Voice Activation

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  • hargraverch
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • Jan 2008
    • 30

    Voice Activation

    I don't know if this topic has being brought forward for discussion, but i thought it would be cool if you could set the scene in a room by word of mouth instead of remote control. The thought entered my mind when i sat down to watch a movie on the big screen, and thought it be cool if i could say the words screen down, projector on and lights off. or even setting lights and calling for music to be played adjusting volume by voice. Just a thought, anyone else any thoughts.

    Ron
  • pocky
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • Oct 2007
    • 19

    #2
    Thats no problem at all. Done through voice control EIB/KNX

    Comment

    • hargraverch
      Automated Home Jr Member
      • Jan 2008
      • 30

      #3
      voice control

      Hi i don't have the panel that allows this function, but thought maybe a dedicated drb size module would suffice and be a lot less obtrusive and been smaller would give positionally advantage over the panel and most likely cheaper wonder if there electronics designer has looked at this option.

      ron

      Comment

      • chris_j_hunter
        Automated Home Legend
        • Dec 2007
        • 1713

        #4
        Voice Activation

        I think you'll find idratek has this built-in ... or it's in one of teh add-ons ... so maybe you just need to explore a bit ... not sure how many have tried it ...
        Our self-build - going further with HA...

        Comment

        • Karam
          Automated Home Legend
          • Mar 2005
          • 863

          #5
          The speech recognition feature comes as standard with the basic Cortex license. You can use speech recognition via an MFP or DFP type units (since they have the audio input hardware) and you can also do speech recognition over a telephone ie. dial in to your house and interact using speech. For the latter however you need the telephony features license.

          However the effectiveness of speech recognition depends on many factors. Open room speech recognition (by which I mean you speak to a microphone situated a few meters away from you) is not particularly reliable and gets even less so when you then have your home cinema system blaring out. I personally can sit 3-4 meters away from an MFP and get it to turn on the TV and switch channels and so on with just about useable reliability but then I have some insider knowledge on how speech recognition works. However the reliability is not good enough for me to use this method generally. On the other hand using speech recognition via my mobile phone is reliable enough for me to use this rather than less convenient touch tone methods. Impressed someone once when I dialled home from a restaurant to record a TV program for them ;-)

          You have to also remember that the vocabulary is not constraned - it is automatically compiled by Cortex depending on your database. So for example if you add a temperature sensor and call it 'lounge temperature' in the database then this name and all its relevant controls (such as speak or speak min/max) will automatically be added to the vocabulary list. This is good on the one hand since it means for example that you can dial in and pretty much interrogate anything on your system without having to explicitly program it in for speech recognition (or for that matter synthesis) purposes. The downside is that speech recognition for a constrained vocabularly set can be made much more reliable and also less speaker dependent.

          I once saw a video clip of .. was it the Orange demo home? .. where someone had a headset on and commanded the bath to fill up - which after a few seconds of processing it eventually complied. This is not my idea of practical speech recognition! Perhaps a better compromise I think first brought out by Philips was something like a remote control handset where you press a button and talk into the handset microphone (since close to you you can constrain the acoustic issues somewhat, also vocabulary limited). Ok so again not exactly how we envisage the use of speech recognition but nevertheless quite useful in the context of home automation since remembering which button does what or going through lots of LCD menus gets less convenient than speaking as the number of functions increase.

          Having said all this, speech recognition technology improves all the time ..

          Karam

          Comment

          • Gumby
            Moderator
            • May 2004
            • 437

            #6
            Originally posted by hargraverch View Post
            i could say the words screen down, projector on and lights off. or even setting lights and calling for music to be played adjusting volume by voice. Just a thought, anyone else any thoughts.

            Ron
            With all the integration you'd be able to say "Watch film" and everything else would be hidden.
            ----------------------
            www.gumbrell.com

            Comment

            • Gumby
              Moderator
              • May 2004
              • 437

              #7
              Originally posted by Karam View Post
              Perhaps a better compromise I think first brought out by Philips was something like a remote control handset where you press a button and talk into the handset microphone (since close to you you can constrain the acoustic issues somewhat, also vocabulary limited).
              Karam
              There's lots of WiFi Skype phones appearing - how easy is it to get your internal phone lines to connect to Cortex, either analogue phones or via Skype ?
              ----------------------
              www.gumbrell.com

              Comment

              • chris_j_hunter
                Automated Home Legend
                • Dec 2007
                • 1713

                #8
                Voice Activation

                >constrain the acoustic issues ...

                with speach recognition, I always imagined giving the computer a name, so it knew when you were talking to it, and saying please & thank-you, as delimiters ... it's what we do with each other, afterall, and presumably for this very reason ... ?
                Our self-build - going further with HA...

                Comment

                • Karam
                  Automated Home Legend
                  • Mar 2005
                  • 863

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Gumby View Post
                  There's lots of WiFi Skype phones appearing - how easy is it to get your internal phone lines to connect to Cortex, either analogue phones or via Skype ?
                  I'm not really sure, I guess a WiFi route should be possible without any extra hardware but would need to figure out how. I don't have any experience with internal telephony systems so I don't know how it would done with analogue phones. If there is a switchboard and phones can ring each other then in principle I suppose it should work almost as is (assuming modem can recognise internal dial ring) - but this is just a guess.

                  I think it might be easier for us/someone to just design a wireless mic. with an additional signal to indicate mic. (n) active to Cortex :-)

                  Karam

                  Comment

                  • Karam
                    Automated Home Legend
                    • Mar 2005
                    • 863

                    #10
                    Originally posted by chris_j_hunter View Post
                    >constrain the acoustic issues ...

                    with speach recognition, I always imagined giving the computer a name, so it knew when you were talking to it, and saying please & thank-you, as delimiters ... it's what we do with each other, afterall, and presumably for this very reason ... ?
                    Well in Cortex there is the option of having a preamble 'key phrase' which then admits you to the remainder of the vocabulary. As for delimiters, well the recognition engine is fairly good at recognising longer spaces so not really necessary. There are other interaction options too, for example you can either have a command executed as soon at is recognised or have Cortex ask for confirmation (this I tend not to use), also you can have Cortex repeat the recognised phrase (this I do use).

                    As for please and Thank-you - I always thought this was to be polite but Cortex doesn't really seem to care - maybe we should change that ;-)

                    Karam

                    Comment

                    • chris_j_hunter
                      Automated Home Legend
                      • Dec 2007
                      • 1713

                      #11
                      >Cortex doesn't really seem to care ...

                      it's not so much that, as that we care - ie: giving it a name tells it when we want to talk to it, and saying please or thankyou, or whatever, tells it when to stop paying attention - so it don't bother us unecessarily ! There's nothing worse than automation that doesn't know its place !!
                      Our self-build - going further with HA...

                      Comment

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