Amulet Remote and VirtualBox

[ajith]

The first thing you need to do is download the extras from the download page:

http://voxcommando.com/downloads.asp

click "Download Extras" and you will get the file: "VoxCommandoExtras.zip"
Unzip the files.  The one we need is called: "AmuletUSB"

this program needs to be running at all times.  You can minimize it to the notification area so it won't take up space on your taskbar.  If you want to have this program start every time you start windows there are many ways to do this.  Here is one: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-run-programs-automatically-on-windows-7-system-startup/

Now when this program is running, events should appear in your VoxCommando 'History' pane whever you raise or lower the microphone.  Open the tree editor and drag the events from the history pane onto any command.  From now on, this command will execute automatically when the event occurs.  It is that simple.  You can create custom commands to do whatever you want when the amulet mic turns on or off.

If want a ready made solution, you can start by importing the attached group into your VC command tree.  It contains two commands that will turn VC on and off, and partial-mute and unmute your system volume.

Hi James,


I am using Vox within a Windows 7 Virtual Machine that is running on a Ubuntu Linux box ( http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=702.0 )
I have recently acquired an Amulet Remote which is working fine with my setup as follows:

• The Amulet USB dongle is plugged into the box running the Ubuntu Linux (host), and is detected by the host OS (Linux) as an audio device having a microphone.
• The Win 7 in the VM (guest) OS does not see the "Amulet USB dongle" at all, but does detect a "microphone" via the virtual hardware emulation
• Voice recognition works in the guest OS using the emulated virtual (dumb) microphone.

Now, as we might guess, AmuletUSB.exe running in the Win 7 VM does not detect the Amulet USB dongle or the events it produces.

So my issue is, I can't use this "Make VC listen and not listen, and adjust volume" feature unless I have a way in Linux to know the state of the microphone. I'm wondering if this is possible ... a la AmuletUSB program for linux


Thanks and Regards
Ajith



 

 

[jitterjames]

Wow.  That's a tough one.  I don't know much about this stuff.  So, linux needs to have a working driver, and windows does too, in order to access a USB device?  I would have though that virutalbox would have passed communication through to the device somehow directly.  I'll ask Eddy from Amulet to take a look at your post, but it seems unlikely.

When I created the Amulet USB notifier for VC I took code provided by Amulet and did the absolute minimum modification to it treating most of it as a black box.  I don't know anything about writing device drivers.

It's not really all that necessary to turn VC on and off since the mic turns on and off and when it is off it's completely silent so VC is not really using much CPU power, and there is certainly no chance of a false command firing when the remote is off.  One problem though, unless Amulet fixed it since I got mine over a year ago... the amulet makes a "pop" when it switches on (yes every time you lift it), which can throw VC off for a couple of seconds.  You may find you have to wait a bit longer after lifting the mic before you start talking.    In terms of attenuating the system volume, that is a nice feature, but the Amulet does surprisingly well even in a loud environment because the mic mostly just picks up sounds that are very close to it.

edit: it doesn't help that the virtualbox servers "...will be down for maintenance from Friday April 27th, 5PM PDT til Monday April 30th" 

[ajith]

... I would have though that virutalbox would have passed communication through to the device somehow directly.

That did it for me! I re-checked and found that VirtualBox does indeed have the ability to just pass through the USB devices onto the Guest OS. I had to install a VirtualBox "Extension Pack" and add my Linux user to a certain group to enable USB-EHCI support for the VM. I did that, and lo and behold, the Windows OS in the VM recognized the Amulet USB dongle directly (as it should, by design), and all is well

So thank you for the hint

Coming to why I needed this feature badly - well, originally I wanted the volume attenuation, but that is sort of difficult as I use an older Onkyo Receiver with an S/PDIF link for the audio. So controlling the Linux System volume doesn't cut it.
I found that muting the Linux System volume does work, though. So I settled for this for now. I'm using the Amulet Microphone event to mute/unmute.

... .. the amulet makes a "pop" when it switches on....

I do not hear any popping. So this is probably fixed.

The Amulet remote's mic does indeed work great. Only gripe I have is the delay when I first pick it up after a while of inaction. The RF link probably takes time waking up.

On a completely different note, can I configure the location where the VoxSmart.xsp gets created when loading a XBMC Smart Playlist?


Thanks and regards,
Ajith

[jitterjames]

So thank you for the hint

a lucky comment I guess. 

On a completely different note, can I configure the location where the VoxSmart.xsp gets created when loading a XBMC Smart Playlist?

Not at the moment.  Are you not able to access your VC folder from XBMC for some reason?

You can trying using File.Copy

It should be pretty quick.

[eddyc]

That did it for me! I re-checked and found that VirtualBox does indeed have the ability to just pass through the USB devices onto the Guest OS. I had to install a VirtualBox "Extension Pack" and add my Linux user to a certain group to enable USB-EHCI support for the VM. I did that, and lo and behold, the Windows OS in the VM recognized the Amulet USB dongle directly (as it should, by design), and all is well

I'm a little late to the party here, but glad to hear there was a straightforward (if non-obvious) solution. Nicely resolved!

I do not hear any popping. So this is probably fixed.

The popping James mentioned is caused by a bug in the firmware on the wireless transmitter chipset we use. It's been fixed by the manufacturer now, and will be included in our next production run, but the unit you have is probably still affected. However, we did rev our own firmware to mute the mic when the radio link is initially activated, which does a reasonable job of working around it.

The Amulet remote's mic does indeed work great. Only gripe I have is the delay when I first pick it up after a while of inaction. The RF link probably takes time waking up.

Yep, that's exactly it - the RF link takes about 700ms to wake up from cold. Once it's awake, the response should be instantaneous. We played with a few different timeout values to try and get a good balance between convenience and excessive battery drain. In an ideal world, it would always be instant, of course!

Glad you're finding it useful otherwise :-)

Regards,

Eddy (Amulet Devices)

[ajith]

Are you not able to access your VC folder from XBMC for some reason?

Well, not directly, as my XBMC is on the host Linux OS and VC is running inside Win 7 that is in turn running inside the VirtualBox VM software - two different machines for all practcial purposes.
The Win 7 in the VM can see the Linux host machine on a (virtual) network. So, I can map a shared folder on Linux within Win 7. Thus E: drive maps to a Linux folder.

So when I "XBMC.Send" a smart playlist, the path that I need to specify for the xsp should be a Linux path (since my XBMC is on Linux). Saving VoxSmart.xsp to E: drive would let me do this.

You can trying using File.Copy

Yes, this should do it. But I did something else that sort of clicked after your suggestion ... I moved VC's folder ( C:\VOXCommando ) itself to E:\ and ran it off of the new location
That solved the problem for me. It is great that VC's installation is location agnostic.

I learnt about the existence of File.Copy ... didn't know about it before!

Thanks and regards,
Ajith

[ajith]

Hello Eddy,

Thanks for responding and nice to be talking to you . I must thank you and Amulet Devices for bringing us the awesome Amulet Remote.

... the RF link takes about 700ms to wake up from cold. Once it's awake, the response should be instantaneous. We played with a few different timeout values to try and get a good balance between convenience and excessive battery drain.

Any chance we might have a user-configuration option for this timeout, maybe an advanced tweak or something, a remote button key-sequence, perhaps, for users like me who almost exclusively use voice with the Amulet Remote. I'd be willing to forgo a little battery life in favor of getting a quicker wake-up response.


Thanks and Regards,
Ajith

[jitterjames]

But I did something else that sort of clicked after your suggestion ... I moved VC's folder ( C:\VOXCommando ) itself to E:\ and ran it off of the new location
That solved the problem for me. It is great that VC's installation is location agnostic.

Cool, that would have been my next suggestion, based on your explanation of the relationship between the two OSs.

Yes, this folder portability is very important to me, and the reason I ignore silly people who complain about the fact that I don't use a standard windows installer.  Whenever I want to test something new, I just clone my whole folder, then I can mess about without any fear of doing damage to my set up.

I have about 30 VC folders scattered about on various systems in my house, keeping track of them is the tricky part.

[jitterjames]

Any chance we might have a user-configuration option for this timeout, maybe an advanced tweak or something, a remote button key-sequence, perhaps, for users like me who almost exclusively use voice with the Amulet Remote. I'd be willing to forgo a little battery life in favor of getting a quicker wake-up response.

I think he's talking about the time before it goes to sleep.  Once it went to sleep (after the timeout) the time to wake would still be the same.   One thing I do is I pick up the remote and move it while I am thinking about what I'm going to say.  This seems to wake it up part way and then when I lift it it seems to respond faster.

[ajith]

Cool, that would have been my next suggestion, based on your explanation of the relationship between the two OSs.

Yes, this folder portability is very important to me, and the reason I ignore silly people who complain about the fact that I don't use a standard windows installer.  Whenever I want to test something new, I just clone my whole folder, then I can mess about without any fear of doing damage to my set up.

I'm 100% with you on this!

I have about 30 VC folders scattered about on various systems in my house, keeping track of them is the tricky part.

Tell me about it ... I already have several on the one VM. I can only imaging what it'll be like for you ... 

[ajith]

I think he's talking about the time before it goes to sleep.  

Hmm ... in that case, I'd still like the timeout to be user-controllable. I'd probably increase it to a point where it is more than the average time interval between two voice commands so as to not let it time out, thus preventing the RF wake-up delay. Yes, battery life might be hit adversely if this is done, but I can live with that if it lasts one TV-viewing "session" which is at most one full-length movie or TV-show.

One thing I do is I pick up the remote and move it while I am thinking about what I'm going to say.

Yes, one quickly learns that trick with the Amulet Remote 

[jitterjames]

it should just be on all the time,  and solar powered

[ajith]

it should just be on all the time,  and solar powered

One can only dream ... 

[Kalle]

it should just be on all the time,  and solar powered

Yes and a audio stream back to the remote with an audio output for use a headphone jack  

Kalle

[jitterjames]

And screw voice control. It should just read our thoughts.

[Kalle]

And screw voice control. It should just read our thoughts.

and the most important function - a "special mute button" 

http://www.w3alpha.com/cms/uploads/editorial/289/pic_s/340502d9d1458faeedf4f3516e268939.jpg



 

[jitterjames]

oh boy. 

now you are going to get us ALL in trouble.

[ajith]

  While we're at it, let me add a few of my own.

I shouldn't be restricted to controlling just TV/XBMC. I need to be able to control EVERYTHING by thought.
And I want full HD, better yet, 4K video projected right into my brain.

[jitterjames]

I don't think my brain is even capable of processing 720p

[vulcanjedi]

I finally got my first Amulet. I use VC in a Windows10 virtual box VM. I set the USB filter for the dongle. The IR part of the Amulet seems to already work w/ my existing MC remote. the RF dongle lights up blue when i tilt the Amulet. I loaded the AmuletWin10 exe from the VC extras. Is there a guide/walkthrough for the amulet / VC. The wiki points to the forum but did I miss it?
Is the Amulet software referenced herehttp://www.amuletdevices.com/pdf/Amulet_UserGuide.pdf still required?

[PegLegTV]

When I setup my 2 amulets both on windows 8.1 I did as you did and then added in the amulet events to have it turn vc on and also have it turn the volume down in KODI

Here is a the forum where they talk about the amulet events from the amuletusb.exe Im not sure but I would think that the AmuletWin10.exe would have the same feature - http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=803.msg6442#msg6442

when you tip the remote up do you have events trigger in VC, if so use those for your vc on and volume down actions,

I never used the Amulet software, it shouldn't be needed to work with VC

hope this helps

[jitterjames]

No other software is required. You don't even need to run the amuletUSB.exe unless you want to use the tilt events.

When amuletUSB.exe is running events should appear in your history window automatically.

The windows 10 version is the same, it just tries to work around an issue created in win 10 when resuming from sleep.

I don't know what effect using a virtual box might have. Hopefully none. If the RF dongle is working then your Amulet should appear as a normal Windows microphone and you can use it with any program as a mic.

[vulcanjedi]

Thanks friends.
I finally got the link to work but audio is still not truly passing through. I see the events triggering in the history, but I still think perhaps some driver issue? Before I got the USB redirect the Dongle showed up under the top in Device Viewer under Audio Inputs/Outputs...currently on the guest I only see it in Sound, video and game controllers?

UPDATE: after playing around i got this , still no audio, is it supposed to be like voxwav? What setting have you set for 'REMOTE' in the USB filter Any/Yes/No?
Attached screengrabs

[jitterjames]

UPDATE: after playing around i got this , still no audio, is it supposed to be like voxwav? What setting have you set for 'REMOTE' in the USB filter Any/Yes/No?
Attached screengrabs

Like VoxWav?  Not even remotely.  It should be like any other USB microphone in Windows.

Are you able to use the mic with sound recorder?  Try closing the AmuletUSB.exe program until you get the microphone working.

I don't really understand what you are showing in the screenshots but maybe that is because I am not familiar with VirtualBox.  I don't know anything about setting USB filters etc.  Maybe someone else does.

[vulcanjedi]

No the sound recorder doesn't work either. The link goes up/down and events are triggered. Haven't managed to get any successful aspect of voice capture from amulet ...yet.
USB filters is the mechanism VirtualBox uses to manage which USB ports/devices are pass thru from the Host to the Guest...so you can manage which USB devices you want to keep maintained on the Host system vs which device you may wish to pass thru to render on the Guest.
Will try not running AmuletUSB until sound input works first.

[nime5ter]

@vulcanjedi -- you could try PMing ajith, who started this thread. He hasn't been around in a while, but he's super nice, super savvy, and has a fair bit of experience with this.

I'm not sure if he gets alerted to private messages at this point, but it doesn't hurt to try.

Also, have you tried testing the Amulet mic functions on a normal Windows machine to make sure there's nothing wrong with the remote?

[vulcanjedi]

Will do nime5ter...eager to get my new amulet working
I dug up an old big laptop as I have limited windows capable machines at the moment but will give a go on that one. It too is win10 since I wanted to make sure I upgraded while I could.
Ill try reaching out to ajith as well.

@vulcanjedi -- you could try PMing ajith, who started this thread. He hasn't been around in a while, but he's super nice, super savvy, and has a fair bit of experience with this.

I'm not sure if he gets alerted to private messages at this point, but it doesn't hurt to try.

Also, have you tried testing the Amulet mic functions on a normal Windows machine to make sure there's nothing wrong with the remote?

[ajith]

@vulcanjedi - James and Nime5ter already have suggested most of the things I can think of. Did you try the Amulet remote with your Win 10 laptop? Did it work as a microphone (could you record audio using Sound Recorder?)?

Here's something I would try at this point:

What is the version of Oracle Virtualbox you're using? If it isn't the latest, can you try upgrading it to the latest (5.0.6 right now)? To upgrade, it only takes a download and an install, as you'd do if it were the first time. The guest VM definition and virtual OS disk is preserved across the upgrade. After this install,
1. make sure you also install Virtualbox's companion "extension pack" for the corresponding version of Virtualbox and
2. Install and upgrade the "guest additions" within the guest VM using the CD ISO image that Virtualbox provides.
3. Reboot the VM and try the Amulet as a microphone.

Also, I hope you are not creating the USB filters by hand. The filters should appear under USB configuration in Virtualbox automatically, once the Amulet USB dongle is plugged in. At this point, you should have to just enable the checkbox against the filter. If you upgrade as described above, try to remove all USB filters, reboot VM and re-create the filters by plugging in the Amulet dongle.

-Ajith

@Nime5ter - those are some very kind words you mentioned about me

[nime5ter]

 

Hello Ajith.

@Nime5ter - those are some very kind words you mentioned about me

Ah, but you have just proven that I merely speak the truth.

Thanks for chiming in, much appreciated.

[vulcanjedi]

Thanks ajith.
I did manage to did up my old behemoth laptop that has win10 on it.
It does in fact work....but that laptops outdated and its massive size leaves me to sort out problematically thinking of where to put it.

I have tried most of your ideas, I was using the 'check for updates' feature w/in Vbox itself but it was saying I was up to date. I was on 5.0 but on the site 5.06 is available. I know initially post 5.0 had win 10 issues.  I manually updated to 5.06.  loaded the updated extension packs and the guest additions. Cleared out the usb filter and loaded the normal console to vet the guest additions and manually click the Amulet devices.
Unfortunately nothing has changed. I shutdown guests. rebooted host. Confirmed amulet works on the host too. Still cant get the actual audio in the guest to work.
Affirm wasn't creating bare usb filter, just selecting from the available recognized usb devices.

@vulcanjedi - James and Nime5ter already have suggested most of the things I can think of. Did you try the Amulet remote with your Win 10 laptop? Did it work as a microphone (could you record audio using Sound Recorder?)?

Here's something I would try at this point:

What is the version of Oracle Virtualbox you're using? If it isn't the latest, can you try upgrading it to the latest (5.0.6 right now)? To upgrade, it only takes a download and an install, as you'd do if it were the first time. The guest VM definition and virtual OS disk is preserved across the upgrade. After this install,
1. make sure you also install Virtualbox's companion "extension pack" for the corresponding version of Virtualbox and
2. Install and upgrade the "guest additions" within the guest VM using the CD ISO image that Virtualbox provides.
3. Reboot the VM and try the Amulet as a microphone.

Also, I hope you are not creating the USB filters by hand. The filters should appear under USB configuration in Virtualbox automatically, once the Amulet USB dongle is plugged in. At this point, you should have to just enable the checkbox against the filter. If you upgrade as described above, try to remove all USB filters, reboot VM and re-create the filters by plugging in the Amulet dongle.

-Ajith

@Nime5ter - those are some very kind words you mentioned about me

[ajith]

...Confirmed amulet works on the host too. Still cant get the actual audio in the guest to work.

If the Amulet dongle is properly recognized in the guest OS, then it shouldn't work in the host at the same time. Is this the case?  Or does it continue to work in the host OS as a microphone at all times?

What is the host OS you're using?

[vulcanjedi]

If the Amulet dongle is properly recognized in the guest OS, then it shouldn't work in the host at the same time. Is this the case?  Or does it continue to work in the host OS as a microphone at all times?

What is the host OS you're using?

Hi ajith, Thanks, Sorry didn't mean to insinuate those were concurrently happening. No thats not the case, you can only see in either the guest or the host, correct.

[ajith]

Hmm .... can't think of anything else that can be tried at the moment (its 1:00 am here in India, and I'm half asleep
Will try to figure out something tomorrow. Meanwhile what's the host OS you're using? Maybe the answer is somewhere in this thread, but in my present state, I couldn't find it!

-Ajith

[vulcanjedi]

Hmm .... can't think of anything else that can be tried at the moment (its 1:00 am here in India, and I'm half asleep
Will try to figure out something tomorrow. Meanwhile what's the host OS you're using? Maybe the answer is somewhere in this thread, but in my present state, I couldn't find it!

-Ajith

Lol, many thanks ajith. My host is too on win10

[nime5ter]

@vulcanjedi - I thought you were running Virtualbox on a Macintosh? You're not running OS X on that machine?

[vulcanjedi]

@nime5ter wow you know me so well!!
I used to run VB on my OSX mac and natively used the mic here. But it used to really hammer my system from time to time. I have an older Mac Air and it would make my MBA really heat up from time/time. With the IR USB function of the amulet and the more resources available to my big machine, I want to use VB on the windows 10 host in the room next door.
Regardless the usb pass through should work to the guest (win10).
i've USB redirected usb drives / bt adapters successfully in the past. 
I suppose I could dual boot or otherwise use windows on my Mac natively as the HW supports it being Intel now....but I'd prefer not to dual boot or blow out my OSX partition.

[ajith]

So its a Win10 guest VM inside a Win10 host! Like Nime5ter, I too was under the impression you were running something else (Linux) as the host OS. I'm sure you'll have your reasons for the redundancy
Sadly, my experience is with VB on Linux hosts. I don't have a Win 10 machine to try it either.

I had a bit of struggle initially to make the Amulet mic work on Linux.  (See beginning of this thread) Part of the problem was some permission related issues. I had to add my Linux host user to a "vboxusers" group. Now I'm wondering if the current problem is similar. Try running VirtualBox as Administrator, see if you can "allow" VB through UAC, etc. Also, try playing around with the VirtualBox Audio Controller. Try the solution in this link: stackoverflow.com/questions/28134018/microphone-in-windows-10-in-virtualbox

Check the Windows Event viewer logs on the guest OS as well as the host for any clues.

-Ajith

[vulcanjedi]

Yes ajith, I have varied reasons for using VB on a win host and whatever guests. I have linux guests and other this voxcommando win10 guest. I dont really think the host os should particularly matter?

I may migrate my VM to a different host. Previously I was using my Air and as an open mic system but again, the hw of my MBA is having a harder time keeping up over time.  Currently my most flexible host that i want to mess around w/ w/o impacting other things is this win10 host. 
The ability to backup/snapshot/migrate a VM to other host systems being another reason.
Snapshotting before installs and changes to test/troubleshoot such as this.

I will try to go over some of your suggestions but may be a bit I think another busy week ahead.  Thanks for insight. It would be nice to get on that win10 host with lots of RAM/CPU and the RF range of the Amulet.
However that link I believe was based on the win10 tech preview, and my amulet works in win10 Natively.
I did try do change to the other audio controllers but those didn't seem to recognize the remote properly at all let alone the audio but I can try again.

So its a Win10 guest VM inside a Win10 host! Like Nime5ter, I too was under the impression you were running something else (Linux) as the host OS. I'm sure you'll have your reasons for the redundancy
Sadly, my experience is with VB on Linux hosts. I don't have a Win 10 machine to try it either.

I had a bit of struggle initially to make the Amulet mic work on Linux.  (See beginning of this thread) Part of the problem was some permission related issues. I had to add my Linux host user to a "vboxusers" group. Now I'm wondering if the current problem is similar. Try running VirtualBox as Administrator, see if you can "allow" VB through UAC, etc. Also, try playing around with the VirtualBox Audio Controller. Try the solution in this link: stackoverflow.com/questions/28134018/microphone-in-windows-10-in-virtualbox

Check the Windows Event viewer logs on the guest OS as well as the host for any clues.

-Ajith