Kinect 360

[jitterjames]

Your question is not 100% clear to me.  Whom are you asking and what do you mean by "stop the Kinect"?

[Haddood]

Why did you stop the Kinect?  I am just starting trying to use it.

If you are asking me... The reason I switched, is because I wanted to have a mic in each room in my apartment ... and kinect is great in a one room scenario

[fishware]

Hello lovely community.

Thanks to Kalle  I've got my own Kinect to play around. Its a amazing piece of senorphalancs.
Now I have a "liitle" question.
In the VC main window is that little nice level indicator. Is it possible to read the value from this indicator may be permanently? I want to try out, to look for the last 5 seconds or so (this is one challenge) to the level, and if its raise or fall over/under a threshhold to adjust the mic inputlevel.
On other hand I can imagine, that when a very high level is reached -sometimes I hear loud music -, to switch to gesture input via kinect and trigger that way the VC-XBMC ducking procedure. This also could be nice to pause an very loud Äktschnmovie.

with greetings, fishware   

[jitterjames]

You will need to find a third party solution to read the input level.  I recommend you set it to a low level and forget it for now. There is a setting in options on the kinect tab for AGC (automatic gain control) which adjusts the input level automatically but it is generally recommended to not use this with speech recognition.

[deco123411]

@Hadood.
Can you please tell me about your current setup with a mic in each room. I can barely get a mic to sound right unless it's a headset and have been doing alot of research.
How is your setup going now.  Do you still get home accuracy. Omni mics are really a hit and miss.  I bought 3 brands and they all have trouble picking up my voice let alone get windows speech recognition to even start voice tutorial and mic calibration

[Kalle]

Hi deco,


I have seen long time ago a guy which has used a sure mic automixer for a multiroom voice control.
I can't find the website at the moment, but I know the 8 channel mixer (which is expensive, maybe there exist a 4 channel version or you can find one on ebay)


http://www.markertek.com/product/scm810/shure-scm810-eight-channel-microphone-mixer-automixer?utm_medium=shoppingengine&utm_source=googlebase&utm_source=google&utm_term=Product_Target&utm_campaign=Shopping+-+Pro-Audio&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=kMpqojDl%7Cpcrid%7C74923786580%7Cpdv%7Ct%7C&gclid=CMPJm4zFuc8CFYZbhgodgaQIjg

[jitterjames]

How are all these mics that you have tried connected to your computer? Give us the exact models of the microphones you are talking about.  Many microphones are designed to hear you only if you are within 1 meter or less.

Maybe the problem is the audio input on your computer.

 Listen to a recording of your voice, what does it sound like. Feel free to upload a short sample.

If you are using analog microphones you might need to use a preamp or try using a USB microphone instead.

That said I personally do not bother much with open microphones because they pick up too much other sound.

[deco123411]

Thank you for replying.
Think that is a pricey experiment just to have bad results.
I am currently trying different mics and just got a second hand  kinect.  Its exactly what I want in my living room. I hope it works as intended.
 Has anyone tried setting multi kinects in each room and running two or three instances of Vox?

My last resort will be to turn to Google Home http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/18/11688376/google-home-speaker-announced-virtual-assistant-io-2016

I love their speech recognition and an api to use their mics would make vox a beast

[jitterjames]

I guess you didn't notice my post.

But Google Home should really be your first choice.  It will be much easier to use than VoxCommando, and probably much better all around.  It's also going to make it a lot easier for Google to know absolutely everything about you and your whole family, which is really important so that you can get access to the best possible ads.

You just have to be patient since you can't buy that yet.  And of course if you live in some country other than the USA or don't want to use it in English, then I guess you will need to be really, really, patient.

 

[deco123411]

Sorry, never saw that post.
I dont see the fun in that at all. I have to say ok google all the time and it wont interact.
Vox is forever learning because you customize it to what you want and who you are. Google uses algorithms to "guess" what you interests are. Its not smarter if it always has to be in the cloud because once it disconnects from the internet, Its usless. I like so many have modems or other connection issues.

Take my smarthings hub. An amazing product and potential with so much problems because the company cant wait to roll out an update every few months for ''security reasons'' that has now caused my hub t disconnect and reconnect constantly due to a firmware issue. With eventghost and Vox. I can pretty much do almost anything and the only downside is the mic and lack of coding experience. Internet loss limits Vox to the WWW but not to a local network thatcan still do things around the house
James, I would take your and Vox anytime over the cloud.

[Haddood]

@Hadood.
Can you please tell me about your current setup with a mic in each room. I can barely get a mic to sound right unless it's a headset and have been doing alot of research.
How is your setup going now.  Do you still get home accuracy. Omni mics are really a hit and miss.  I bought 3 brands and they all have trouble picking up my voice let alone get windows speech recognition to even start voice tutorial and mic calibration

my system is ok (and what is ok is a very subjective evaluation)... depends a lot on the background noise when I speak ... at night when it is very quite the system is at its best... lately working a lot, so rarely at home ... my usage dropped mainly to controlling lights, weather ...
for my setup I use
I use XAP800 ...
open mic is not easy path, it takes a lot of calibration to make it work at its best will be like 80 to 90% of headset mic. and the head set mic, I think, at it is best is somewhere in 80s% in average (of all users).

aside from the PC side there is the user who is a complex variable, accent, volume, pitch, current emotional state, all of these change what the computer hears
 
with current technology (MS SR) it is gonna be always limited until there is a system that simulate our brains to be more than 95% (even us we miss interpret the things we hear many times). even systems like Siri and Cortana ..etc. now they focus on natural language... but how we hear and how we react is much more complex ... i.e. we can tell if the speech is directed to use even if our name (prefix simulate that a bit, though we can back process even if it is mentioned at the end or in the middle, in fact someone might make it look like that the speech is directed to you but it is meant for someone else, and both we will understand, based on the tone) is not mentioned based on direction of the sound, how many people in the room, the tone, the person speaking among many other factors ... in one words; context processing which current computers are far from getting there.

all of this to say "with open mic, you have to set a very realistic goals and start with a very simple command system (i.e. having one way of saying things that are precise and not close to other commands)" that will affect your experience drastically ... and then add slowly more commands, one at a time ...


I second James, if you need help we need to know well your setup ....