How it works
Voice input runs through Apple's on-device speech-to-text — your voice never leaves the phone in raw form. The transcript gets handed to a parser tuned specifically for trade math: it identifies the formula you're asking about, extracts the numerical inputs, and executes against one of 150+ trade formulas. The whole loop takes about three seconds end-to-end.
Most queries land in one of three buckets. Direct formulas— “studs for a 20 foot wall” — execute immediately. Conversions— “2.4 meters in feet” — convert and round. Disambiguation— when a query could match more than one formula, Journeyman shows you a confirmation: “Did you mean rafter length, or pitch height?” You tap to confirm and the answer follows.
What you can ask
Anything in the 150+ formula library, in plain trade language. A few examples:
- “Studs for a 28 foot wall, 16 on center.”
- “Concrete for a 10 by 12 slab, 4 inches thick.”
- “Rafter length, 6/12 pitch, 28 foot span.”
- “Watts for 120 volts at 15 amps.”
- “Tiles for a 10 by 12 floor.”
You don't have to remember the formula name. Journeyman infers it from the words you actually use on a job site — pitch, rise, run, span, course, on-center, OC. Trade vocabulary is the input; fractions are the output.
When the speech-to-text mangles it
Speech recognition isn't perfect, especially with trade jargon. “Oh-see” gets transcribed as “OC” — fine. But sometimes “rafter” comes back as “laughter” or “Roger.” Journeyman runs a fuzzy-match pass against a synonym table built from common STT errors, and if confidence is still low it asks you: “I heard ‘Roger length.’ Did you mean rafter length?” Tap to confirm; the parse continues from there.
Why voice
The trades with the most math are the trades with the dirtiest hands. Framing, concrete, roofing, tile — the moments when you need an answer most are the moments when typing on a button grid is impossible. Voice is the only input that fits the moment, and the moment is when the question arrives.