A dog barks at the front door and a subtitle fades in under him: "THE MAILMAN HAS RETURNED. I WILL HANDLE THIS." That is Pawdub, a new Android app I built as Hartmann Studios. It is a joke app, and it says so on the first screen: no app can translate animals, and Pawdub never claims to. The part that is real is the detection.
What actually happens on the phone
Point the camera at your dog or cat. An on-device sound model listens for a bark, whine, growl, howl, meow, purr or hiss. When it hears one, a movie-style subtitle appears. No sound, no subtitle. An on-device image labeler reads the scene at the same time (door, food bowl, couch, toy, bed), so the line fits the moment: a cat at the window gets a different joke than a cat at an empty bowl.
The subtitle lines are jokes written for each of 8 personas: Drama Queen, Golden Retriever Energy, Grumpy Old Man, Royal Highness, Tiny Gremlin, Food Critic, Conspiracy Theorist and Noir Detective. Each has its own voice (your phone's text-to-speech reads the line) and its own set of lines.
Everything runs on the device. The microphone and camera are used only while the camera screen is open, audio and video are processed on the phone and never uploaded, and there is no account or server.
Why "honest" was the design goal
Pet translator apps that promise to tell you what your dog means end up with reviews from people who felt lied to. Pawdub is built the other way round: the fun comes from the timing (a subtitle only when your pet actually makes a sound) and from the personas, not from a claim. The app gives no advice about your pet's health, mood, training or behaviour; if you are worried about your pet, talk to a vet.
Languages, clips, diary
- Subtitles in 59 languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Arabic and 50 more). Each language is downloaded from Google once and then works offline. Pro adds bilingual subtitles.
- Open a clip from your gallery and Pawdub adds subtitles at the moments your pet makes a sound.
- Subtitle styles: Cinema and Meme are free; Pro adds Bubble (a speech bubble that follows your pet) and Text message.
- Pet profiles for every dog and cat in the house, a bark diary (a log of what your pet "said" today), stickers and poster templates from your clips, export to the gallery and share anywhere.
Free and Pro
Free: unlimited live dubbing, a few exports a day with a small Pawdub tag, 3 personas, your language plus one more, the Cinema and Meme styles, a starter sticker pack, and ads (never on the camera screen). Pro: every persona, all languages, every style, all voices, longer gallery clips, your own custom lines, unlimited exports without the tag, no ads; a subscription with a free trial for new subscribers, or a one-time lifetime unlock. Prices are shown in Google Play.
Where it is
Pawdub has been submitted to Google Play and is in review. Until the listing is live, the Pawdub site has the screenshots, the privacy policy and the promo video. I will update this post with the Play link the day it goes live.
Originally published on the Homelab the Right Way blog. Drafted with AI help and edited by the author; the app is his own.
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