOS or Android app, at least on my iPhone it uses too much battery, like any other text to speech I guess, excluding Alexa which is more gentle. Certainly, Speechify is one of those, so I use it on my laptop, I would just use it occasionally on my phone.
English language
It works very well with the English language, nothing else to say.
What about other languages?
It adjusted also to my native language and I was surprised, because this setting is not available to the user, there is auto-recognition, but I wonder what languages are available, I couldn’t find info, I suggest to contact them if you need several languages.
Stopping time
The best feature is that you can decide the stopping time between full stops, this is fantastic, all the TTS out there never make a proper break like an human would do, which specifically signifies the kind of stop you’re getting, if it’s a comma or a full stop, or a new chapter…
This is a total game changer, because on top of the robotic voice that you usually get with other AI or TTS (not with this software), you also get a TTS service that doesn't speak like a robot, just to be precise.
This is the most important feature for me, it makes the listening much more real.
The voices are very good, obviously for English it helps to have the British/American accent, but I’m currently using the Australian as it sounds better, just by the sound of it, nothing related to the pronunciation. Overall, you have plenty of choice.
Website
The website is not their strength, it’s not super clear, mostly with some color issues, I had to highlight the content to be able to read some paragraph, but I don’t care, if he focuses on the software I’m more than happy with that, I just wished to know what languages are supported though as it is crucial for the users that need a different language than English.
Is it better than the Apple TTS?
Definitely, because the Apple one sounds like a robot, and it doesn’t allow you to set breaks between punctuation.
Sync your bookmarks
If you want the sync between different devices, then Speech Central offer that through an external service, you just need to create an account. I didn't verify it because I like to keep my own for security and I don't use different devices for the same software, so I don't need the sync.
ReadEra
How ReadEra competes with them?
Unfortunately, for macOS or iOS there is no TTS, so you can only benefit by its dark mode which works very well with the ePub and pdf format, and its free version.
Stopping time
On Android, it’s very good and it respects the time of punctuation, the free version makes it incredibly appealing to Android users, I wouldn’t even try using anything else.
Sync
ReadEra premium for Android offers a similar sync service (the premium is 15 British pounds at the time of writing), unfortunately, I didn’t buy the premium version for Android due to missing interest and let me say it, most users will be happy with the free version, it’s really a great app for the Android world.
No ads, no pressing
There are no advertisements and it doesn't push you to pay the premium version, very kind from the Developers, reason why I'll need to purchase the software at some point, it's totally deserved.
What TTS does it use?
It uses the Google TTS, nothing to be concerned about, just enjoy it.
What will I miss from Speechify?
Certainly, the import of books from the Kindle app with Speechify will be missed by me (as it cannot read the native Kindle format), but you can always buy the ebook and then import it manually in Speech Central, just make sure that the store gives you the pdf or ePub format, and this is something you need to be a bit worried about when purchasing books from Amazon, it may just give you their proprietary format and the conversion with the software “Calibre” in my experience is often unreliable, so most probably you’ll be buying somewhere else, unless Audible offers you the audiobook, this combination really saves time and money (don’t forget that the Audible 12 months plan is interestingly cheaper if you purchase it from the Amazon website instead of in the app)
Amazon Alexa
Here is the news, Amazon Alexa has an excellent text to speech, it’s far superior from all the others and it’s free, it takes proper breaks, the default voice is just perfect but there are also others.
The excellence has a dark side - bookmarks
It's difficult to recap from where you were after having a long stop, but I understood how it works: Alexa starts from one point, which is where you’ve open the book with your Kindle app just before asking Alexa to read it, then it starts from there and when you pause it and start it again, it will start from wherever Alexa was before, it won’t consider if you’ve switched page in the Kindle app, and don’t think that it does it automatically, it’s your job to sync with Alexa after a while or a few chapters.
Also note that Alexa may remember where it was from the last time, if it preserves the data, sometimes I lost them, so rely on you keeping the bookmarks on the right page, or by simply opening the book in the right page because the Kindle app is meant for that and it should save it, not Alexa, just so you know.
Solution
In order to avoid confusion to Alexa or to me, just try to understand where you are (not easy if you have just a few chapters), then kill the Alexa app (it seems a better choice than waiting for Alexa to delete the cache).
In the next listening session, reopen the book with the Kindle app in the right page, then open Alexa and ask to read it.
Essentially, the problem is when you listen for a long time and you’ve no idea in what page or chapter you are, Alexa is not able to recognize the page number, neither the so called “location” number, it can only switch chapter if you mention the number, but not all the books have numbered chapter, you may have problems also with weird chapter alphanumeric numbering, or also with the Roman numbering…
The only positive thing is that Alexa will start from the beginning of the page when resuming the reading, so you may actually get context in many cases, for example, when something important didn't continue on the current page, I’m afraid that Alexa won’t start from the previous full stop.
Another fundamental trick is that when you switch back to the Kindle app, at the bottom there is a button that brings you to the latest read page, it works by recognizing where Alexa was in most cases, so always keep an eye before to click, I'm very satisfied overall.
Limitations
The limitation is that it works with Amazon Kindle books only, which may redirect many Audible users to just buy Kindle Unlimited, which it has also thousands of Audiobooks plus the free ones if you have Amazon Prime.
Audible ceases to be of an interest here, despite I’m the one that loves human voice, but guess what, Alexa has a real voice in my opinion, it’s also very difficult to distinguish the difference of an human voice, it's a a bit sad that is not super easy to use but it’s a bless anyway and you'll get used to it.
I don’t know if you can read books from a file or custom location, I guess it’s possible but you may need to find the way to make it work well when you come back on reading in the next session, plus Alexa gets very short commands, the prompt closes very soon, so it would be difficult to give indications on where the file is…
Due to missing permission by design or simply never requested during the app installation, I guess that it can’t work on your file system and therefore you can’t use it in that way, and probably by the time being it's good the way it is, an AI service that has the power to access your entire file system without boundaries is not cool, but they could confine it...
Alexa is not present in macOS, so you can only use it on devices that have iOS, such as iPhone, iPad, or Android…
Overall, I suggest Amazon Alexa for Kindle books that have many relatively short chapters, simply numbered with numbers or titles so you can easily search them when re-opening the Kindle app, I also suggest to dedicate more time to this kind of activity because you may lose a bit of time to identify the chapter etc, it’s not something you want to do in a rush in the metro and you may lose your bookmark!
Well, good news here, Alexa can always start from that point again, so you don’t actually lose the bookmark, but you’re forced to continue the reading from that point the next time, just enough to reach the next chapter and stop there for the day. I suggest to avoid this scenario because it’s quite bad to stop somewhere in a chapter and not having the context of what you’re actually reading the next time, because you won’t have the book in front of you, you'll need to browse through the Kindle app and find the right spot…
Conclusion
What about my workbench?
I think I described a lot about these tools and platforms and by now you should know what to buy based on what format or from what publisher you're buying, so I end this review with my personal choices.
I use Speech Central as TTS, plus Audible when I want to get the best, considering that all the books are narrated by humans.
I think that you can’t get better with these two, and you get both for an extremely reasonable price, especially if you consider the annual price out of the Apple or Google store for Audible.
I also use Amazon Alexa whenever I can, it’s simply the best out there and by far, strange that Amazon didn’t put it as a subscription to read Kindle books, maybe Amazon just relies on people subscribing Kindle Unlimited, which then uses Alexa, or maybe the locked the feature for only Kindle books and so they get what they want.
In terms of reading, I use the free version of ReadEra on Android and the dark mode is faultless (I used it sometimes on Apple devices for these specific reason), but also for its text to speech from time to time.
I also have a Kindle that I use for the books purchased from Amazon.
My tables is 10", I don't suggest a bigger one, also for technical books, because you would just get more brightness, .. Make sure to buy one that has a good monitor, that you're not affected by the monitor LED type and that uses a dark mode that doesn't have any unnecessary white line, ReadEra on Android is perfect for that.
Avoid the battery drainage
The thing that I certainly don’t do is to use any Text to Speech on my mobile that is not Alexa, it drains the battery very quickly, only my Android tablet survives well to the effort due to the obvious bigger battery. Also Alexa drains a bit but much less than the others.
Is it expensive?
You don't need to use all these different devices, same as that is not necessary at all to pay several services (in fact, I spend a few coins per month excluding the devices, that I purchased to find the best experience overall), but I hope you got an idea on what you can and you cannot do with these tools and platforms, or what is best in certain cases, I certainly dedicated money and time to get the best in every scenario, but I’m very far from the high range of the possible expense.
In fact, I could get rid off my Kindle Scribe, and maybe my Android tablet too considering that reading on a Mac is just fine if you do it from time to time for technical books or the ones with many images, and as long as you have a software that makes the dark mode without white lines on the edges.
You could also evaluate Kindle Unlimited and Alexa if you want to remain in the Amazon universe, but keep in mind that at least in my experience, way too many books are not part of that subscription... It's very disappointing, the only good news is that you receive significant discounts if you buy them, but at the end, all depends from how much you read per month and if this hobby is the number one for you or not. You could also cut the subscriptions when you know you're not gonna use it, please note that you can continue reading only the books that you purchased after it expires.
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