Free · Open source · Windows 10 and 11
OnAir keyboard lights an LED on your keyboard and turns its tray icon red whenever an app uses your microphone. Dictating, talking to AI, in a meeting: you always know when you're on air.
Click an app to try it.
Minutes of talking, and the app wasn't recording at all.
A private conversation that keeps landing in your transcript.
Windows marks the microphone with a tiny symbol in the corner. A red light under your fingers is hard to miss.
Wispr Flow, Claude, ChatGPT, Aqua Voice and any other you tick. The list comes from the microphone history in Windows: nothing to type in.
Scroll Lock by default, Num Lock or Caps Lock to choose. Macro pads such as SayoDevice work too.
No LED? The icon does the job.
Optional. Music and videos are lowered and come back afterwards; the app you talk to keeps its sound.
One small EXE file for Windows 10 or 11.
It offers to install itself, no administrator rights needed. If Windows says "Windows protected your PC", click More info, then Run anyway: the file isn't digitally signed yet.
Dictation apps and AI assistants are already ticked. There's nothing else to set up.
Anything that uses the microphone in Windows, for example:
Any keyboard with a Scroll Lock, Num Lock or Caps Lock LED, and any macro pad whose LEDs can show a Lock state. No LED at all? The tray icon is enough.
The four-key macro pad OnAir keyboard was built for, with a ready-made preset.
The dictation app that worked best of those we tried, and the one we use every day.
OnAir keyboard sends no data. It doesn't record or listen to sound, and all of its code is public under the MIT license. Pick the way that suits you:
Download the ready program and run it.
Read the code on GitHub. Not a programmer? Paste that link into Claude Code, Codex or another AI assistant and ask whether it's safe.
Build your own copy from the source code.
Yes. Every feature, no account, no limits, MIT license. If you'd like to say thanks, the links are at the bottom of this page.
No. It reads only the times of microphone use and the app names from the Windows registry, the same entry Windows uses for its microphone icon. It doesn't touch your voice or your text.
No. Most keyboards have a Lock LED, and without one the tray icon does the job.
The file has no digital signature yet, so SmartScreen warns about it and some antivirus programs may flag it by mistake. Click More info, then Run anyway. If you'd rather not, check the code or build it yourself (see above).
Yes, that's what lights the LED. With Scroll Lock, the arrow keys scroll the sheet in Excel while you're on air. With Caps Lock, letters come out as capitals.
A Lock press in the middle of a held Wispr Flow shortcut would delay or end the recording, so the LED waits until you let go. The tray icon turns red at once.
No. Windows sees the browser as one app, so a ticked Chrome lights the LED for every tab.
Not yet. OnAir keyboard runs on Windows 10 and 11.
