VoxWav First Demo

[jitterjames]

I just tried it, following the instructions in the email you sent, James.
The app isn't able to see the shared folder, despite me being able to access the share from another machine, using the username and password I had setup. It gives a "Unable to copy wav to shared folder. Please check your settings. The network name cannot be found." error.

- Make sure you have WRITE access with the user account that you are using.  Test that you can write to the folder from another machine
- check all your settings again, and make sure you got the path right (no colons and use forward slashes, not backslashes)

example of good settings:

host:          192.168.1.105
path:           c/wavwatch
user:            james
password:     123mypassword!

it's not very robust yet so something like an extra slash at the end of the host or path could probably mess your up.

I've tested on two (very different) Android devices with no problems so I think it is likely that you've missed something in the setup.  

- What are your Android specs (model / os version)?
- use an IP address for host (but also try using the computer name I guess)
- Are you using your new windows box or a virtual machine?
- try using the app called ES File explorer to access the shared folder and write to it.
- maybe try diabling your any firewalls temporarily?

Also, you can look in your /mnt/sdcard folder to make sure it is saving the wav locally first.  It will be the default folder you see when you open ES File Explorer and the file is called vctemp.wav

If you want me to take a look so we can figure it out together, I'd be happy to using skype and/or teamviewer

[jitterjames]

Edit: I deleted the share and recreated it with another name (changing the settings in voxwav) and tried with another user who has no password set (so, left the password field blank in voxwav), and it now gives a "logon failure" error. Is a password mandatory? What am I doing wrong?

One thing I observed is that it took a while, close to 8 seconds for the logon prompt to come up when I tried to access the share from the other machine. So could this be a timeout issue in voxwav?

Yes it is possible that a username and password is mandatory. I have not tested without.
Yes it is possible that it is timing out if it takes too long.  But I'm not sure why that is happening.  For me it's practically instant.

[ajith]

- Make sure you have WRITE access with the user account that you are using.  Test that you can write to the folder from another machine
- check all your settings again, and make sure you got the path right (no colons and forward slashes)

Did that! The "Save path on host" value is "d/wav" without the quotes. My shared folder is D:\wav

- What are your Android specs (model / os version)?

Samsung Galaxy S2, Android 4.0.4, from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1436854

- use an IP address for host (but also try using the computer name I guess)

Tried both ways!

- Are you using your new windows box or a virtual machine?

You remembered! Yes, VoX and the shared folder are on the new Xtreamer HTPC box running Windows 7

- try using the app called ES File explorer to access the shared folder and write to it.

ES could see the share and I could create a file in the shared folder!

- maybe try diabling your any firewalls temporarily?

Turned off Windows Firewall

Also, you can look in your /mnt/sdcard folder to make sure it is saving the wav locally first.  It will be the default folder you see when you open ES File Explorer and the file is called vctemp.wav

It is there! It played my last command

If you want me to take a look so we can figure it out together, I'd be happy to using skype and/or teamviewer

That would probably be the next step, after this!

[jitterjames]

I am currently on skype.  you can use either voxcommando or jitterjames to find me.

[ajith]

Thanks to James, the trouble I was facing was identified.

My shared folder was D:\wav
In Voxwav's settings, I had specified the Save path on host as d/wav. This didn't work.
It works when this was changed to just wav

Explanation:
For d/wav to work, both D: as well as wav need to be shared. But I had only shared wav. So it didn't work.

Since I only shared wav, I need to have just wav as my Save path on host

[Kalle]

Thanks to James, the trouble I was facing was identified.

My shared folder was D:\wav
In Voxwav's settings, I had specified the Save path on host as d/wav. This didn't work.
It works when this was changed to just wav

Explanation:
For d/wav to work, both D: as well as wav need to be shared. But I had only shared wav. So it didn't work.

Since I only shared wav, I need to have just wav as my Save path on host

Thanks ajith, this works for me too 

[Kalle]

Hi James,
I've tested it with my Galaxy S2 with Android 4.03

1) for network path I used the same methode on Android as ajith (wavewatcher for the path: c:\wavwatcher) all other things do not work.

2) recording and send with the button work only fine with my headset. The onboard mic in the Galaxy is waste 

3) "tilt to speak" doesn't work on the Galaxy S2 - VoxWav send a big file to the wavwatch folder >2 MB without content and VC show this in the upper field "can't open wav file: c:\wavwatch\android8_19_55.wav" and create in the historie window a event "Wav.FailedRead".

[Dave]

Thanks ajith, this works for me too 

and for me  

My first impressions and ideas after some tests on my Galaxy Nexus (Android 4.1.1) and Asus Transformer TF101 (Android 4.0.3):
- the tilt sensor is very responisive, it happend several times that the mic turned on and instantly off. I don't think that all devices behave equal, maybe you could add add a setting to "calibrate" the sensor
- i tested both of my devices with and without two different headsets and i don't get good results. (without headset: ~60-70%, with headset ~70-80%, kinect ~90%).* Would it be possible to have a different required confidence for .wav-files?
- i personally think it would be nice, if commands from the phone wouldn't need a prefix. i know i could use Mic.on and mic.off states to change from standby to on, but this would also enable my other mic.
- it would be great if there was an option in your app, that VoxMic is only enabled if a user chosen app has focus, or maybe a plugin for tasker to enable/disable the background service, or at least that the disables the service when i get an incoming call.
- sometimes i get a Wav.FailedRead error

* tested again with mey nexus without headset and got ~75-80% in two of three tries.

For the first version it leaves a very good mark!  

[jitterjames]

2) recording and send with the button work only fine with my headset. The onboard mic in the Galaxy is waste 

did you experiment with holding the phone at different distances from your mouth?  Try 10cm, 30cm, 60cm.

[jitterjames]

Those of you getting the error in VC: " Wav.FailedRead"

I think this is probably happening mostly when the wav is too long, but possibly also when the wav is too short, or if two wav files s are sent very close together because of the tilt being too sensitive.  Please test and confirm.

[ajith]

The very short files ~ 80 kB seem to be created due to sensor "noise" at the "crossover". Probably some kind of damping or hysteresis needs to be applied for the sensor readout.
 I cannot explain the sometimes large ~ 10 MB in some cases - files that created and copied. Once this happens, it fails continuously thereafter for a while. These large files do not seem to contain any recording (only some hissing), but they do play in WMP, showing it is ~ 2 min long. And I don't recall recording that long either!

For the record, I find the recording quality with the onboard mic on my Galaxy S2 quite good, giving me > 90% accuracy in recognition. Far from "waste"

[Kalle]

Those of you getting the error in VC: " Wav.FailedRead"

I think this is probably happening mostly when the wav is too long, but possibly also when the wav is too short, or if two wav files s are sent very close together because of the tilt being too sensitive.  Please test and confirm.

Yes James, I can confirm that - I used the phone to close to my mouth without a result, but if I hold it 30 cm in distance it work good.
Sometimes it creates very big files with no content 5-10 MB. I will test more what goes on 

[jitterjames]

- the tilt sensor is very responisive, it happend several times that the mic turned on and instantly off. I don't think that all devices behave equal, maybe you could add add a setting to "calibrate" the sensor

Yeah, I'll be working on this.

- i tested both of my devices with and without two different headsets and i don't get good results. (without headset: ~60-70%, with headset ~70-80%, kinect ~90%).* Would it be possible to have a different required confidence for .wav-files?

It is quite possible that if you are using a profile that was trained with Kinect it is muddying the waters because the sound on the kinect is actually kind of weird.  you can't actually train with wav files (which really sucks - ** see note below) but depending on your accent you could try working from either a blank profile, or one that was trained with a good headset, or other very clean mic.  Of course it is also possible that your headset or the mic on your phone are not that great.  it is also possible that the software is not obtaining optimal quality, but I get excellent results with my tab using it as shown in the video.  90+ most of the time.

- i personally think it would be nice, if commands from the phone wouldn't need a prefix. i know i could use Mic.on and mic.off states to change from standby to on, but this would also enable my other mic.

they don't (or should not) in fact you don't even need to have VC on.  did you upgrade to 0.956?  Yes I think we should be able to set the required confidence independently for wav files.  I will do that at some point.

- it would be great if there was an option in your app, that VoxMic is only enabled if a user chosen app has focus, or maybe a plugin for tasker to enable/disable the background service, or at least that the disables the service when i get an incoming call.

sure, but that's going to take a while. No idea how to do that yet, and many other things to do first.


** actually you CAN train with wav files.  All you need to do is set the default mic to "what you hear" and then play the wav files with windows media player (or whatever).  In order to get the wav files from your android, the easiest way is to use VoxWav when VoxCommando is not running, and then just go look in the wavwatch folder.

[ajith]

James, you could refactor the settings screen to accept the Samba share details in just one field, with the format "//<hostname>/<share-name>", as is always done in UNIX and other similar OSes. For accessing a Samba share, the drive and actual path information is not required. This will standardize the UI and also avoid the kind of issues we faced and fixed via Skype

[jitterjames]

You still need to get the share name right  

If you share the whole drive, like I do, then the share name is the drive name. Concatenating the two fields into one does not solve any problems afaict . OK, it might conform to some standard, but for me it is easier to switch between multiple VC machines that are set up the same way.  I have three machines that I'm testing on and all have d/wavwatch shared.  This way I can just change the name of the host. In the long run it will probably change quite a bit. I'd like to be ale to store settings for multiple hosts and be able to switch between them with a couple clicks, or even a voice command.