Help with Home automation X10 and Itunes + few general questions

[msinclairinork]

Hello!

1) I'm new to the forum and new to VC. However so far VC along with PocketAudio on my Iphone has given me voice control over itunes which controls my music collection on my HTPC which is GREAT! I also have Apple's Airplay set up so that I can send the music to various rooms in my house which also works great. However it would be even better if with a voice command I could tell itunes to play music in this room or that room etc. Really not good at this scripting just yet so any tips on this would be of great help!

2) Also the plan is to install some X10 devices to control the lights around the house. Can VC be set to do this as well as continuing to control itunes? In other words is there any limit to how many apps VC can be controlling on the same system? Also where would I start to get X10 control integrated into VC? Is that where eventgoast comes in?

3) How can I improve VC's ability to understand my voice? Am I right in saying that it is directly linked to windows speech recognition software? So that if I went through it's recognition training that would then improve VC's?

Sorry about the newbie questions but getting really excited about the capabilities of VC!

Many thanks!
Michael

[Kalle]

Hello!

1) I'm new to the forum and new to VC. However so far VC along with PocketAudio on my Iphone has given me voice control over itunes which controls my music collection on my HTPC which is GREAT! I also have Apple's Airplay set up so that I can send the music to various rooms in my house which also works great. However it would be even better if with a voice command I could tell itunes to play music in this room or that room etc. Really not good at this scripting just yet so any tips on this would be of great help!

2) Also the plan is to install some X10 devices to control the lights around the house. Can VC be set to do this as well as continuing to control itunes? In other words is there any limit to how many apps VC can be controlling on the same system? Also where would I start to get X10 control integrated into VC? Is that where eventgoast comes in?

3) How can I improve VC's ability to understand my voice? Am I right in saying that it is directly linked to windows speech recognition software? So that if I went through it's recognition training that would then improve VC's?

Sorry about the newbie questions but getting really excited about the capabilities of VC!

Many thanks!
Michael

Hi msinclairinork and welcome to VC-Forum.
I can help you with point 3: Yes VC use the Windows speech recog. so you can train your profile for better recognation.

Point 2: VC has no limit to control other programs on the same system.

Kalle

[jitterjames]

Welcome to the forum msinclairinork,  

I don't recommend X10 because it is not reliable, and you have only very basic control. However, if that is all you can afford you may want to try it.  One day though, you'll probably decide it is not worth the trouble.  That is pretty much where I have ended up with X10 and I'm looking for a good replacement system.

You can control X10 directly from VoxCommando and also receive events from X10 remotes directly in VoxCommando, but you need to use the correct USB device.  I don't think they still make the one I have (CM15A) so before getting something else, let us know which USB controller you are thinking of and we can try to determine if it will be compatible.

You can control all sorts of different programs from a single VC setup, and you can create as many custom setups as you want on one machine using only a single license, but it is up to you to configure it how you want and to make sure your command phrases don't overlap.  You can control skype, mediamonkey, itunes, xbmc, mediaportal, JRiver etc. all from one VC config but you need to work out the logic of what happens when you say "play"  .  There are various ways to deal with this.  In the case of itunes and x10 this should not really be an issue anyway.

As Kalle says you can use Windows Speech to train your profile, but you can also check the "learn" button on the main VC window.  The problem here is that when it misunderstands you, it will "learn" the incorrect command.  It's all very "fuzzy" though.

I'm not sure if you can set the input level of the virtual mic for pocket audio, but if so try turning the level down.

[msinclairinork]

Thank you very much for the quick responses!

Have you any ideas what system you intend to use to replace X10 yet?

Is there any good step by step guides on how to setup custom voice commands to then reply custom answers? Just so I can show off to my mates with a little computer conversations! 

Also would it be possible to set a custom macro where it will change my airplay settings to send music around the house from a single voice command? I'm not sure how these macros work. Is it a case of recording exactly every mouse move/click until you finish the macro recording? If that's the case this should fairly simple to implement?

Thanks again!

Michael

[jitterjames]

I don't know.  I am looking at zwave and vera, but I'm not sure. It seems a bit expensive to me.  If anyone has suggestions available in Canada, I'm all ears.

Search YouTube for: VoxCommando tutorial

Look at our wiki.

Most questions have been answered on this forum.  I usually find Google the best way to search for this info, since the forum search is a bit clunky.

I don't know about airplay since I don't have any airplay devices, and last time I checked, apple did not include any methods to control airplay in their itunes API libraries.  So you probably need to create some kind of keyboard mouse emulation.

No there is no macro "record" feature in VC, although you could probably use another program to do this and then call it from VC.  Autohotkey might have something for this.

[msinclairinork]

Hello again,

Thanks for that. I found your vid's on youtube which helped a lot.

I know have what I wanted! Using a program called Airfoil to send my music to all my airplay devices. I now have the ability to use the sendkeys commands to adjust the settings. So in other words (literally!) I can walk around my house with my iphone and say "Computer...turn on/off the bathroom speakers and play me some blues music" and it WORKS!! Hurray!! And fairly cheap too considering what other systems can cost. The only downside I have at the moment is I have no confirmation sounds (or vox sounds) coming through any of the speakers except from the livingroom's. But I'll figure that out yet!

So now I would like to implement voice control of the lights, but some research needed there.

Is there anyway to trigger VC to say things back to you? Or to have a "conversation" with you?

Thanks again, and Kudos for this well written piece of software!

Michael

[jitterjames]

Is there anyway to trigger VC to say things back to you? Or to have a "conversation" with you?

Yes.  Of course it depends on what level of conversation you are talking about.  you can simply create your own commands with TTS responses, or you can try to implement something with the pandorabots.  (you can try importing the attached group).

[msinclairinork]

Ahh yes I never noticed the TTS bit's! Steep learning curve this, but fun! 

Thanks again!

Michael