RELEASE: Readel - Text to Speech Chrome Extension

Today I have relaunched my passion project Readel. A text-to-speech Chrome extension. I built Readel because other extension where either bloated, expensive, or slow. They would consume a lot of storage or page space. I just wanted something simple, where I didn't need to think about it.

So Readel was born. The goal is to forget you have it installed and make it seem part of the furniture. To use the extension, you just need to hover your cursor over text and press the Alt key (or Option on Mac), and you will start hearing the words you hovered over. You can also double-tap ALT to continuously read the page without interruption.

This is a small passion project of mine, and I aim to keep it free as I believe the people who really need this tool shouldn't have to pay. I developed the product with cost in mind and have cost-optimised where I can.

I have many ideas for the future of the project. However, the main itch I want to scratch is to build a series of non-profit software that can help provide education and accessibility help to those who need it, starting with Readel.

Also, this is a brilliant playground to experiment with branding and customer acquisition. There are many competitors, who admittedly have comparable features, with mainly my ALT shortcut as my differentiator. Which is not a safe moat. The moat is in the branding, and that's the game I would like to play.

I spent some time researching and understanding the competitor landscape, and all are old or ugly-looking. There's another differentiator gap. I have attached examples of the branding I am going for. A Claude code/retro feel. It definitely sets Readel apart from the crowd.

However, the foundation must be solid. The extension needs to work everywhere, every time, without any issue or else the illusion is broken, in turn affecting the brand. So that is the primary focus.

Lots to learn and experiment with, and I will give updates to this when I learn anything new.

goodbye.