Dictation that runs on your phone, with every radio off.
It is free, with no account and no limit. For attorneys, paralegals and law firms, the Legal pack turns what you said into the finished file note, signed on the phone. For RIAs, financial advisors and insurance agents, the Financial Advisor pack writes the client meeting note.
- Press play on the steering wheel and talk: the file note is written before you are out of the car.
- There is no account. Nothing to sign in to, on the phone or anywhere else.
- Teach it every client name and every cite in your book, or add the names from your client list in one step. The list is a file on your phone, and you can share it to yourself whenever you like.
Why it matters where your dictation goes
Most dictation and note-taking apps send what you say to a server. Speech is turned into text there, and often the note is written there too. What you said about a client is then on computers you do not control, and it stays there after you delete it from your phone.
- It is kept on their terms. How long, and in how many backups, is set by the company that holds it, not by you.
- Other people can reach it. The company’s staff, the companies it pays to host and process it, and anyone who breaks into any of them. Your client agreed to none of them.
- It can be demanded without you. A subpoena or a warrant for it can go to the company that holds it rather than to you, and a court can order that company not to tell you.
- It can be used for something else. Some services’ terms let them use your recordings and text to improve their software.
- The terms can change. A company can rewrite its terms, be sold, or close, and what it holds goes with it.
None of this depends on whether the company is careful. It depends on how many places your words exist. Your profession’s rules count those places too. For an attorney, Model Rule 1.6(c) asks for reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized access to information relating to a representation, and each service that holds it is one more to vet. For a financial firm, Regulation S-P, as amended in 2024, asks you to oversee every service provider that receives or keeps customer information.
So if it matters that someone else could see what you dictate, you need an app that works entirely on the phone and sends nothing you dictate over the internet. That is Rimbalo. Speech is turned into text on the phone, and what you dictate stays there until you share it.
We wrote no code that can send your audio or your documents anywhere, and on Android the operating system enforces it.
Turn on airplane mode and dictate: the text appears just the same. That shows where the work happens; it does not, on its own, show where anything goes later. What you can check yourself lists the checks that do, and where on your phone to look.
What you pay
Dictation costs nothing, with no account, no minute limit, and no connection needed once the speech model is on the phone. A year is $149.99, and dictation is not part of it: that stays free, with no account and no limit. The year buys your own words, spoken corrections, search across everything you have dictated, and files out. It renews at $149.99. If you stop paying, what it adds stops at the end of the year you paid for, and your dictations stay on your phone to read and share as text.
| Installed | One Year — $149.99 | Each pack — $439.99 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dictation with no limit, on the phone | |||
| “Scratch that”, “Cap that”, “New paragraph” | |||
| Your dictations kept on the phone, until you delete them | |||
| Share a dictation as text | |||
| Your word list, with written and spoken forms | |||
| The names from your client list or case captions, added to it | |||
| “Select” and a few words, by voice | |||
| Snippets, put in by saying “Insert” | |||
| Start and stop with a headset’s or a car’s play button | |||
| Search across everything you have dictated | |||
| Share as PDF or DOCX | |||
| The pack’s documents, each section taken from your words | |||
| Its terms written as you type them | |||
| Every date, amount, number and name confirmed before you sign, on the phone | |||
| Matters or clients, each with its signed documents | |||
| Deadlines to your calendar | |||
| A hash on each signed document, and a log of what you sign and share |
What each pack writes
Each section is taken from your words by fixed rules. Nothing is written for you: every sentence is one you dictated.
Legal
For attorneys, paralegals and law firms. The file note, and after a first meeting the intake note, with the names for your conflict check shared as a list. Cites written as you type them, a privilege line on every page, and your firm’s letterhead. The Legal pack.
Financial Advisor
For RIAs, financial advisors and insurance agents. The client meeting note: who was there, objectives, time horizon and risk tolerance, recommendation and rationale, follow-ups, beneficiaries, amounts and allocations. The call note, dictated in half a minute after the call. A signed note’s follow-ups stay on the client’s file until you mark them done, and a change in risk tolerance, horizon or allocation since the client’s last note is flagged. Plans, forms and tickers are written as you type them, such as 401(k), Form 5498 and VTI. The Financial Advisor pack.
Coming from Dragon Anywhere?
Dragon Anywhere was $149.99 a year. Here dictation costs nothing, and the $149.99 buys back the other half: the word list you spent years training, the spoken corrections, search across your own archive, and files out. Same number. Half the product is now free.
How the two compare
| Dragon Anywhere | Rimbalo | |
|---|---|---|
| Where speech becomes text | On Nuance’s servers. It needs an internet connection to dictate | On the phone. It dictates in airplane mode |
| On sale | Not since July 1, 2026, and subscriptions can no longer be renewed | Yes |
| Account | An email address and a password | None |
| What dictation costs | $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year, after a one-week trial | Nothing, with no limit |
| Limit on length or time | None | None |
| Your words, with written and spoken forms | Yes | Yes, with One Year |
| Words imported from desktop Dragon | Yes | Yes, with One Year |
| Your words exported from the app | Not in its guide | Yes, as wordlist.txt |
| Words kept in step with desktop Dragon | Yes | No |
| Where your words are kept | On Nuance’s server | On the phone, and in its backup if you turn that on |
| “Scratch that” and “Select …” by voice | Yes | Yes; “Select” with One Year |
| Bold, italic and underline by voice | Yes | No: the pack sets the document’s form |
| Text put in by saying its name | Yes, with fields to fill in by voice | Snippets, without fields, with One Year |
| Search | By title, in Dropbox and Evernote | Across everything you have dictated, with One Year |
| Files out | RTF, DOCX or text, by email or to Dropbox, Box or Evernote | Text, or PDF and DOCX with One Year, to any app through the share sheet |
| Bluetooth microphone | Yes | Yes |
| A finished document | Forms you build from named blocks of text | A pack’s documents, every date, amount, number and name confirmed before you sign |
| Languages | English (US, Canada, UK), French and German | English and 24 more |
| What your audio and text are used for | Nuance’s terms say they are used to improve its recognition | The app keeps no audio, and we wrote no code that can send your audio or your documents anywhere |
Bring your words with you
In desktop Dragon, export your custom words and phrases (Vocabulary, then Export custom word and phrase list), and import the file in Rimbalo’s Words. Dragon Anywhere has no export of its own, so bring a desktop export.
One thing it does not do
It writes a sentence at a time, not a word at a time: the text appears each time you pause, not as you speak.
Questions
Do I need a connection?
Once, after you install it: the speech model downloads through the App Store or Google Play, about 140 MB for English. From then on dictation works without a connection.
Which languages?
English, and Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Ukrainian. The other languages share a larger model, downloaded the first time you choose one.
What happens when my year ends?
What it adds stops at the end of the year you paid for, with 14 days allowed for a renewal to reach a phone that has been offline. Dictation stays free, and everything you dictated stays on your phone, to read and to share as text. We cannot promise that Apple or Google will still run this version in 2031. Nobody can. So the word list format is published, below, and the words you taught it outlive the app.
Is there something cheaper?
Yes. There are less expensive apps, and some are free, but they send the session to a server. If a server is acceptable in your practice, buy the cheaper one — we are not going to pretend it isn’t cheaper.
If it matters that someone else could see your sessions, a lower price does not help. You need an app that works entirely on the phone and sends nothing you say over the internet. That is what Rimbalo is, and you can check it yourself.
The word list format
Rimbalo shares your word list as wordlist.txt, and reads one back. It is UTF-8 text, one entry per line: the
written form, or the written form, a tab, and the spoken form. Blank lines and lines starting with # are ignored,
and a written form listed twice keeps its last entry.
# Word list. One entry per line: written form, or written form<TAB>spoken form. Abernathy voir dire vwahr deer § 1983 section nineteen eighty-three