PromptSmart Pro Reviews

I purchased PromptSmartPro roughly 3 months ago, and I’ve had nothing but troubles since obtaining it. This application came with a fairly high price, so I thought it might be something worth using. Unfortunately, it has been more trouble than it’s worth. when originally using this, I found that the auto tracking of my voice was frankly worthless. I had to resort to using a timer on my scrolling in order to properly have it keep up with me.

I have had other problems with the audio where on my mobile devices including tablets, it routinely does not work. However, switching back to the native application on my mobile devices, my external microphone works perfectly.

Not long ago, the application was upgraded. Any time I shut the application down, all my settings disappear. I have given this application a try on both my iPad and multiple iPhones. It’s not worth it.

Additionally, when I try to get a hold of Tech Support, they were very unresponsive and refused to take any sort of technical support calls or instant messaging over the Internet. Although I spent 15 or $20 buying this application, it refuses to come off of the trial license. Tech Support is unable to solve this problem for me. Overall, I would not recommend this application to anyone. Big waste of money.

I am shocked at how unreliable PromptSmartPro is considering it’s relatively high price compared to other prompter apps. Out of the 5 live broadcasts I’ve used this with over the last two months, 3 times it has either lost the remote connection in the middle of the broadcast or completely crashed! Yesterday it crashed every time I hit “start” on the promoter, I retried anxiously several times as I was going live in minutes, I even restarted the phone and it still crashed every time I hit start! I have up-to-date software, the latest iOS version, an iPhone 8 and XR..this is unacceptable. When it works, it is great. The voice tracking is very accurate. However, if it only works 40% of the time without serious problems, it’s worthless. I am a few days out of the return window and have been trying to get a refund, but so far they haven’t responded. Extremely unhappy with this purchase.

I hardly ever buy apps but my dad convinced me to by this one, he said it helped so much with his speeches. And kept his place way better than a handful of note cards. So I tried it out for my best friends wedding and my brothers. I absolutely loved it. It was so easy to follow, it helped with my timing and I never lost my spot. I got in about two years later to write another speech for my other brother. And I saw that it said I have no media yet! I freaked out because my other two speeches were gone. I had no back up copies because I thought they would be saved in here indefinitely since I bought PromptSmartPro and didn’t just sign up for the trial. I’m so disappointed I no longer have those speeches to look back on. Be careful and if you decided to use PromptSmartPro it works just make sure to download your content or save it somewhere else. Hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else. I won’t be recommending PromptSmartPro no any of my friends moving forward.

Man I really wanted to love PromptSmartPro but it just doesn’t work. If you are planning on using it without the voice control I guess it’s fine but the reason I spent all this money was because of the voice control. There are lots of free apps out there that do manual scroll options for free . The voice control just moves erratically to whatever position it wants. You could be reading the very first line of your script and PromptSmartPro just jumps to the last paragraph with no reason. They have a single line option vs multiple line options where it can move line by line or multiple lines at times but it does the same thing no matter what. It’s impossible to read a script the way you intended when PromptSmartPro has its own mind. I also tried to connect a microphone to the tablet to get better audio to see if PromptSmartPro can understand better what I was saying ,but it does the same thing every time. There is no way of moving smoothly from line to line . It’s a waste of money. Get one of those free teleprompter app and save your hard earn money

If you are looking for a good basic teleprompter, this fits the bill. I like its words over minute speed adjustment. But if you are looking for voice tracking, this falls far short of reliable. Maybe it works on short, under five minute scripts. I tried a 27 minute script and it was impossible to use the voice track. For example, if you repeat a phrase or point within a few paragraphs of where you are speaking it often doesn’t recognize the first one where you are actually at and will skip forward to the next one. The voice tracking works better, but still skips forward all too often, in a room with lots of sound deadening. But in a room with wood floors and windows, it freezes up like it can’t understand you. The instructions say stay within 5 feet of the iPad to get better voice tracking. I was within 4 feet in a wood floor room and it was extraordinarily glitchy. So I hooked a Bluetooth mic to the iPad and it wouldn’t recognize that at all. I am on iOS 13.3.1 on a 6th Gen iPad with lots of free memory. If I were buying this for a standard set the speed and go teleprompter, then I would give it a 4 star. Good, not great. But I bought it for the voice track so I could save time in production and it miserably fails in that regard.

I really wanted to like PromptSmartPro. However if you’re looking to use the voice tracking feature be prepared for it to stop be prepared to have to manually scroll be prepared for the unpredictability of this feature. It didn’t happen during the trial phase but shortly after I made the purchase nothing but problems. The voice tracking would be a great feature if it actually worked it stops and starts and appears to have a mind of its own totally useless but now I’m stuck with the yearly subscription but definitely will not be renewing. The developer did reach out however made me feel as though it was something that was an error on my end but clearly this is a common problem with PromptSmartPro when it comes to the voice tracking feature . And it clearly dates back and does not seem to be something that PromptSmart is able to correct. If you are looking for a true voice activated scrolling with this Teleprompter app I would say look elsewhere as it is nonexistent with this application.

I have mixed feelings for this product because I have used it successfully for some presentations. For many venues, the VoiceTrack feature will not work well when delivering a speech live. However if you are creating a video at home, it seems to do okay and you can do multiple takes if there is a problem. The lack of ability to use this with a bluetooth microphone including AirPods makes PromptSmart less useful to me. If you need all the features that PromptSmart offers and have a professional setup, this may be a good product for you. If you really just want a simple way to import text and roll on screen at a preset speed, I think there may be more user friendly and cheaper options available.

PromptSmartPro is incredible. Voice track works great and is an integral part of my work. A few bugs prevent me from giving it 5 stars. The main one is constantly getting logged out. It’s frustrating getting out to the field to record only to see that I’ve been logged out again (I use desktop syncing). Please give us the option to make the log out time longer at the least.

In addition, being able to have “stories” within a script is really nice, but I would like to be able to jump straight into a story from its page, rather than having to start the script, then scroll over to it. (I sometimes have 5-8 stories in a script)

With those features I would absolutely be able to give this 5 stars and recommend it to all the creators I know!

Works wonderfully when it works... but there are some desparately needed improvements.
#1 At the end of a script, skipping to the beginning brings you to the beginning of the text, but the recognition software doesn't seem to work so well after you've done that so you really have to exit the prompter and restart it to have the voice recognition work.
#2 The back button to exit the prompter is just way too small. I have tried using it in a small iPhone teleprompter case, and the button is so unresponsive that you have to remove the iphone from the case everytime to address the problems of my first prompt.
#3 Clearly the voice recognition gets confused at times and loses sync with what you're saying, there really needs to be either a) word highlighting that lets you know where PromptSmartPro thinks it is in your script, so that if PromptSmartPro gets stuck you know where to read from in order to get it on track again
#4 better import filtering... PromptSmartPro turns apostrophes into garbage. If it can't represent apostrophes properly it should at least have the smarts to turn them into a right single quote.
#5 more import options. i don't want to use drop box or any of the other options... let me accept imports from files on my iCloud drive.
I love the concept of PromptSmartPro... but it's annoying rough edges make it unusable.

...when it doesn’t, it’s frustrating. If you’re thinking about using this on something where time and quality are important, you may want to wait until PromptSmartPro works reliably and or the bugs are worked out. I’ve been using this for over a year and this latest version is definitely better, but I just recorded a bunch of clips in selfie mode on my iPhone and it seems audio was only recorded on about half the clips. Also PromptSmartPro doesn’t recognize external microphones (although the previous version did). To the programmers: please realize that your users are probably using this for at least quasi-professional presentations. If your development resources don’t permit you to beta test and address bugs quickly, you should remove the “pro” part of your name. PromptSmartPro is sooo close to being great. I hope you take the steps needed to service your market properly. Thanks!

The idea of this is great, but the execution is inconsistent. After trying out the free version, and being impressed with its ability to flow with your speech, I went ahead and paid for it. Unfortunately, as I got to using it more, it has proven to work inconsistently.

The main issue is that PromptSmartPro doesn’t actually always follow your speaking. It will go along for awhile working flawlessly, then it will just stop and not scroll anymore. Sometimes I can get it scrolling again by going back and re-reading the last paragraph. Other times, I have to stop it completely and start again.

The most common problem is having it stop while I’m reading, but it also sometimes will be moving along perfectly, and then just skip ahead a couple of pages. Both of these are really frustrating.

Yes, I can stop and restart from the previous paragraph, but I hate that about 75% of the times I have to stop and restart, it is because the teleprompter messed up. The other 25% are my own mistakes, but it would be nice if I only had to reshoot 25% of what I do now.

I took note that the sound can make it unreliable, but I plug a shotgun mic into my iPad Pro to be sure it can hear.

It’s really impressive that it can do this auto scrolling thing at all, so I am impressed. However, it just messes up,
too much. I hope it improves, because I really need it.

I don’t know why the developers chose to place the controls at the top when you mirror the iPad. On a real Teleprompter just makes it extremely difficult to operate the program. It would be really nice if they were an option to place the controls at the bottom of the screen when it is mirrored or at least have the option of where you want the controls.

This is even worse on iOS 15 because it makes the play/stop button (that you have to hit a second time to start) sit right on top of the split screen menu, which takes priority over the button.

Getting the “smart“ voice tracking to work is kind of hit or miss, although it is functioning most of the time. Unfortunately when it doesn’t work I have to pull the iPad out because the controls are so hard to get to which makes the program frustrating which translates into bad recordings.

Update: I figured out the problem based on another review. I clicked on migrate documents and the issue appears to be fixed. It also appears someone has contacted me from support but it won’t load the conversation. Oh well. As long as it works. They should put something on PromptSmartPro to explain this so they stop getting bad reviews. —

I’ve used PromptSmartPro for over a year and it was great. Now they’ve updated it and I can’t use it. They switched from a one time purchase to a subscription. It won’t let me into PromptSmartPro to use it. It asks for a login that I never needed before and doesn’t recognize any of my emails. Basically stole my money. I contacted support and they never responded.

I’ve been using PromptSmartPro for a few years alongside a handful of others (TelePrompt+ 3). PromptSmartPro just can’t seem to get it right. First, importing files (even .rtf or other basic OSX formats) import with metadata, making the scripts unusable without HOURS of editing. It’s ridiculous. Not sure how an iPad app doesn’t natively support .rtf files for Christ’s sake.

Yes the voice system is buggy as others have said, but worse is the fact that services like Dropbox and Drive also ban the application from time-to-time, making it impossible to import. Not sure why this is happening, but perhaps the dev didn’t follow the TOS from Dropbox and other services. Amateur hour.

I really wanted this to work, but it just isn’t pro-grade as advertised. Not at all.

I initially could not get PromptSmartPro to work and was quite frustrated with PromptSmartPro . I reached out to customer service and they replied the next day. Evidently, one must hit play to go to TelePrompTer mode and hit play again to get it to start. It did work fairly well. It did get glitchy in parts but it may just be me not familiar with the technology. Overall, it is a very good app and I would recommend.
After fixing the initial issue via email. I was still having glitch issues with app. The developer called me on a scheduled appointment and walk me thru some changes to fix the stalling issue and indicated I can him if there any other questions or concerns. I am very pleased with product thus far.

PromptSmart Pro is a great app to use!! Personally, I use it for my broadcasting class and it suits all of my needs. I can easily record my audio and video without worrying about remembering or forgetting my script. It includes fun features like changing the color of your script as well as the size of your words. It automatically and reliably transports your videos to your camera roll, so you never have to worry about looking for them or missing any. I have PromptSmartPro on two devices already and I use it quite frequently. Thanks to PromptSmartPro, I can get good grades on my assignments and I never have to worry about looking in all directions for my script while filming. Ultimately, I recommend PromptSmartPro for anyone that frequently films videos or audio clips whether you are an actor/actress, filmmaker, or broadcasting student!!

I used my iPad prompter this week for 5 days straight. I’ve been having connection issues with my former prompting app, Teleprompter 3+. So I gave it one more shot on a Monday. Failed again! I sent a support email to the developer and no response at all. On Tuesday I was shooting the CEO with a long speech. So I scrambled on Monday night looking for a new app that would work. And then...PromptSmart Pro!

I usually use a remote app on my iPhone X to advance the script, but PromptSmartPro uses voice recognition to advance the script and IT WORKS! Tested it all night Monday and loaded the scripts for Tuesday. I contacted the developer about the remote app and they responded within a couple hours. Nice! It works fine without the remote app, but for confidence-sake, I’ll be buying the remote app as well.

I filmed the CEO on Tuesday and it worked beautifully! Over the course the next 4 days I filmed 37 people using PromptSmart Pro and it worked flawlessly with all types of accents and ethnicities. It only failed twice; once in a room with no soft surfaces, so it was basically in an echo chamber. The other time was a person that was speaking so fast, my human ears could barely understand what she was saying. I asked her to slow down and PromptSmartPro picked her up just fine and worked.

I am beyond thrilled with PromptSmartPro and the customer support.

Many reviewers note the voice tracking feature (which is really the only thing that sets this apart from other, more buttoned-up prompter apps) is inconsistent. I’d say it just doesn’t work.

We’ve tried it in numerous settings with and without plugged-in mics and we have yet to get it not to crash during a 4-6 minute session. I won’t speculate on why, but will note these issues have been identified by reviewers since 2018 and in mid-2020, the signature feature does not work well enough to be useful.

In addition, in selfie mode, there’s really no control over the camera nor background (as most other good prompter apps provide) making it hard to guarantee you’ve got a good shot.

In pre-pandemic days a prompter operator could match the talent’s speed and adjust for ad-libs, dramatic pauses, etc. That’s not an option anymore in the self-recording era. The VoiceTrack feature works really well to allow speakers to present at a comfortable (and sometimes changing) pace.
The update to show full width video in selfie mode removes confusion about framing the shot which is a plus. But PLEASE make the shaded half of the screen behind the script a bit denser. The script needs to contrast with the background in order to be clear and easy to read.
High marks for PromptSmartPro and I continue to recommend it. I’d just like to see this one tweak to the on-screen script area.
Thanks!

I have been using PromptSmart Pro weekly for two years to give sermons at my church. I typically use an iPad, but have also used my iPhone and my MacBook Pro. This software is virtually flawless. It is by far the best speech recognition engine I have tried, it is easy to learn, and it has never let me down before a live audience. I am a good writer, but I have problems with memory when I try to give a speech live. PromptSmart Pro is a lifesaver for me. Every time I forget what I am going to say next, PromptSmart Pro has correctly moved the teleprompter to the correct next line in my sermon. This allows me to speak fluently and flawlessly while focusing my attention on my audience, not on my text. In my past career, I was a VP of Products in the software industry (I led the creation of Rosetta Stone language learnning software), so I know a great product when I see it and use it. PromptSmart Pro is a great product.