Braina Android App : Any way to have it ALWAYS be listening when launched ?

[matt3003]

Hi.

This is my first post, and I would first like to congratulate you on a great product.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure why, but the voice recognition seems to be problematic on the computer I intend to use it on.
(On my personal laptop it works great, but on my stepfather laptop - for which I bought the pro license and where it needs to run, there are problems)

- After a while, the voice recognition often stops working all together ( Even if the little chrome window is still open, with the microphone icon showing it's active, it doesn't seem to be listening anymore - no words are appearing in the window)
- There is, when it keeps working, a significant delay between the words spoken at loud and when they appear in the chrome window - I am talking about sometimes more than 10 seconds (so every command can take a long time, or fail, as you repeat yourself thinking you didn't speak loud enough).

I am trying to locate the problem (it's a new laptop with windows 10 - it's not an extremely powerful one, but still a quad core 1.6ghz with 4gb of ram - it should work).

I ordered a usb microphone to see if the sound card is responsible for the delays and the failures after a little inactivity and 8gb of ram to see if it fixes the "delays" problems, but I'm not optimistic, as the delays are appearing only after some inactivity also - something seems to be happening over time which cripple the detection and transcription of speech. (I will also try installing windows 7 on the same laptop on another hard drive to see if the problem is hardware or not)

Anyway, to avoid this problem and keep testing custom commands etc.. I tried the android app, and it works great - the computer responds very fast (even faster sometimes than using the mic).

BUT - you have to press the mic button to speak, and here is the problem : the entire point of having Braina is to have it help my stepfather perform task only with his voice - he is hemiplegic (the left half of his body is paralyzed), has limited vision and can't concentrate for long after a brain stroke.

So I would love to be able to have the android app have a "always listening" option (or at the very least, if it can't always send the text to the pc program, to have an activation prefix like the option on the pc program).

This way, he could control his computer from his bed when he is alone, as well as when he is in front of his laptop (that would allow him to launch movies or music from his bed, and much more, since I'm working on upgrading the lights and other appliance with 'connected' ones, which would allow him to turn on / off the lights, also on my mind : use a media center on the tv with a web api, send sms using the web api my provider has provided  etc..). (I'm very excited to the world programs like yours, combined with connected appliances and web services, open for people with disabilities like him)

So, to sum up (sorry for my long post) :

- Is there a way to have the android app always be listening ?  (I'm not even talking about listening in the background - no, simply when it is launched and visible, to keep listening, and not stop, so that you don't have to keep pressing the mic button)
( If not, will it be the case in a next version ? )

(I am very aware of the battery drain it would create, but for my usage, and maybe other people in similar situations of bedridden situations, it would still be really really useful, and you can resolve the problem with a battery pack, or simply plugging in the phone)

Thank you.

(I have other questions, relating to custom commands etc.. but I will post them in other posts to keep things simple).

[saurav]

@matt3003 Thank you for your appreciation.

Please check following link for information regarding speech recognition delay problem: https://www.brainasoft.com/braina/community/index.php/topic,60.msg240.html#msg240

Unfortunately there is no option to have the Android app always listening right now but I have forwarded your feature request to our development team and we will try to implement it in the next update.

[matt3003]

Thank you for answering so fast.

I'll wait to see if the next android app features the "always listening" option - I think it is a good idea, especially since there are more and more old android phones laying around in people's closets, and funny enough sometimes the reason they have been abandoned is that they don't hold their charge for any length of time anymore.

So you could imagine placing those old phones around the house at strategic places (near bed, etc..), plugged in an electrical socket, and be able to send orders to braina on your main computer (which could control your appliances, tv, stereo, etc..) (Yes I am very aware of the privacy issues, and I would never have this setup at my place constantly, but for disabled or elderly people it could be life changing). (Also, the new raspberry 3 apparently will officially support an android version soon if I understood correctly, so it could also be used to collect commands vocally on the cheap).


For the problem with the delays - sometimes it's even more than a minute delay, and I really think there is a big problem somewhere, more than a simple mic quality - I tried using a usb webcam who has a mic, and the problem is the same - but more interestingly : this cam has a blue light that lights up when the cam is in use (even just the mic), and there is clearly something wrong : when the problem occurs, the mic clearly is not used for long period of times, then is used a little, etc.. without any clear reason or correlation with words spoken or sounds - and I suspect the same thing happens when the internal mic is used, as the symptoms are the same.

I will keep investigating to try to find the reason, and if I do I will post my findings in the corresponding forum.

Thanks again.

[crazycajun]

I only just found this topic, I actually wish that it would continue listening, and I now have version 2.00 of the android app, when will there be an update and will it have an option to have it continually listen?

Please say soon and yes!