Fully local, fully private
whisper.cpp for speech recognition, Kokoro-82M on the Apple Neural Engine for the voices, Llama 3.2 3B via Ollama for summarising. No API keys, no per-token cost, no rate limits.
Talk to your Claude Code sessions like they're teammates.
NovaHUD is a floating, always-on-top voice HUD for driving running Claude Code sessions hands-free — and the entire voice pipeline runs on your own Mac.
Free for 3 days, no card required · Requires macOS 14+ and Apple silicon
What is NovaHUD?
NovaHUD is a paid macOS app that gives you hands-free voice control over your running Claude Code sessions. It puts a floating, always-on-top card over every other window — including the Claude Code app itself — one card per session, permanently bound to that session.
You speak to a session by name, nickname, session title or orb colour ("blue orb, are you there?"), or say "everyone" to reach all of them at once. Each session answers in its own distinct human voice.
Everything runs locally. Speech recognition is whisper.cpp, the voices are Kokoro-82M running on the Apple Neural Engine, and the summarising and routing model is a local Llama 3.2 3B via Ollama. There are no API keys, no per-token costs and no rate limits, and nothing you say is sent to a server.
It needs macOS 14 or later on an Apple silicon Mac. It costs $5 a month ($3 a month with a referral code), after a 3-day free trial with no card required.
How it feels
Say the word. It just happens.
Every session gets its own card, permanently bound — drag it wherever you like and it will never quietly jump to another session.
"Nova, tell Fade to run the tests."
NovaHUD routes what you said to the right session and the card updates live. No clicking into a terminal, no hunting for the right window.
Talk over a reply and it stops instantly, mid-sentence — the same way interrupting a person works.
Features
Everything it does, nothing it doesn't
A small, focused set of controls built for one job: keeping your hands off the keyboard while Claude Code works.
One card per session
A floating card sits above every other window, including the Claude Code app. Each one is permanently bound to a single session and never gets reassigned.
Call them by colour
Every session gets a distinct orb colour and a distinct human voice. Address one by name, nickname, session title or colour — "blue orb, are you there?" — or say "everyone".
Three listening modes
Read aloud speaks everything back. Summary speaks the bottom line and attributes it by session name. Quiet stays silent but still delivers what you say.
Interruptions that work
Start talking while it's mid-sentence and it stops, immediately. You never have to wait for a reply to finish before you redirect it.
Four widget sizes
Tiny, small, medium or large, and you pick the default. A tiny card is the orb and a status dot; a large one carries the full status line and every control.
Local-first, by design
Nothing you say ever leaves your Mac.
NovaHUD runs the whole voice pipeline on-device. There is no server in the loop for anything you say, so there is nothing to leak, nothing to meter and no key to rotate.
- Audio is transcribed on-device and never uploaded
- No API keys to configure, no per-token billing, no rate limits
- No cloud speech-to-text and no cloud text-to-speech
- The only network calls are to
api.novahud.app, for licensing, the trial clock and sign-in
Speech recognitionOn-device (whisper.cpp)
VoicesOn-device (Kokoro-82M, ANE)
Summarising & routingOn-device (Llama 3.2 3B)
Audio sent to a serverNever
API keys requiredNone
Per-token costNone
Pricing
Three days free. Then $5 a month.
It runs on your own Mac and there are no API bills behind it, so there is no reason to rent it to you forever.
Free trial
The whole app, for three days
$0
- Every feature, no limits
- No credit card required
- Nothing to cancel
The plan
Monthly
Everything, for the price of a coffee
$5/month
- Every feature, no limits
- Cancel any time
- Runs entirely on your Mac
Monthly, referred
Same app, with someone's code
$3/month
- Identical in every way
- Anyone can give you a code
- Cancel any time
Before you download
Two pages for deciding, not for selling
What the thing actually looks like on a desktop, and an honest account of where it is the wrong tool.
What it looks like
The floating card, its four sizes, the eight session orb colours and what each listening mode does — drawn at full size rather than described.
How it compares
Against typing at the terminal, against dictation, and against a cloud voice assistant — including the four cases where you should not buy it.
Stop typing at your terminal. Talk to it.
Three days, every feature, no card. Requires macOS 14 or later on an Apple silicon Mac.