Use Qwen3-ASR as production speech recognizer

integrations/openclaw-athena-talk/README.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ existing Athena speech stack. An experimental browser WebRTC path is available
 through the separate `services/athena-realtime-voice` service:
 
 1. local VAD collects a spoken utterance,
-2. Athena Whisper transcribes it,
+2. Athena Qwen3-ASR transcribes it,
 3. OpenClaw's normal agent-consult path answers with its configured model and
    tools,
 4. Athena Qwen3-TTS returns PCM audio to the Talk client.
@@ -60,23 +60,23 @@ openclaw plugins install . --force --accept-capabilities
 openclaw plugins inspect athena-talk --runtime --json
 ```
 
-Version 1.3.0 also registers **Athena Whisper (Diktieren)** as a separate
+The plugin registers **Athena Qwen3-ASR (Diktieren)** as a separate
 realtime transcription provider through OpenClaw's official plugin API. In the
 browser composer, hold the microphone for dictation, then release it to send
 the 8 kHz G.711 audio through the Gateway. Short recordings are converted to
 PCM WAV and sent to Athena's existing `/audio/transcriptions` endpoint in one
 request. Longer recordings are split while the user is still speaking into
 six-second windows with 0.5 seconds of overlap. The plugin sends these windows
-sequentially to the persistent Whisper service, carries a short text prompt
-into the next request, removes duplicated overlap words, and caches finished
+sequentially to the persistent Qwen3-ASR service, removes duplicated overlap
+words, and caches finished
 segments until recording stops. Only the short final tail then remains inside
-OpenClaw's fixed five-second final-drain window. Each Whisper request is capped
+OpenClaw's fixed five-second final-drain window. Each STT request is capped
 at 4.5 seconds.
 
 This is incremental pre-transcription over OpenClaw's official transcription
-provider API. Whisper.cpp still receives complete short WAV segments; it is
-not a native token-streaming STT protocol. No OpenClaw core file was patched
-and no additional speech container was introduced. The transcribed text is
+provider API. Qwen3-ASR still receives complete short WAV segments; it is
+not a native token-streaming STT protocol. No OpenClaw core file was patched.
+The transcribed text is
 returned to the composer; this path does not invoke the agent or TTS. The
 provider reuses `talk.realtime.providers.athena-talk` and the configured model
 provider for its URL/key. If that model provider has no key, it reuses
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ origin. No second credential is needed. In `talk.catalog`, it appears under
 `transcription.providers`.
 
 The production provider allows up to 180 seconds per recording. This limit is
-a local safety cap shared by dictation and Talk, not an OpenClaw or Whisper
+a local safety cap shared by dictation and Talk, not an OpenClaw or Qwen3-ASR
 restriction. Incremental segmentation keeps long dictation bounded while it
 is being recorded.
 
@@ -95,7 +95,8 @@ An M4A voice note uploaded as a chat attachment does **not** use the realtime
 dictation provider above. OpenClaw processes it through its built-in
 `tools.media.audio` path. On the Unraid installation, automatic provider
 selection hit `SsrFBlockedError` for the private Athena address. Configure the
-existing OpenAI-compatible provider and select Whisper explicitly:
+existing OpenAI-compatible provider and retain the `whisper-1` API alias for
+Qwen3-ASR:
 
 ```json5
 {
@@ -127,7 +128,7 @@ OpenClaw 2026.9.4 accepts `request.allowPrivateNetwork` under
 settings hot-reload without restarting the Gateway. The existing
 `ATHENA_ROUTER_API_KEY` SecretRef is reused; do not add another literal key.
 On 2026-09-16, OpenClaw's official audio module transcribed the affected M4A
-through Athena Whisper (127 characters returned). This confirms the endpoint
+through Athena's then-active Whisper service (127 characters returned). This confirms the endpoint
 and file format; a fresh attachment in the chat is still needed to verify the
 full message-to-transcript flow.