Alexa - Voice Training

[Teken]

Has anyone completed the voice training portion in the Alexa App? I ask because perhaps this is one of the reasons she is not completing the task I ask of her.

 

Its late here so will try this voice training in the morning.

 

If others have already tried it I would love to read about the outcome and whether it increased the accuracy of her voice control.

 

I figure if it can hear and obey some of you across the 49th parallel with a southern drawl. It should be able to understand a Canadian back bacon eating swaggart like me!

 

Ha . . . 

Edited February 1, 2016 by Teken

[MWareman]

My Alexa just died. Totally dark and not responding.... I guess I'm contacting Amazon in the morning.... But yes, I did the in-app voice training and it dosnt have an issue understanding me (with my mixed British-midwest accent). It dosnt have an issue with understanding my 11 year old Daughter either with no training... so I'm not sure what to make of that.

[Teken]

My Alexa just died. Totally dark and not responding.... I guess I'm contacting Amazon in the morning.... But yes, I did the in-app voice training and it dosnt have an issue understanding me (with my mixed British-midwest accent). It dosnt have an issue with understanding my 11 year old Daughter either with no training... so I'm not sure what to make of that.

 

So the voice training can be used for all the different people who use the device? Its not a one time affair to get the hardware to understand just the basics?

 

Also, can you offer a little more insight about the Echo? Is this one of the first beta units that were sold for the $99.XX sale price or a more recent version since production has ramped up?

[rahnee]

I'm torn on this Alexa thing.  Not sure if I should wait for v2 or jump in "semi-early" and get into it.  I'm up in Montreal so I would have to get it in the US.  (not a big deal).  Bummer is that everything is US based with regards to geo-location etc. so I'm not sure I benefit from all the "bells and whistles" it has to offer.  Teken, what is your take on true added value vs. "first in lets see what she can do".

 

Looking for input from any and all on this...

[Teken]

I'm torn on this Alexa thing.  Not sure if I should wait for v2 or jump in "semi-early" and get into it.  I'm up in Montreal so I would have to get it in the US.  (not a big deal).  Bummer is that everything is US based with regards to geo-location etc. so I'm not sure I benefit from all the "bells and whistles" it has to offer.  Teken, what is your take on true added value vs. "first in lets see what she can do".

 

Looking for input from any and all on this...

 

Hello Rahnee,

 

If you have ever taken the time to read my rants, raves, and praises. You will quickly realize I have a very dim view of the so called *Cloud Power*.

 

Not because its not powerful, flexible, or extensible . . .

 

It has to do with the whole cloud first mentality that has perverted the whole idea and concept of the cloud. Having said this I won't spend too much time regurgitating all the hate I have for such services. My goal for the Amazon Echo is probably a lot different than most here.

 

My primary goal is to use Alexa as a tool which I believe most don't consider as the primary factor. Its more of a convenience for many to allow hands free control of lights, fans, media, shades, etc. My ultimate goal is to see the Amazon Echo be able to assist me in a proactive way to manage the homes energy consumption, targets, and metrics via programs.

 

At some point my hopes are to see Alexa have the ability to actively announce things to me. Then, I will be able to decide what sort of program or measures to take to help manage my homes over all comfort, energy, and force protection elements.

 

Things of interest to me is knowing of impending hazard alerts like freezing rain, road conditions, extreme wind chill / low temps, with other related weather related warnings like tornado, hurricane, earth quake, etc

 

I already receive 24.7.365 weather hazard alerts through my EMS system which is local and has no method to broadcast the same to the end users. To compensate for this I have enrolled in many of the smartphone applications which does the very same and its great because it allows push notifications and e-mail alert of the same.

 

More than likely the Echo system will truly never replace the dedicated systems I already have in place. But, hey asking is free and you never know what technology will bring in the future.

 

The reality is the above ideas are less than sexy and to be honest doesn't sell as well as others like being able to turn on a light bulb, know the stats for a NFL team.

 

This product is more geared toward the convenience and fad driven types.

 

There are some real useful things like being able to create a *To Do* but the short comings of this feature is its not currently possible to have Alexa actually schedule the to do list. Meaning if I say go shovel the snow there isn't a method to set a date and time and then have her initiate that task.

 

This is the same with her ability to add items to your Google calendar from meetings to appointments. Yes, she can add them but there is no way for her to invoke that remainder in the future.

 

My idea is that at some point this will be very much a two way conversation with Alexa where she will be able to do from the most basic to advanced voice driven tasks.

 

I've often thought if someone took the time to package a few of her basic features into a group which I could customize to my liking.

 

Categories like Weather, Finances, Health, Shopping, Media, Security, Energy, Home, etc

 

In the case of weather it would be as simple as me being able to say to her Alexa are there any weather alerts I need to know about. If so add them to my alerts and inform me every min, hour, day, week, day of, etc. I should be able to set thresholds of low, high, time frame, etc.

 

With respect to the energy portion which interests me the most is the ability for her to tell me first what my current energy consumption is that moment. She would indicate where I am in the defined budget for that month and be able to compare from previous months targets.

 

Once I knew where I was in terms of energy consumption she would follow up by asking me to initiate one of dozens of energy modes I have already defined in my 994 Series Controller. I've posed this same very question in this forum but sadly it was not well received in terms of being a priority for development and seems to be geared to large POCO's.

 

I honestly can't understand how it is some of these features are being developed for the utilities and not have the very same for the end consumer??

 

Ultimately who is the utilities serving themselves?!?

 

No, they are serving the consumer and obviously its the same consumer that is buying the 994 series controller! This is why I am hard pressed to understand how on one had this kind of feature is being developed and supported for the utility but not for the user.

 

As I stated above Energy Awareness & Energy Management is not sexy and sadly don't see it ever being sexy for the average consumer. The only light in the tunnel I've seen is the slow push from the Z-Wave / ZigBee camp where they are offering more devices that can monitor and track energy consumption at the device level.

 

This is great to see even if they are not very accurate but at least they are being supported in the 994. Perhaps one day Energy Management will become sexy and people will see value in supporting it.

 

As it is this is very much the chicken and the egg situation . . . 

Edited February 1, 2016 by Teken

[jerlands]

I'm torn on this Alexa thing.  Not sure if I should wait for v2 or jump in "semi-early" and get into it.  I'm up in Montreal so I would have to get it in the US.  (not a big deal).  Bummer is that everything is US based with regards to geo-location etc. so I'm not sure I benefit from all the "bells and whistles" it has to offer.  Teken, what is your take on true added value vs. "first in lets see what she can do".

 

Looking for input from any and all on this...

 

Echo is a toy that currently offers some convenience but voice controlled automation is (IMO) where it's heading so if you want to play around with it Echo is a fun start.

 

 

As it is this is very much the chicken and the egg situation . . . 

 

The chicken developed from the egg

 

 

Jon...

[jerlands]

My Alexa just died. Totally dark and not responding.... I guess I'm contacting Amazon in the morning....

 

First death I'm aware of... sure it's not the power supply?

 

 

Jon...

[Teken]

Echo is a toy that currently offers some convenience but voice controlled automation is (IMO) where it's heading so if you want to play around with it Echo is a fun start.

 

 

 

The chicken developed from the egg

 

 

Jon...

 

I think many would argue it was the other way around. But I digress as its been a age old question that many find interested in debating.

 

For me with respect to Energy Monitoring / Energy Management if companies like UDI don't develop it for consumer to use how will they ever know there is a need or see it grow?

 

It has to start from the vendor not the consumer because the consumer has already purchased the hardware whether it be the Echo, 994, Insteon, Green Eye Monitor, etc.

 

The next step is to use these existing hardware platforms and make proper use of the data into a meaningful way. One can not simply have the ability to turn something on / off with out the for knowledge or history about how it will impact the user later on.

[Teken]

Just completed the voice training module lets see if my success rate is better moving forward. For those who haven't completed this task it requires the user to speak 25 sentences.

 

If you make a mistake speaking the sentence the system will let you try again.

 

The whole voice training process took about two minutes to complete.

[joemac]

I did the voice training the first day I got it, so I can't say if it helped.  It seems to work equally well for all family members even though I'm the only one that did the training.

[Scyto]

My Alexa just died. Totally dark and not responding.... I guess I'm contacting Amazon in the morning.... But yes, I did the in-app voice training and it dosnt have an issue understanding me (with my mixed British-midwest accent). It dosnt have an issue with understanding my 11 year old Daughter either with no training... so I'm not sure what to make of that.

mine fails 1 in 5 times with my British stoke pacific NW accent - i will try voice training; i hope it doesn't then break recognizing my wife's 100% NW accent

[madcodger]

1) Voice recognition is about 95% or better here after voice training. I have completed voice training, my wife has not. She is probably 90%.

 

2) For my friend Teken, I am of course at the other end of the spectrum re: cloud, and fully embrace it. I would of course like to have everything local, but it is not practical to expect this going forward. Ranting against it is like complaining about the weather. You may as well embrace it, and learn to enjoy both sun and snow.

[Teken]

1) Voice recognition is about 95% or better here after voice training. I have completed voice training, my wife has not. She is probably 90%.

 

2) For my friend Teken, I am of course at the other end of the spectrum re: cloud, and fully embrace it. I would of course like to have everything local, but it is not practical to expect this going forward. Ranting against it is like complaining about the weather. You may as well embrace it, and learn to enjoy both sun and snow.

 

This is true, but I reserve the right to bitch about it when its mostly cloudy!

 

Ha . . .

 

Back On Topic: When you say 95% for you and 90% for your wife can you offer some insight as to what words, phrases, are not being activated correctly?

 

Perhaps this will offer some us an idea of words to avoid . . .

 

Right now I can ask Alexa to turn on the *Ceiling Light / Ceiling Lights* and see the request do match the request via the log. Yet she will either say OK and nothing happens. Or tell me this device can't be found then turn the blasted thing on WTF?

 

As suggested by Barry Gordon I have actively started using the word *Shut Off* instead of Turn Off* because for what ever reason Alexa will obey this command even though both are captured in the history logs?

 

Also, while viewing the history logs its quite apparent some of the problems seen is due to the cloud. Meaning I can sit there asking her dozens of things and see the requests streaming into the history. Later the same requests are not seen at all in the history and the updating is no longer live.

 

So there is a delay, bottleneck happening from the various multi hops Barry Gordon took the time to detail for all of us.

Edited February 2, 2016 by Teken

[accd]

I'm going to jinx myself....when I use the correct syntax I have zero issues, unless there is a bunch of ambient sound/noise.   I'm not a fan of the cloud for personal security and social issues,,,,, however my echo is virtually instantaneous in executing commands.  Very rarely lags.    One thing I have done is moved the device around to ensure that room "echo's", no pun intended, don't interfere and I have found that different places give different results.    Going to try the shut off v turn off to see if that works well.  I found that it's not making much difference if I say.... Alexa; Turn on X to 50%    or  Alexa;  Set x to 50%

[stusviews]

I find that shut works with devices, but not with scenes. OTOH, including off allows nearly anything. I just asked Alexa to spin off a scene. That worked. Spin on works, too, but Alexa won't accept push on nor push off

[madcodger]

I honestly haven't had a sufficient number of problems to recall what didn't work, Teken. I know that I have never used "shut" as it does not sound natural to my ear. "Turn" seems to have been fine. I also did a whole series of just saying "Alexa, kitchen lights x%" on Monday night, to test it. Worked great EXCEPT for 70%, which was never recognized with four separate attempts (weird, and I don't think there's anything odd about the way I pronounce the word).

 

What has worked for me is to generally avoid speaking the name of a scene, and instead creating groups within Alexa. Those groups may duplicate the devices in a scene, but the Echo seems to prefer its own view of things over mine. Being a married man, I am accustomed to this situation and thus easily trained by yet another feminine voice.

[Teken]

I find that shut works with devices, but not with scenes. OTOH, including off allows nearly anything. I just asked Alexa to spin off a scene. That worked. Spin on works, too, but Alexa won't accept push on nor push off

Maybe this is the problem? All of interactions with Echo are from scenes perhaps I should follow what others stated about just adding in all the devices to the system.

 

Then, use the Alexa application to make the groups which are essentially the same scenes I wanted anyways. As someone indicated for what ever reason she likes the ones managed by her.

I honestly haven't had a sufficient number of problems to recall what didn't work, Teken. I know that I have never used "shut" as it does not sound natural to my ear. "Turn" seems to have been fine. I also did a whole series of just saying "Alexa, kitchen lights x%" on Monday night, to test it. Worked great EXCEPT for 70%, which was never recognized with four separate attempts (weird, and I don't think there's anything odd about the way I pronounce the word).

 

What has worked for me is to generally avoid speaking the name of a scene, and instead creating groups within Alexa. Those groups may duplicate the devices in a scene, but the Echo seems to prefer its own view of things over mine. Being a married man, I am accustomed to this situation and thus easily trained by yet another feminine voice.

LOL . . .

Edited February 3, 2016 by Teken