EcholateEcholate

Setup guide

Echolate uses your own Google Cloud APIs, so there's a one-time setup of about 10 minutes. You'll create a Google Cloud project, enable three APIs, create a key, and paste it into the extension. No programming required.

Create a Google Cloud project

Go to the Google Cloud Console and sign in with any Google account. Click the project selector at the top of the page and choose New project. Name it anything you like, e.g. echolate.

Then enable billing for the project (the console will prompt you, or go to Billing in the menu). A billing account with a card on file is required by Google even if you stay within the free quotas.

New to Google Cloud? New accounts get $300 in free credits valid for 90 days — more than enough to use Echolate heavily while you decide if it's for you.

Enable the three APIs

Echolate needs exactly three Google APIs. Open each link below (make sure your new project is selected in the top bar) and click Enable:

All three are required. If any one of them is left disabled, translation will fail with an "API key invalid" style error in the extension.

Create an API key — and restrict it

Go to APIs & Services → Credentials, click Create credentials → API key, and copy the key that appears.

Then click Edit API key (or the key's name) and restrict it, so it can't be abused if it ever leaks:

  1. Under API restrictions, choose Restrict key.
  2. Select exactly three APIs: Cloud Speech-to-Text API, Cloud Translation API, Cloud Text-to-Speech API.
  3. Click Save.

Set a budget alert (recommended)

So there are never surprises on your bill, set a budget with email alerts: go to Billing → Budgets & alerts, click Create budget, and set a monthly amount you're comfortable with (for example $10). Google will email you at 50%, 90%, and 100% of the budget.

Note that a budget alert notifies you — it doesn't cut off the APIs. If you want a hard stop, you can disable the APIs at any time (see the FAQ).

Install Echolate and paste your key

Install Echolate from the Chrome Web Store. Then:

  1. Click the Echolate icon in the Chrome toolbar to open the popup.
  2. Expand Google Cloud settings.
  3. Paste your API key into the key field.

The key is stored only on your device, in the browser's local extension storage. It never leaves your browser except in requests to Google's APIs.

Translate your first site

  1. Open any website with audio — a YouTube video, a live stream, a podcast, a course.
  2. Open the Echolate popup and choose your target language. Leave the source language on Auto, or pick it explicitly for best results.
  3. Press Start.

You'll keep hearing the original soundtrack, and a few seconds later the spoken translation joins in on top. Adjust the two volume sliders to taste — many people set the original low and the translation high, like a TV voice-over.

What does it cost?

Echolate itself is free and has no subscription. Google bills you directly for API usage at their standard rates. Approximate prices (check Google's pricing pages for current numbers):

Approximate Google Cloud API pricing relevant to Echolate
APIApproximate priceFree monthly quota
Speech-to-Text~$0.006 per 15 seconds of audio60 minutes
Translation~$20 per 1M characters500,000 characters
Text-to-Speech~$4–16 per 1M characters (depends on voice type)1–4M characters

In practice, one hour of continuous translation costs roughly $1.5–2 once you're past the free quotas — and the free quotas alone cover about an hour of casual use every month. Speech-to-Text is the dominant cost.

Troubleshooting

Key not working? In order of likelihood: (1) one of the three APIs isn't enabled — recheck all three links in step 2; (2) billing isn't enabled on the project; (3) the key is restricted to the wrong APIs or to specific websites — Echolate needs an API restriction to exactly the three APIs above, with no website/referrer restriction. More cases on the Support & FAQ page.