An example distance measuring apparatus is provided. The example apparatus may include a housing having an aperture, a reel assembly, a measuring tape, a touch control, an audio output device, an audio input device, and processing circuitry. The processing circuitry may be configured to receive a touch control signal and initiate a measurement acquisition session, receive verbal measurement audio data from the audio input device, perform a speech recognition analysis on the verbal measurement audio data to determine measurement data, and store the measurement data in a memory device.