Mobilinc voice control

[PurdueGuy]

Hi Wes,

 

I'm running 4.0 (great app btw!) on iOS.

 

I setup a new geofence to have voice control turn on and off when I enter/leave, and so far (1 test) that works fine.

 

However, right when I get in the car to leave, the phone takes over the audio. My car has bluetooth, and since the mic is on, the car thinks I am on a call. I have a feeling that when I am driving towards the house, with the 100 meter setting, it will take over and mess with the radio again.

 

Is it possible to have MobiLinc watch a variable and use that to turn voice control on/off? I know it might be a little slower while ML refreshes, or if I add MobiLinc Connect, it should notice sooner?

 

Also, do you have any plans for iBeacon support? I saw the grant campaign, but didn't see much in the way of outcomes or support. I purchased some Estimotes a while back, but they have been sitting in a drawer up to now.

[InsteonNut]

Hi PurdueGuy,

 

With the mic on, MobiLinc and the voice library we use will attempt to make the iPhone's environment conducive to voice control. That means that if a bluetooth connection can be made to a headset type device it will make that connection.

 

Not sure about having MobiLinc watch a variable. That would indicate MobiLinc would need to be connected to the ISY 24/7 for that to work or modify MobiLinc Connect's PUSH feature to make something like that work. Plus I'm not sure I really follow that use case.

 

The grant recipients were announced back in January. Even though we were not picked, we are still looking at adding iBeacon support. Estimote is one company we are looking at for iBeacons. We actually have Estimotes and MobiLinc fully working in a tech demo in the lab. With Apple having just released the final spec for iBeacon, we're keeping watch to see how Estimote and the other iBeacon manufacturers are proceeding.

 

Wes

[PurdueGuy]

Hi PurdueGuy,

 

With the mic on, MobiLinc and the voice library we use will attempt to make the iPhone's environment conducive to voice control. That means that if a bluetooth connection can be made to a headset type device it will make that connection.

Understood. That's what I figured was happening. Is there a setting to ignore that, make it user selectable?

 

Not sure about having MobiLinc watch a variable. That would indicate MobiLinc would need to be connected to the ISY 24/7 for that to work or modify MobiLinc Connect's PUSH feature to make something like that work. Plus I'm not sure I really follow that use case.

I was thinking of having MobiLinc watch a variable that determines whether to listen or not. Then it could be based on any number of things, as I could have programs control it (the alarm turns on, I set the variable, etc). When the variable is set to 0, so MobiLinc stops listening, when it's 1, it starts. As I live in a small neighborhood, when I go to neighbors, I am not 100 meters away, so MobiLinc doesn't automatically stop listening. However, I am good about turning the alarm on, or at least putting the house in "away" mode, so that could be the cue to MobiLinc to stop/start listening.

 

The grant recipients were announced back in January. Even though we were not picked, we are still looking at adding iBeacon support. Estimote is one company we are looking at for iBeacons. We actually have Estimotes and MobiLinc fully working in a tech demo in the lab. With Apple having just released the final spec for iBeacon, we're keeping watch to see how Estimote and the other iBeacon manufacturers are proceeding.

 

Wes

Awesome! If you need a beta tester, sign me up!

 

One other question: will the capability be added to adjust the geofence voice control options? Right now, it tells me:

Cannot Edit
Please delete this region and create
a new one to make changes.
Regions cannot be edited once
created.

That's fine, but I can't create the region unless I am in the region. And I think if I delete/create in the wrong order, my variables might get messed up. (I know as long as I delete and immediately recreate, I *should* get the same variable number, but that's assuming I don't get distracted, etc.)

[InsteonNut]

Hi PurdueGuy,

 

Understood. That's what I figured was happening. Is there a setting to ignore that, make it user selectable?

Not currently, but we're looking into this.

 

Variable watching is interesting, but I'm afraid is very specific to this one use case. We generally try to put our limited resources behind features that can be used by a good majority of users. I understand how it might be useful for your scenario, but not sure how that would be generally useful (or approachable) for the majority of users.

 

One other question: will the capability be added to adjust the geofence voice control options?

Possibly. The problem is that iOS doesn't allow one to edit these once saved. MobiLinc would have to secretly delete and then recreate in order to mimic an edit. We think it's do-able, but will take quite a bit of effort for minimal gains.

 

Wes

[InsteonNut]

Hi PurdueGuy,

 

4.00.10 is now available from the App Store. In it we added a Voice Control switch to enable/disable Bluetooth Input. If you turn this off, MobiLinc will not attempt to connect to paired Bluetooth input devices when voice is turned on.

 

Wes

[Xathros]

Hi PurdueGuy,

 

Understood. That's what I figured was happening. Is there a setting to ignore that, make it user selectable?

Not currently, but we're looking into this.

 

Variable watching is interesting, but I'm afraid is very specific to this one use case. We generally try to put our limited resources behind features that can be used by a good majority of users. I understand how it might be useful for your scenario, but not sure how that would be generally useful (or approachable) for the majority of users.

 

One other question: will the capability be added to adjust the geofence voice control options?

Possibly. The problem is that iOS doesn't allow one to edit these once saved. MobiLinc would have to secretly delete and then recreate in order to mimic an edit. We think it's do-able, but will take quite a bit of effort for minimal gains.

 

Wes

 

Wes-

 

This question is still bugging me a little. It seems to me that the only info that should be part of the IOS Geofence record is the Fence Name, Coordinates and Radius of the fence. All other related options should be abstracted, stored in the ML database outside of the IOS Geofence and be acted upon when the fence triggers. In this way, Associate with Voice, ISY variable and any future options can be readily editable without having to go to the fence center location to make a change.

 

Is this not possible?

 

-Xathros

[InsteonNut]

Hi Xathros,

 

It *may* be possible to rewrite what I've done to do this, however, the challenge is with multiple profiles. There needs to be enough info in the return data from iOS on boundary crossing to allow MobiLinc to find the proper profile and variable to update. Keep in mind that with this method, you can have MobiLinc on one profile (vacation home) and be crossing fences for other profiles (business/home) in MobiLinc all without upsetting or changing out the active profile. All the necessary, actionable info is contained in data blob returned from iOS.

 

It's possible to do what you are suggesting, however, we'd need to re-write this layer of code and rethink how geo-fences work in MobiLinc to accomplish this. When I have looked into this, it would be quite a bit of work for extremely limited gains. There maybe other ways around this, but we'd need to devote some time to properly investigate.

 

Wes

[PurdueGuy]

Thanks for the Bluetooth update. I will try that out today.

 

For geofences, would another solution be to "drop a pin" to mark the location? Then you can at least recreate them wherever you are. Or maybe this is an iOS limitation?

[InsteonNut]

Hi PurdueGuy,

 

This too, is on our to-do list, but is unrelated to the editing of geo-fences once created.

 

Wes

[Xathros]

Hi Xathros,

 

It *may* be possible to rewrite what I've done to do this, however, the challenge is with multiple profiles. There needs to be enough info in the return data from iOS on boundary crossing to allow MobiLinc to find the proper profile and variable to update. Keep in mind that with this method, you can have MobiLinc on one profile (vacation home) and be crossing fences for other profiles (business/home) in MobiLinc all without upsetting or changing out the active profile. All the necessary, actionable info is contained in data blob returned from iOS.

 

It's possible to do what you are suggesting, however, we'd need to re-write this layer of code and rethink how geo-fences work in MobiLinc to accomplish this. When I have looked into this, it would be quite a bit of work for extremely limited gains. There maybe other ways around this, but we'd need to devote some time to properly investigate.

 

Wes

 

Hi Wes-

 

Fair enough. Thanks for the explanation. I can certainly live with this minor inconvenience.

 

-Xathros

[bsobel]

+1 for iBeacon support. I'd love to see support for the BleuStation ones as well. They are nice (at least for me) as they are usb so with mini chargers I have placed them around the house and don't have to worry about ever changing batteries.

[RRoyceus]

I have a geo-fence set up for my home, but i can not find out how to turn Voice Control on or off automatically when entering or leaving a geo-fence region. ?

 

Are there instructions anywhere or can somebody please tell me how to set it up?

 

I had been looking in voice settings; I found it in location settings

[RRoyceus]

After reading through 26 pages on the ISY forum about their attempts to get the ISY working with Alexis and several days of trying the MobiLinc voice, I am sticking with MobiLinc! So far it has worked flawlessly. My wake up word is "computer". Through some trial and error, I have determined it is better to assign words to scenes rather then individual devices. I have not tried a program yet, but if programs work as well as scenes, my life will soon be much easier.

 

I did hook up an Insteon hub and connected it to the Echo and can use it for some devices, but it does not work with my door locks and several other things.

 

It has occurred to me, I can use my old iPhones and iPads and scatter them around the house to have voice control in nearly every room.

 

It would be nice to someday have MobiLinc work with the Echo, but for now, I am happy with what I have.