Features to better control voice control (de)activation

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Features to better control voice control (de)activation

Postby burke » Fri Apr 04, 2014 7:48 pm

I'm enjoying the ability to have Mobilinc automatically detect when I'm arriving home and activating voice control, but my house is on a cul-de-sac near the edge of our neighborhood and my route home gets me too close to my house 2-3 minutes before I get into the neighborhood. As a result, Mobilinc activates voice control prematurely. This is annoying, because I prefer letting Mobilinc use my car's bluetooth, which means my radio cuts out as voice control mistakenly activates. There are two features that would help:

  • The ability to define a location other than my current location. As it is now, I'm have to stand in a neighbor's yard or in the middle of our pond to create a new location in the right geocoordinates to meet my needs. It would be much easier if the location setting would put a pin at my current location and then let me move the pin where I want to set a new location without having to physically move my phone to that location. I've tried moving the map around, but Mobilinc seems to only use my current location.
  • "Stop listening" command. Let me tell Mobilinc to stop listening and disconnect the mic. This way, if Mobilinc starts listening when I don't want it to, I can just say "stop listening" and Mobilinc will let me hear my car radio again. As it is, I'm forced to navigate to Mobilinc on my phone and close it before it will release the bluetooth connection... or just ride in silence for nearly a minute until I get far enough away from my house that it disengages.

Thanks for an awesome product!
burke
 
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Re: Features to better control voice control (de)activation

Postby AdminWes » Sun Apr 06, 2014 11:59 am

Thanks burke for these suggestions.

We do have flexible geo-fence positions on our to-do list. It's a surprising amount of work to allow this for limited gains in usability. But we're still interested in making this easier for our users.

We're looking at ways we can offer to disable bluetooth connections so MobiLinc won't auto try to connect to your BT speakers with voice control. We could add a "stop listening" command (and we may do that), but the risk of a false positive hit that turns off voice would be a big negative.

Wes
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Re: Features to better control voice control (de)activation

Postby burke » Wed Apr 30, 2014 3:46 pm

A "stop listening" command would be much appreciated. If you're worried about false positives, then give us a "Disable voice command" option in settings that works just like all the other voice commands -- i.e., starts out blank and the user can type in their own phrase if they want to enable the feature.
burke
 
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Re: Features to better control voice control (de)activation

Postby AdminWes » Thu May 01, 2014 8:50 am

Hi Burke,

That would be do-able, however, can you share with us your use case for needing a voice command to tell MobiLinc to stop listening? What's the scenario where you are unable or is inconvenient to tap voice control off?

Wes
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Re: Features to better control voice control (de)activation

Postby burke » Sun Jun 22, 2014 10:47 am

This happens to me nearly daily with Mobilinc. As a result, I've disabled automatic voice control activation over bluetooth.

My use case:
  • As a user of Mobilinc, listening to the news on the car radio as I reach home, I would like Mobilinc to listen for commands just long enough to open my garage and/or turn on some lights, then let me return to listening to the radio.

Current scenario
  • Mobilinc activates and my radio show is muted as Mobilinc listens for commands.
  • I give a command like "Open garage" and Mobilinc dutifully obeys.
  • I then have to navigate to Mobilinc on the phone, wait for it to finish initializing voice control, and then navigate out of Mobilinc or manually disable voice control before I can hear my radio again.

Desired Scenario
  • Mobilinc activates and my radio show is muted as Mobilinc listens for commands.
  • I give a command like "Open garage" and Mobilinc dutifully obeys.
  • I say "Stop listening", Mobilic stops listening for commands, and my radio is immediately back to normal.

Providing an option like

Stop listening Enter phrase (optional)

under Settings → Voice Control would allow people to opt-in with a personalized voice command to turn off voice control and earn you a free beer the next time you're in Indianapolis, Indiana. :)
burke
 
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Re: Features to better control voice control (de)activation

Postby AdminWes » Sun Jun 22, 2014 12:41 pm

Hi Burke,

A free beer! Consider it done.

Actually, it wouldn't be all the bad to ad. Thank you for sharing your use case, and we agree. We've added this to our to-do list.

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Re: Features to better control voice control (de)activation

Postby burke » Wed Sep 10, 2014 6:19 pm

Thanks so much for adding this feature! The beer is on me! :D

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to test or enjoy this feature yet. I've been on iOS 8 beta since June and Mobilinc voice control over bluetooth doesn't work on it. When trying to enable voice control, Mobilinc always errors out with "No background noise detected. Failed to calibrate mic input levels. Please make sure there is background noise during startup." if my phone is connected via bluetooth to my car or a bluetooth headset. :?
burke
 
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Re: Features to better control voice control (de)activation

Postby AdminWes » Thu Sep 11, 2014 7:20 am

Hi Burke,

Is this limited to just bluetooth or do you see the same error without a bluetooth connection?

Also, the GM seed was just released. Do you see the same issue on the GM?

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Re: Features to better control voice control (de)activation

Postby burke » Thu Sep 11, 2014 10:55 am

It's only with bluetooth. Voice control works fine on the phone's built-in mic. The good news is that it's 100% reliably broken, meaning I've never seen it work despite my phone trying daily as I arrive home.

I will try upgrading to the GM and let you know. FYI -- at least for the next week or two, I'm using a plain ol' iPhone 5 (not s or c).
burke
 
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Re: Features to better control voice control (de)activation

Postby AdminWes » Sat Sep 13, 2014 3:06 pm

Thanks burke, please do let me know how the GM works for you.

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