Speech-to-Text Playground Now Available in Mission Control
27, Apr 2026
A Speech-to-Text Playground is now available in Mission Control, letting you test and compare STT providers directly from the portal. Transcribe audio from your microphone or upload a file, with no API integration required.
What's new
In-browser microphone transcription: Speak directly into your browser and get real-time transcription results from your selected STT provider.
File upload transcription: Upload an audio file and receive a full transcript without writing any code.
Provider selection: Choose between Telnyx, Deepgram, Azure, and Google STT engines to compare accuracy, latency, and formatting side by side.
Zero setup required: No API keys, no SDKs, no WebSocket connections. Open the playground and start transcribing immediately.
Mission Control native: Runs inside the same portal where you configure assistants, calls, and telephony, so you can validate STT output against your production configuration.
Why it matters
Evaluating STT providers typically means spinning up a WebSocket client, authenticating, and piping audio through code before you hear a single transcript. The playground removes that integration overhead so you can hear results in seconds.
Different engines produce different transcripts on the same audio. Comparing them side by side in one interface lets you pick the right model for your use case without building a test harness.
Voice AI teams building on Telnyx can validate transcription quality before wiring an STT model into a live assistant, reducing the iteration cycle from deploy-and-test to click-and-compare.
On-network processing: transcription runs inside Telnyx-hosted models, keeping audio and inference on the same private backbone.
Example use cases
Voice AI engineers evaluating whether Deepgram Nova-3 or Telnyx Whisper produces more accurate transcripts for their domain before committing to a model in production.
Product teams demoing speech-to-text capabilities to stakeholders without building a prototype first.
Developers testing multilingual transcription across Azure and Google engines for a global deployment.
QA teams validating STT accuracy on recorded call samples before enabling transcription on a live voice pipeline.
Getting started
In Mission Control, navigate to AI then STT Playground.
Select an STT provider from the dropdown (Telnyx, Deepgram, Azure, or Google).
Choose your input method: click the microphone button to speak live, or upload an audio file.
Review the transcript output, switch providers, and compare results.
import asyncio
import websockets
import json
async def transcribe(api_key, audio_file, engine="Telnyx"):
url = f"wss://api.telnyx.com/v2/speech-to-text/transcription?transcription_engine={engine}&input_format=wav"
headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}"}
async with websockets.connect(url, extra_headers=headers) as ws:
with open(audio_file, "rb") as f:
while chunk := f.read(2048):
await ws.send(chunk)
await asyncio.sleep(0.1)
await asyncio.sleep(3)
response = await ws.recv()
print(json.loads(response)["transcript"])
asyncio.run(transcribe("YOUR_API_KEY", "audio.wav"))