Android VoxWav

[user13]

First of Vox Commando rules  , it really made my home automation complete, thank you for that.
i was wondering if it would be possible to integrate the android app VoxWav with the app Tasker?
so then i can create different ways to activate the mic and be able to issue commands without having to open the app or hold/tilt the phone to send my commands to the PC.

Maybe something like Google now, where a mic popup and you can issue commands from anywhere

unless all of this is already integrated and i missed something, please let me know

thank you

[Kalle]

Hi user13 and welcome in VC forum.

VoxWav can run in the background with screen off or a other app in forground and the mic will be enable by the tilt switch from your android device.

[user13]

Thank you very much for the quick reply.
one question, doesn't this option consume a lot of battery power? when i's running in the BG?

thanks

[Kalle]

No, the battery consumption is not really high, on a Galaxy S2 smartphone 2% per hour. I've tested it also on a smartwatch (Pearl AW414go) which have the same battery consumption with VoxWav.

[jitterjames]

If you normally leave WiFi on then using this feature probably won't make a huge difference to battery consumption.  Of course it depends on a few factors.  If you are frequently tilting the phone enough to start recording, without realising it, then it will cause battery drain.

I am looking into extending VoxWav with shortcuts and possibly some tasker integration but I don't know much about it so I have to figure it out.  VoxWav is the only android app I have authored to date.

[user13]

thank you for the feedback, i'll give it a try and report back if i see big battery lose.
another quick question now that you mentioned the watch, is it possible to use a Bluetooth headset instead? and when you click the button on the headset it activates the mic?

[Kalle]

No, I've tested this on the smartwatch and found no way to use a bluetooth headset with VoxWav as input.

[jitterjames]

Not sure sure if you are talking about Bluetooth with android or Bluetooth directly with your PC but Bluetooth is generally not recommended because of poor quality.

See: http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Microphones

As for the headset button pressing, you can't do this with VoxWav but depending on your hardware it may be possible with EventGhost and a headset attached to you PC.

[user13]

i should have made it more clear, i was talking about Bluetooth to android not PC.
you dont think with the 3.0 and 4.0 Bluetooth you should be able to issue commands comfortably from the headset?
i agree the old Bluetooth was terrible for voice commands but the new headsets have very decent mic and quality.

i do use Eventghsot a lot actually so i'll try to test the headset with the PC directly.

thanks for the all the feedback

[jitterjames]

Well, as Kalle said, I don't think you can use a bluetooth headset with VoxWav at all (it won't recognize it as an input device).  This is because Android does not treat bluetooth devices the same as a regular microphone and requires each app to write their own code to handle bluetooth.  Since the quality is not good enough anyway there is no point in taking the time to try to figure out how to add this code.

If you think a newer bluetooth headset would work with a PC then please try it and let us know.  If it does work well please tell us the exact model of headset that you tested.  As far as I know the bluetooth standard does not allow for enough bandwidth to work well with the Windows speech recognition engine that we are using.

There is another Microsoft engine (Windows Speech Server) that we may add support for in the future (VoxCommando version 2).  This is also a Windows engine that supports more languages and may work better with bluetooth headsets.  However this engine does not allow training or the use of payload dictation.

For more info on the "other" engine see this link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh362873.aspx

[Sinbe]

This might be interesting as well: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2554173

Right now I can use Google Now + Auto Voice + AutoRemote + Tasker to launch stuff on my PC via the Google Now search. However I'm missing some options I have in VoxCommando (Mainly the mpwifi plugin that controls MediaPortal) and for those I have to launch VoxWav. If it would be possible to use either Tasker or the Google Now Api to talk to VoxWav which would give orders to VoxCommando, I wouldn't have to use anything else than Google Now to control everything in my home. That and a phone like Moto X with integrated speech recognition processor would mean less battery drainage and always on speech recognition with unlimited options.

[jitterjames]

Right now I can use Google Now + Auto Voice + AutoRemote + Tasker to launch stuff on my PC via the Google Now search.

What kind of battery drain to you get with all this running?  How do you achieve the the "always on".  I would expect any kind of always on speech recognition on your phone to kill the battery pretty fast.

[Sinbe]

I haven't really tested the battery usage yet. I'm thinking I might have a wired Android device doing this stuff. There are two options I've found so far: AutoVoice has the ability to listen to Tasker commands all the time and OpenMic+ that works with Google Now and can actually change the "okay google" hotword as well. Autovoice can be configured to work with or without a hotword via Tasker.

The Motorola Moto X has a processor dedicated for speech recognition. That way the battery drain should be very low and the quality of the recognition very high. I don't think the phone has been released on the European market yet and I'm pretty sure it's the only phone with this option right now.

[nime5ter]

OpenMic+ that works with Google Now and can actually change the "okay google" hotword as well.

For an 'always on' solution it's definitely good if you can change the hotword (or prefix, in VC-speak). "OK Google" currently seems to activate a Google Now search if you say just "OK", not even the whole phrase "OK Google". With the mic always listening, I would expect it to accidentally activate a lot -- any time it hears someone in the vicinity say "OK" in passing conversation.

[Kalle]

here is a new video in which you can see how VoxWav work on a Smartwatch 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMPstHDvnM8