What is Environment Mode (Indoor vs Outdoor)?

Environment Mode tunes Whisper for **where you're actually recording**. Switch between Indoor and Outdoor to get better accuracy in different noise conditions. **New in v2.1.0**. Find it in **Settings → Recording → Environment**. **The two modes:** | Setting | 🏠 Indoor (Default) | 🌳 Outdoor | |---------|---------------------|------------| | **Best for** | Office, home, quiet room | Street, traffic, wind, crowd | | **VAD filter** | Standard | Aggressive noise gate | | **Beam size** | 1 (fastest) | 3 (more accurate in noise) | | **No-speech threshold** | Normal | Higher (ignores background noise more aggressively) | **When to use Indoor:** - Your office or home - Quiet rooms with minimal background noise - Anywhere you'd take a normal phone call comfortably - Fastest transcription, best accuracy in calm environments **When to use Outdoor:** - Walking through your workshop with machines running - On a busy street with traffic - In a coffee shop with chatter - Windy outdoor recording - ANY environment where background noise is competing with your voice **The trade-off:** Outdoor mode is **more accurate in noise** but slightly slower because beam size is higher (3 vs 1). Whisper considers more candidate words before choosing the best one. The 3x beam search reduces hallucinations in noisy environments. **Existing users notice no change.** Default is Indoor — same behavior as before v2.1.0. Outdoor is opt-in. **How to use both:** Most users find one mode works best for their typical environment. Set it once and forget. If you frequently switch contexts (office → walking → train), changing the mode takes 2 seconds via Settings. **Future:** Auto-detection of noise levels to suggest mode switching is on the roadmap. Not yet implemented. For more on recording quality, see [Help Center → Recording](https://voicepad.tech/help/#recording).