Messages

1

What is a good microphone for speech recognition? / Smart Microphone

« on: November 25, 2016, 09:31:56 AM »

Hi. A few years ago I used VC and eventhost to build a smart living room. Both amazing bits of sotware but in the end the hardware let it down. X10 is awful. IR blasting from eventghost is not great (IR is never fun for home automation) and the microphone was'nt upto the job when you have a movie or music blasting, or people chatting. Great in demo but in the end easier to use a remote and light switches.

Forwards a few years and we have z-wave, smartthings hub and the highly thought of Amazon echo (or dot) which seems uncanny at picking up commands. So I ordered a bunch of stuff, a few amazon dots, a smartthings hub, a z-wave USB stick, and z-wave lighting modules. However while these bits link together brilliantly, they are a bit limited in a way that VC and EG just isn't. I could easily swap this system to VC/EG which I'd love too but what worries me is the mic.

I did a forum search, seems not possible to use the Amazon echo mic, I read someone saying they could get just as good results, so I looked at the VC wiki, doesnt seem the mic section has been updated for 3 years. No one seems to have a gold standard for array mics, kinects never seem to work as well asa people hoped.

I googled and found and article on beamforming "smart mics" (http://www.xmos.com/blog/xmos/post/introducing-xcore-voice-smart-microphone-applications). Can anyone suggest a type of mic of this level, not costing hundreds of £££'s? It's amazing really I just paid £40 for an amazoin dot that has a 7 way direction mic which is almost perfect yet years later options for a simple mic still seem very limited....?

2

Kodi (XBMC) Frodo / Gotham / Isengard / Jarvis / No VC audio during movie playback

« on: April 24, 2015, 09:50:13 AM »

Simple problem with I guess a simple answer. When XBMC is playing a movie in DTS, there is no audio feedback from voxcommando. I guess the audio track of the movie takes over totally and until you stop the movie you can hear no beeps, or TTS voice speak...?

3

VoxCommando Basics and Core Features / Re: Idle Standby

« on: September 08, 2013, 06:54:26 PM »

yah triggered by an event. Glad got a little bug sorted!

4

VoxCommando Basics and Core Features / Re: Idle Standby

« on: September 08, 2013, 02:17:04 PM »

Thanks, I stupidly missed the time out - fantastic works far better already!

One more question. I'm using VC.OnSingle Bit confused. If I run the event, it puts the computer into listen mode. Next command Single is activated, next command the computer will be put into standby.

It seems to be working more like VC.OnDouble right now - eg 2 inputs requrired to go back into stadnby not one!

This is the macro....

<macro>
<action actiontype="VC.OnSingle" repeat="1" logic="False"><paramstring></paramstring></action>
<action actiontype="Sound.PartialUnMute" repeat="1" logic="False"><paramstring></paramstring></action>
<action actiontype="TTS.Speak" repeat="1" logic="False"><paramstring>instructions?</paramstring></action>
<action actiontype="XJson.Raw" repeat="1" logic="False"><paramstring>player.setspeed&amp;&amp;"playerid":1,"speed":-1</paramstring></action>
<action actiontype="XJson.Raw" repeat="1" logic="False"><paramstring>player.setspeed&amp;&amp;"playerid":1,"speed":0</paramstring></action>
<action actiontype="Sound.PartialMute" repeat="1" logic="False"><paramstring>10</paramstring></action>
</macro>

5

VoxCommando Basics and Core Features / Idle Standby

« on: September 08, 2013, 01:42:54 PM »

My VC setup is working fairly well ini practice however I find in real life situations it tends to fall down - clearly due totally on my part to bad programming.

the two problems I need to resolve well:

1) Events are randomly triggered from audio in the room. In which case I've realized VC MUST be on standby most of the time.

2) Cannot control VC with any ambient noise, or of course trigger a VC.On or VC.standby command if any music is playing etc.

Does VC have a feature, or could it be put in that if VC hasn't recevied a confirmed command and carried out an action it will timeout into standby after a certain time?

I don't want to use VC.Single as that doesn't work when you want to string a few commands together (eg "subtitles", "next subtitles", or "go right, "go right", "select". I used a 7s timer to trigger another event of "VC.Standby" which works to a point but became a little unpredictable.

Also with VC.Single, if I add a mute/partialmute event as I need too, but then don't issue a command it will never stop listening or resume the volume. I'd like it to flick back on if no one gives a command.

6

I will post new features here (LEGACY BOARD ONLY) / Re: USBUIRT vs MCE IR transceivers

« on: September 04, 2013, 08:33:43 AM »

this the bit you want?

[imghttp://
screenshot tool][/img]

7

I will post new features here (LEGACY BOARD ONLY) / Re: USBUIRT vs MCE IR transceivers

« on: September 04, 2013, 07:28:12 AM »

xtermin8r: Yes that looks exactly the same.  Heres mine:
images

The chip in this is labelled 433.92mhz. I don't suppose you know the correct IR codes that the powermid might put out as the correct RF? See if it works before I pick up one of your boxes!

8

I will post new features here (LEGACY BOARD ONLY) / Re: USBUIRT vs MCE IR transceivers

« on: September 03, 2013, 01:08:55 PM »

I'll PM you re/ this - but my remote says its 433mhz....

Hi mrmagica

I had a similar issue with my Rf projector screen remote, I opened up the Rf remote and noticed that the operating frequency was 315mhz, so I decided to replace the Rf receiver in the Projector screen controller to 433mhz, so that my Halx controller could  control it. I then captured the RF signal from the Projector remote control and was able to control the projector screen using other methods such as vc, web page Ios apps etc.
If you require any help or more info on how to do this contact me.

9

I will post new features here (LEGACY BOARD ONLY) / Re: USBUIRT vs MCE IR transceivers

« on: September 03, 2013, 08:48:58 AM »

Annoyingly doesn't seem to work for my RF projector screen remote, can't figure out why both on 433mhz. I tried messaging the creator of the HALi to find out if they would be available but never got a response.... is there a similar RF / IR capture and repeater device - or is that a unique product. Would quite like to get hold of something that would do this.

10

I will post new features here (LEGACY BOARD ONLY) / Re: USBUIRT vs MCE IR transceivers

« on: September 02, 2013, 07:19:49 PM »

Yes I thought about hacking apart a keyboard or something to make a USB button...

As for IR to RF via powermid I have a little experience... was actually messing around with it today getting no where. The idea is the power mid accepts  the IR ====> sends it via RF to the other half of the powermid, where it converts it back to IR.

The hope is, you forget the first IR ===> RF half. You aim your RF remote control, in my case a 433mhz x10 remote at the second powermid RF receiver. This will then convert the signal to an IR output as if it's being recieved from the first pwoermid. You capture this IR output in event ghost, or pronto or whatever. Reinstate the original half of the powermid. You can then learn this IR hex code into your programmable remote, or into EG / VC and operate your RF device via an IR signal. I have it working great with my X10 lighting which was becoming a pain. It now works flawlessly (for x10) from VC events for everything from lighting to power sockets.

However this is not a guaranteed success, you need need the power mid and the remote to work on the same frequency, in my case 433mhz - X10 also works on this frequency which helps. Often it seems difficult or impossible to capture the hex IR signal from the powermid when firing the RF remote at it. I have been trying to get an IR code from my RF projector screen trigger and no dice. This is why I will be breaking the RF remote case open, and triggering the switch inside with an IR relay, which i can trigger off my MCE remote transceiver output to triiger. Phew sounds complicated.

Would that HALi device help get round the need for any of this?

11

What is a good microphone for speech recognition? / Re: Good sub £50 mic?

« on: September 02, 2013, 07:06:00 PM »

Well I have my eye on a midrange USB studio mic, I'll do a comparison to my $10, 12 year old chinese headset I use at distance of upto 6 feet or so, which when in a quiet environment seems to hit 9 / 10 commands! Pretty impressive. I have high hopes for one of my knock off Smart USB panic buttons for the ambient noises!

12

What is a good microphone for speech recognition? / Good sub £50 mic?

« on: September 02, 2013, 03:59:00 PM »

Hi, using VC with a chinese USB headset that cost about $10. Even that works pretty great from 6 feet away or so.

However in search of even better accuracy at a distance, considering a better dedicated usb mic. Alot of discussion on array mics, read the wiki but not many recommendations of fairly cheap mics. I researched a bit and found two common types - Dynamic and Condenser..... anyone know which is more suitable for us?

Thing is quite hard to know what makes a good voice recognition at a distance! You can ready reviews on studio mics all day long but most of the features the money goes on we really don't care about!

I see in "Mr Wolf's" video he has a nice looking mic, likes like a samson or something....be quite interested to hear peoples views on $10 budget mics compared to more expensive "proper" studio mics....

13

I will post new features here (LEGACY BOARD ONLY) / USBUIRT vs MCE IR tranceivers

« on: September 02, 2013, 03:38:24 PM »

haha, I guess Wolf Man is a little less formal huh.... yeah figured it out now doing all the learning in EG. Hopefully the HALi will be around soon as I'm trying to do alot of IR - RF stuff now. Ordered a few relays for now so I can active a RF remote, dismantling the remote and taking out the PCB.... using an infra red relay - it's for a projector screen.

If anyones interested in that I'll do a little post.

14

I will post new features here (LEGACY BOARD ONLY) / USBUIRT vs MCE IR transceivers

« on: September 01, 2013, 08:42:15 AM »

Just a heads up re/ 1.140 and 1.150. I thought I'd try the  USBUIRT function and Map function. Activated the plugin and on restart VC crashed everytime. I tried both versions and I tried it on 2 different Windows 7 machines, one 32 the other 64bit.


I thought I could use the MCE remote IR transceiver as a UIRT as wolfman has done. Doubt that would cause the crash though right? Is it possible to just copy and paste the hex codes into the map table from my pronto software?

15

Feature Requests / Re: Siri like functionality i.e. ask your computer any question

« on: August 31, 2013, 09:09:43 PM »

Slightly off topic. I liked the ask.com idea for a bit of fun, however obviously it doesn't work now. I thought I'd type some questions in to see how well it would have responded... answer is crap totally useless. "how old is the queen" brought up a load of stuff about who she was. How to boil an egg, a few adverts nothing much else... however I did find a new site...

http://www.kgbanswers.com/

I have no idea about scrapers and API's etc, maybe James can answer. But it seems really good. Here are some slightly open questions with great answers. Just the first three I typed in.

Q: How old is the Queen?
A: Queen Elizabeth II was born as Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor on April 21, 1926 in Mayfair, London. She became Queen at the age of 25, and is currently 86.

Q: how long does it take to cook a boiled egg
A: To get a perfect hard boiled egg, boil them for about 10-15 mins. 6 eggs boil at the same rate as 1.

Q: who is the actor from die hard
A:  Bruce Willis is the main actor of Die Hard. The movie is based on a 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever!


Pretty great answers, all correct what I was looking for. It does return a number of links, don't know if that makes it harder. All these answer were link 1.