A5S Streaming
Live transcripts that hold up in noise.
Real-time English speech-to-text over WebSocket. Words arrive as people speak, with optional live speaker labels, and stay accurate with distant microphones, music and crosstalk.
Pending words in italics until they are final. Words from the CHiME-6 reference transcript (CC BY-SA 4.0), at speaking pace.
Made for live conversation.
Partial and final transcripts, live speakers and key terms over a single WebSocket.
Partial and final
Pending words arrive as people speak and may still change. Final words are sent once and never change.
Live speaker labels
Turn on diarization and every utterance and word is labeled by speaker as the conversation unfolds.
Names in real time
Add speaker_identification and enrolled people are named as they speak, through AirCaps Speaker ID.
Key terms
Up to 64 names and terms per session, each with its own strength, to catch jargon and proper nouns.
Noisy, far-field audio
Built for distant microphones, background music and people talking over each other.
Long sessions
Punctuated, cased text in sessions of up to 30 minutes, or up to 4 hours on request.
Ahead where audio is hard.
word error rate across Mega-ASR, AMI, DiPCo and NOTSOFAR: the lowest of 9 streaming systems, ahead of ElevenLabs, Meta, AssemblyAI, OpenAI, xAI, Deepgram and Google.
Where it fits.
Agents that hear people clearly
Accurate words in cars, kitchens, shops and offices, so an agent answers what was actually said.
Live captions
Captions for events, calls and broadcasts as people speak, with speakers marked when you need them.
Real-time assistants
Live notes, prompts and summaries that know who is talking, while the meeting is still going.
Stream audio, get words back.
- One WebSocket:
wss://api.aircaps.com/v1/realtime - 16 kHz mono PCM16 in, JSON events out
- Partial and final utterances with word times
- Optional live speaker labels and names
import asyncio, json, os, websockets
async def main():
headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['AIRCAPS_API_KEY']}"}
async with websockets.connect("wss://api.aircaps.com/v1/realtime",
additional_headers=headers) as ws:
await ws.send(json.dumps({
"type": "start", "providers": ["a5sv2"],
"encoding": "pcm_s16le", "sample_rate": 16000, "channels": 1,
"language": "en", "diarization": True,
}))
# send 20 ms PCM frames, then {"type": "finish"}
async for message in ws:
event = json.loads(message)
if event["type"] == "transcript" and event["is_final"]:
print(event["text"])
asyncio.run(main())# the first message on wss://api.aircaps.com/v1/realtime
{
"type": "start",
"providers": ["a5sv2"],
"encoding": "pcm_s16le",
"sample_rate": 16000,
"channels": 1,
"language": "en",
"diarization": true,
"custom_vocabulary": [{"text": "AirCaps", "strength": 6}]
}
# then binary audio frames; "ready" arrives before the first one is read
Specifications.
Everything else is in the model reference and limits.
- Model ID
a5s-small-v2-streaming- Interface
- WebSocket,
wss://api.aircaps.com/v1/realtime - Audio
- 16 kHz, mono, 16-bit PCM (
pcm_s16le) - Output
- Partial and final utterances with word times; punctuated, cased text
- Speakers
- Optional live speaker labels, and names from enrolled voices
- Language
- English
- Sessions
- Up to 30 minutes, or 4 hours on request; 5 at a time per account
- Price
- $0.30 per audio hour, billed per millisecond
Questions.
How do I connect?
Open a WebSocket to wss://api.aircaps.com/v1/realtime with your API key, send a start message, then stream 16 kHz mono PCM16 audio in 20 ms frames.
Are live speaker labels extra?
No. Live speaker labels are included at $0.30 per audio hour.
How accurate is it?
26.27% word error rate across four hard, real-world corpora, the lowest of the 9 streaming systems we tested. The research note has the per-corpus results.
How long can a session run?
Up to 30 minutes, or up to 4 hours on request. Each account can run 5 sessions at a time.
Which languages does it support?
English.
Do you train on my audio?
No. See Data and privacy in the docs.
More models.
Live transcripts that hold up.
Stream your own audio into A5S Streaming. Every account includes 5 free hours.