Introducing “Voice To Pit”

Ever since we started working on the Snow Scope App, we’ve been focused on making it as simple as possible to record snow profile data in the field. While we’ve made powerful yet easy to use tools to record snow profiles on your phone, the one big thing we’ve always struggled with is how to handle wet phone screens and cold fingers - a snow profile is a ton of information to input, which means lots of taps, swipes, and typing that can be tricky in adverse conditions.

From day one we’ve thought - what if you could just use your voice instead?

Today, we’re excited to annouce our solution to this problem, which we’re calling “Voice to Pit”. Instead of having to type in all of the snow profile information, you can talk to your phone and it will automatically process your audio recording into a drawn snow profile! Think of it like having an assistant with a field book in the pit with you - instead of needing a second person to write down the details you are dictating, the Snow Scope App will record those details and turn them into a profile.

Here’s how you use it:

Yep - it’s really that simple. You might imagine though that there are times when you forget to describe something or the audio doesn’t perfectly match up with how a pit should look. We get that snow profile data needs to be accurate, so we’ve built tools to always allow you to listen to your original recording (or view a text transcription) and make edits to the profile after the fact. You can do this on your phone, or back inside on your computer using the web app (just like the rest of the features on the Snow Scope App, all audio data is automatically synced between mobile and web apps).

Ok, but does it work?

Yep! We tested this feature all last winter (‘23/’24) with small network of snow professionals to improve it and work out the bugs! Here’s what some of them had to say:

“I found the voice pit feature incredibly game changing!! I could focus on the info i needed to gather and spend less time on having to stop and record everything by hand in a notebook.”

“I was very impressed the first pit I tried it with it was pretty much spot on and loved I could then just touch up a few things back in the warm office.”

“I really appreciated not having to draw up/record digitally my pit results by hand after a long day of guiding. I am not a "tech embracing" person...if i can learn to use your product, anyone can! The benefit of using your product with regard to saving time recording info means we have more time to gather more info from a multitude of areas we access in a day.”

“It’s extremely useful when gathering data for quick test profiles while operating as snow safety for a mechanized skiing operation, which is where I predominately used the Voice-Pit feature. As we are extremely time limited in these situations, taking voice memos was awesome & sped up our workflow in our PM meetings as well.”

“I found my pits were of better quality in terms of sharing the data with my team in a formal setting. vs. trying to relate my chicken scratch in my guide's notebook later in the day at my guide's meeting! Time is of the essence when heliskiing and moving around in the terrain while trying to gather as much info in a short amount of time.”

Check out the quick demo below:

How Does it Work?

In it’s simplest form, the Snow Scope App transforms your audio recording into a structured data set that can be displayed as a snow profile using a mixture of some proprietary algorithms, the latest advanced AI models, and audio transcription technologies.

While this might sound a little vague, the important thing to note is that as these AI technologies get better, Voice to Pit will also improve in speed, accuracy, and offline functionality.

Because of this engineering complexity, we are including it only in the paid “PRO” version of the Snow Scope App.

Want to Try It?

Voice to Pit is now live on the latest version of the Snow Scope App. While it is a “PRO” feature, we’re offering a free trial of PRO so anyone can try voice to pit (and other pro features) out for free!

More how to tips and technical details on the Voice To Pit functionality can be found in our user manual here