Zvonimba - voice assistant dialer
Android Technologies / / December 19, 2019
At a time when touch screen and distracted him there is no possibility, Zvonimba will dial any number. In the autumn rain, cold winter or the bright summer sun it can be very useful to all owners of Android-smartphone.
Recently there has been increasing interest in smartphone manufacturers for new applications in a variety of sensors. For example, multiple sensors MotoX or separate coprocessor M7 in the iPhone 5S.
Indeed, the scope of using the phone sensors, which are always at hand is enormous. The first time I saw one of these functions in the iPhone 4S is still called RaiseToSpeak. It allows you to activate the personal voice assistant Siri, without touching the screen, simply hold the phone to your ear.
Then there was a desire to implement something like this in a slightly different area of the Android platform. Namely, to create an application assistant, allowing to make calls with your voice, sensors and without an internet connection (which is required to Siri).
So there Zvonimba application recognizes contact names Offline in Russian and using smartphone sensors for activation, which allows not to be distracted by the screen and touch to him. The video shows a small demonstration of the activation of shake and swipe. But the basic method of activation, which can not be shown on the video - this approximation to the ear in a position in which we usually talk on the phone without unlocking the screen. To do this, light the screen and holding the phone to your ear - Zvonimba activated itself and prompts you to say the contact's name.
To this end, a special algorithm was developed which involved multiple sensors to determine the exact position of the phone in space. proximity sensor detects the phone away from the ear, and the data from the accelerometer sensor and the magnetic field allow the calculation at this point angle. It works just sitting or standing position.
Speech recognition systems are based on the development of engineers Carnegie Mellon UniversityPocketSphinxPorted for ARM-based processors that can recognize speech even on very weak and devices without having to connect to the Internet. Now we are actively working to recognize quality and are looking for people willing to help in this matter. For best results, it is necessary that the smartphone had a noise suppression and echo cancellation functions.
Among the options work the detectors implemented some features to simplify the process of dialing - like nicknames for contacts, contacts shutdown timeout timer, and others.
Aliases allow you to call the contact is not only the name of the contact book, but in a more convenient name or a name that better recognized.
For scoring a contact name in the program can use any TTS-engine, for example, built by Google, SVOX, etc.
It should also be noted that, unfortunately, because of the wide variety of Android-devices, activation detector can ear work not at all, so there are alternative ways - shake, swipe, the headset button, and a small with integration Tasker. Tested devices can be seen here.
At a time when touch screen and distracted him there is no possibility, Zvonimba will dial any number. In the autumn rain, cold winter or the bright summer sun it can be very useful to all owners of Android-smartphone.