Voice Controling Sage? The future today?

[silkshadow]

Humm, you mean like an intercom?

[Bohica]

Yeah -- exactly.... but one that could be used to broadcast messages from HAL mentioned in that review...

[michele061959]

I've been using HomeSeer as home automation software, driving all my X10 modules through Homeseer (http://www.homeseer.com) script and events.
HomeSeer has a rich scripting environment being able to perform a lot of function besides X10 support (even sending commands to other application, including SageTV of course), events can be triggered by voice commands.
I never used so far the voice recognition feature but my home server having HomeSeer, SageTV and a VoIP softphone installed is able to drive a lot of cutting edge features for home confort and entertainment. VoIP using headsets or wireless IP phone is doing great, HomeSeer and SageTV are reliable applications and i'm very happy with them
Is anybody experiencing with this software?
Ciao from Italy

[silkshadow]

Yup, I used homeseer a while back. Think it was version 1.5. Didn't have alot of time back then to play around (was working in a high stress 24/7 job) but I remember I was able to get Homeseer to control my lights somewhat. However, its interface was limiting in terms of how it recognized commands and I couldn't get it to work with other programs well at all and eventually gave it up. Has it improved alot now? Sounds like you are already doing what I am trying to do with VoIP, x10 and HTPC functions. What do you use to interface with your computers? Mics? Can I also ask, are you on 220v there? Have you bought from x10-europe.com and are they reliable? Their website is rather spartan. Thanks!

@bohica, I'll keep an eye out for that while I am testing out all this stuff. If I find anything that has that functionality I'll post. That might also solve my need to bluetooth cover my whole home if I can pass messages through my current network.

I'm going to try Housebot this evening and see how that works with my bluetooth headsets.

[michele061959]

Homeseer is greatly improved right now. The script language is a Visual Basic implementation and it's perfect to do everything you want and need. It can be accessed also throught web interface as SageTv can, so you have a total control everywhere.
SageTV or Girder can be driven by SendMessage function ..... so here we go!
The voice control through an USB headset is very good but i'd like to try a Bluetooth headset too. Anyway i don't care very much to place commands by voice because it makes me feel a little silly.
I live in Italy and you're right, i use 220V X10 modules. The best X10 store in Europe is IntelliHome (http://www.intellihome.be).
Bye

[silkshadow]

Thanks michele! I will take a look at homeseer, that sounds good. I ran into some problems last night in installing a bluetooth dongle to my HTPC box. Basically, that pc is a nightmare since I was forced to move SageTV over to it when my server died (still a few more weeks till my parts come in ). And then a few friends came over with beers and food and they wanted to watch stuff so I had to give it up. Hopefully I can work undistured tonight .

[cipher]

I am in the process of building my HTPC and plan to use voice control for SageTV. I did do some proof of concept work with a girder plugin called GirderSpeech and it works pretty well. I looked for a wireless microphone solution but was unable to find one that worked with a PC and was reasonably priced. I prewired a microphone jack near the seating area of my home theater so I will be using a cheap push-to-talk mic in lieu of a remote.

[silkshadow]

Thanks for the info! I haven't gotten around to giving that girder plugin a try yet. Been messing with housebot right now. I'm having a problem getting housebot to consistently understand me while the TV is on. I've ordered a fancy bluetooth headset with a DSP for noise cancelation on the mic. I'm hoping that will fix the problem.

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

Thanks for the info! I haven't gotten around to giving that girder plugin a try yet. Been messing with housebot right now. I'm having a problem getting housebot to consistently understand me while the TV is on. I've ordered a fancy bluetooth headset with a DSP for noise cancelation on the mic. I'm hoping that will fix the problem.

Sorry to hear it's giving you trouble silkshadow, you seem to be experiencing that isolation problem that I spoke about. Why can't it just be as easy as on StarTrek?

-PGPfan

[amdcursed]

I think i found a software solution
will inform later

[silkshadow]

Thanks PGPfan, I'm hoping the bluetooth headset I mentioned earlier (that Jabra with the LCD) will fix this problem. It does kind of work, but its just not consistent. Sometimes I will have to repeat myself 3-4 times with increasing vocal volume when the TV is on to get commands to register and sometimes I have to turn the TV volume down to get commands understood at all. Right now I only have directional keys, select, play, pause, the skips and jumping to recorded TV configured for voice command in Sage. Though I also got 1 X10 module (still looking for a decent 220v X10 reseller in Asia to save shipping otherwise intellihome.be will be getting a large order from me) and limited Meedio music commands. I have to say, I'm hooked! Been roving around my home flipping the light and playing shows and music with my voice like a madman. As an aside, the Jabra is being purchased with the money I got back from my TrekUnited donation. So, at least, its still going to something Trek oriented .

Amdcursed, I look forward to hearing from you about this. Because, eventhough I am just getting started and haven't spent much time configuring things at all, I have to say that housebot seems quite limited. I have no idea how I could, for example, configure it to be able to respond to a command such as: "Computer music, play artist Will Smith song switch". Which should be very possible given Meedio's open database style library. I think that, as a test platform, housebot is fine but for real voice control its not robust enough. Once I iron out the hardware side I will definately be trying HAL and Homeseer. Also, I've discovered that saying: "computer skip forward" multiple times rapidly is quite irritating - not to mention feeling stupid . Anyone have any idea how I could do, for example: "computer skip forward two minutes" and have Sage understand that? Maybe some windows message command where the skip time could be a variable I could plug into girder?

I think, to get things working as I really want them to. A VB class is going to have to happen in my future (VB being the easiest language to learn, I believe). Seems most of the things I want to do is going to require some serious variable manipulation to get working. Even the directional controls need to be variabled so I can say "Computer down three" instead of "computer down, computer down, computer down" . Anyway, I still need to iron out my hardware problem first .