Home Speech recognition for Home Automation

Hi,

I'm looking at possibilities of constructing a relatively cheap home speech recognition system to turn appliances on and off. As i see it I have several options:

- Use a computer: Pros: Good Software is easy to get, Probably the fastest way to get a system. Devices could be run from the serial/ parallel port. Cons: Expensive solution for such a "simple task". Computer must be dedicated and run all the time = high power consumption = expensive.

- Build a system from speech recognition IC's or Microcontrollers: Pros: Components are relatively cheap, Low power consumption, Good recognition rate Cons: Components are often SMD's (haven't found any that are not) which means specialized equipment is to be used. Demo/development boards costs too much to justify its use. Maybe long development time.

- Buy Specialized solution: Pros: Plug'n'play Cons: Extremely expensive, removes the fun of DIY :)

What I really need is a robust recognition system that works with microphones not placed directly in front of the speaker.. like in the corner of the living room.

Does anyone here know of such a system, or tried to develop one? It only needs to recognize 5-10 words. It's really a "toy" project.

Thanks, Soren

Reply to
Soren
Loading thread data ...

On a sunny day (Sun, 09 Sep 2007 12:13:46 -0000) it happened Soren wrote in :

If you wait until end of month Asus will come out with a Linux based

198$ laptop, the Eee PC, run perlbox voice on it. Perlbox-voice is user independent, needs no training, and that PC platform cannot be beaten for cost. As to far away mikes, it may or may not work depending on environment noise. Beware of false triggers too.
Reply to
Jan Panteltje

Nice, Thanks for the tip! I'm not sure about Eee PC, the price in Denmark will be close to what I could build a server for myself (also using old parts i have lying around). I didn't know about perlbox, and thats very interesting, since I could then run Linux, and save alot on required hardware specifications.

As for the microphones... yes it may prove difficult to get good recognition if im far away.. multiple microphones could maybe solve it.. but then I have to come up with a way to use multiple microphones on one input, and isolate speech from noise and echo.

Reply to
Soren

If you have a good magnifier to see what you are doing (or a pair of "strong" reading glasses), skinny solder and a soldering iron with a fine point, SMDs are no big deal to hand solder. Really.

That's good. I find the idea of the overly automated house rather difficult to grasp the appeal of - whether the "my house is online" version (Hackers broke into my house systems and...) or the voice control version (I was on the phone, and the house went berserk listening to the conversation). Having a computer or microprocessor collate and coordinate house systems seems fine, the methods of control should be quite well defined so that the odds of unpleasant conditions are reduced to a practical minimum.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Reply to
Ecnerwal

Thanks for the tips everyone!

I found an IC that looks like the thing I need... its a HM2007(P) .. now I have trouble finding a place to actually buy it.. the problem is.. i only need 1. not import 100..

Does anyone here know where to buy a HM2007 ? I found the datasheet here:

formatting link

Thanks, Soren

Reply to
Soren

From your description(s) some things came to mind. Have you ever used keyfinder which responds to whistle or handclap. They usually include the recognition of noise (microphone?) and respond by activating included noise producing circuit. Extremely convenient to start a "toy" project. Beware - in some of them batteries not included!

Have fun

Stanislaw Slack user from Ulladulla.

Reply to
Stanislaw Flatto

Thanks! Actually the idea came after i fell over a hand clapping circuit, used to turn appliances on/off. However, i wanted something a bit more advanced.. with less chance of false activation. The hand clapper switch is just set off by a loud noise... (i'll build one anyway though:)) so is the keychain wistler (had one of those once). Also, by connecting a record/playback IC, i could make the HM2007 "answer back". Which i think is pretty neat.

While surfing the net for my HM2007, I found someone who did a Talking Toaster.. funny application.

formatting link

I got the HM2007, 10$ .. only problem is i live in denmark.. grr.. everything costs a fortune in transport to have it sent. But it's not nice either to charge 24$ to send two IC's to Denmark! But the HM2007 is out of production,... and these guys where the only ones that sold single quantities.

Soren

Reply to
Soren

Soren hath wroth:

About 5 years ago, I was volunteered to look at several local home automation system that included voice control. I have to look at my office records to find the vendors. They were similar to what you are looking for. You can walk into any room, say the secret prefix, and the various microphones would attempt to pickup your voice and initiate a command.

At least that was the theory. The reality was quite different. It didn't work at all if there was any unusual background noise. Run the vacuum cleaner, TV, stereo, or even have a running conversation going in the same room, would cause a failure to communicate. The system solved this problem by muting the sources of audio that it controlled when it thought it heard a command. That meant that the TV and hi-fi audio were always going on and off as commercials tended to set off the speech recognition system. If there were several groups of people talking at the same time, the system would not recognize anyone's voice. Interestingly, when the washing machine was running, voice control within 2 rooms of the machinery would not work.

My fast fix was to install telephone handsets in every room (on the existing control panels) and hot wire the voice control system into the telephone switch. The user had to punch in the proper prefix (extension number) before the system would recognize their commands. It was fascinating to watch a 3 year old command the system perfectly, while all the grownups had nothing but problems.

Lots of commercial products around that will do voice control. You might want to buy or adapt one:

I've also played with voice control far back as the 1970's, where we used mechanically resonant fiber optic bundles (Sceptron or Spectral Comparative Pattern Recognizer) to recognize syllables for what eventually became an IVR (interactive voice response) system for a hospital pharmacy. Much later, I was doing battle with a system for use on a production test line to allow the tech to control the test equipment and still have use of both hands. That monster was eventually replaced by a totally functional foot switch and a few push buttons.

I've never designed or even re-designed a speech recognition system. My involvement was to get involved after various companies or individuals had lost the battle with the system and were looking for someone to do damage control. That makes me a non-expert with a bad attitude with lots of field experience disarming or reconfiguring voice control systems.

Not all such systems are useless or badly designed. I use Microsoft's Voice Command:

quite effectively on my PDA phone (Verizon XV6700). MS also has various speech recognition products, some of which I've tried with widely varying degrees of success:

One thing I learned quickly was that the system has to have a positive method of being enabled and disabled or there is going to be a serious falsing problem. That should be an "out of band" push button, motion detector, or key fob. It cannot be anything "in band" such as a code word or hand clap. That's what originally was causing all the problems with the home automation systems I "fixed". Also, there's security, which I never really addressed. You don't want the 3 year olds friends trying to take over the house (which has happened).

I don't think that starting at chip level is the correct approach. There are plenty of relatively cheap IR remote control systems that offer voice control as a starting point. Most have about a 50 word trainable vocabulary. Use one of those to build your system. There's nothing preventing you from using the output to trigger a relay, switch, or device. The real problems are not in the hardware implementation or even in the recognition algorithms. They're in how the user interacts with the device and how you deal with error conditions and modes (i.e. software). You'll hit those soon enough.

Good luck.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Soren wrote in news:1189340026.541445.169880 @r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

0.05" SMD I can do on perfboard.
formatting link
72157601929352158/]

Any finer I'd go for some sort of pre-built board, perhaps doing some I/O on a .05 protoboard, or full sized DIP.

If I were going to try, I'd find a ready to go SBC and get my hands dirty with software.

Reply to
Gary Tait

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.