voxwav bluetooth ability

[JoshK]

Have been testing voxcommando with my full home automation over the past few months. The program itself is amazing and is the perfect solution to a totally voice automated home, however it still has one major shortfall.

after I got voxcommando controlling everything (lighting, climate zones, blinds, televisions, media centers, locks and garage doors) I discovered the one biggest shortfall is the lack of a hands free always on experience.

I've extensively tested every single microphone input method you can think of including voxwav, amulet remotes, skype calls, mobiola headset etc, bluetooth headsets, and bluetooth conference call units.

for a real handsfree experience, the best route is via bluetooth headset, or something similar (like a jabra clipper). The only way to currently do this via skype call, which is not ideal.

I've recently tried the tasker and autovoice setup combined with bluetooth headset and had it triggerd by pressing a button on the headset, which is possibly close to the solution, but not quite there. Unforunately since autovoice isn't searching for the predefined phrases that vc does, it's success rate is dramatically lower (particularly with an australian accent) than if VC was handling the speech recognition.

It strikes me that the best way to achieve this is for voxwav to support bluetooth headsets, allowing a button press on the headset to trigger it start recording and complete and send the recording after a user definable timespan.

I'm not a developer so I don't really understand how complex this request is or isn't - however it would be the ideal way to control VC!

[nime5ter]

Here is VoxCommando working with a bluetooth headset.

It's not clear to me why you need your bluetooth headsets to work with VoxWav. Can't you just pair the headset with your computer?

Here is the description of the 2 different speech engines that can be used with VC2. See especially the section on "choice of speech engines".
http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Version_2

I'm not sure whether you're saying that you've tried VoxCommandoSP.exe with the appropriate engine and a bluetooth headset and it is not working for you, or whether you don't want to use your bluetooth headset with your computer for some reason, or whether you're saying you've only tried with the standard desktop engine.

If you haven't yet tried the SP version of VC2, it sounds to me like that is what you're looking for.

[jitterjames]

I don't know of any way to record Bluetooth audio on Android, but it would make more sense to pair your Bluetooth device directly with your computer.

[Kalle]

I think the problem to use the headset direct with the pc is the range of bluetooth if you want use it in a bigger house. So my experience would prefer a DECT headset like the Jabra GN9330e or Sennheiser DW10 which works at best with VC and the range is 55 meter inside and up to 180 meter outside.

[Mirac78]

Today i just setup SE SBH52 http://www.sonymobile.com/global-en/products/accessories/smart-bluetooth-handset-sbh52/ to work with VC and results are really good. Must tweak required confidence and input level on the mic to get better result when watching movies or listening music but first impression is really good. SBH have a "clip on" method to wear so found it very useful..

Cool gadget is just grown UP to more cool gadget 

[jitterjames]

Looks like an interesting option.  Can you please tell us if you are using the regular or the SP version of VoxCommando?

[JoshK]

I'm using sp version.
I've successfully connected bluetooth headset to the PC and had great results, however bluetooth range limitations prevent this as a whole house option.

[Mirac78]

I'm on SP version..

[JoshK]

Today i just setup SE SBH52 http://www.sonymobile.com/global-en/products/accessories/smart-bluetooth-handset-sbh52/ to work with VC and results are really good. Must tweak required confidence and input level on the mic to get better result when watching movies or listening music but first impression is really good. SBH have a "clip on" method to wear so found it very useful..

Cool gadget is just grown UP to more cool gadget 

Looks cool!
But is still obviously limited via range, but if voxwav supported bt audio you could use stuff like these anywhere.

[Mirac78]

Looks cool!
But is still obviously limited via range, but if voxwav supported bt audio you could use stuff like these anywhere.

Not sure what you mean?

I have small cheap BT adapter in PC, SBH connected to PC, and VC listening default recording device, in my case headset. Tested in all rooms (3 of them in 40m2) ..and BT connection is great. Don't know the range of SBH52 and this dongle but really don't have any problems in my case.

Except you mean distance from SBH to myself? It's hooked on my shirt all day 

[Kalle]

I think he mean the BT range when you have some walls or floors between the dongle and your headset. In my case the BT signal goes weak after a couple of some meters and if you want to use a headset in a bigger house this solution is not ideal.

[JoshK]

I think he mean the BT range when you have some walls or floors between the dongle and your headset. In my case the BT signal goes weak after a couple of some meters and if you want to use a headset in a bigger house this solution is not ideal.

Yes, exactly. I live in an apartment where all walls are structural concrete, which with doors closed is pretty much impenetrable to bluetooth.

I'm also wanting to put vc into a large house that I did a whole house irule setup for, it's 3 stories so again would need the ability to work via voxwav.

[Kalle]

Yes for such senario is VoxWav the best at all. A other solution is a wireless stage mic which I describes here

http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=800.0

and you can use your VoxWav device as speaker, because the stage mic has no back channel.
It is a very small bodypack (a bit bigger than a matchbox) with a high range and absolutly clear voice and if you do not want to wear a mic close to your mouth, you can use a lavalier microphone.
The only thing - it is a bit more expensive as a bluetooth headset.

[JoshK]

Yes for such senario is VoxWav the best at all. A other solution is a wireless stage mic which I describes here

http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=800.0

and you can use your VoxWav device as speaker, because the stage mic has no back channel.
It is a very small bodypack (a bit bigger than a matchbox) with a high range and absolutly clear voice and if you do not want to wear a mic close to your mouth, you can use a lavalier microphone.
The only thing - it is a bit more expensive as a bluetooth headset.

Not a bad setup, might give this a go as a temporary solution, obviously a bluetooth compatible voxwav would be better, but for the moment your idea will suffice
My setup uses one single PC, with 3 x hdmi outputs, that are then run to each room for video and audio (via cat5), I then have commands for 'speak to bedroom' or 'speak to lounge room' that uses virtual audio cable to then switch tts output to the room specified. This means I don't need to worry about return audio.

[jitterjames]

I don't know of any way to record Bluetooth audio on Android, but it would make more sense to pair your Bluetooth device directly with your computer.

Just to reiterate, I do not intend to add Bluetooth recording as an option to VoxWav any time soon, mainly because I don't know how it can be done. This does not seem to be something that many people have been able to figure out.  I have looked around for a free app to record high-quality audio using Bluetooth (as a first step to establish that it is even possible), and I can't find any that work at all on either my phone or my tablet. 

Please bear in mind that using Bluetooth to perform Google speech recognition is not the same as recording Bluetooth audio.  Also, recording Bluetooth directly to a highly compressed file on your device is not the same thing either. We need to be able to stream uncompressed pcm data through a TCP socket.

If I come across a good resource that helps me figure out how this could be possible, I will see about integrating it into the app, but until then, what I'm saying is... don't hold your breath!  It may never happen.

I've seem some people talking about extending the range of Bluetooth dongles.  Maybe that is an option for some.