Ellis
USA
Asked
— Edited
I have purchased an Amazon Echo and am very impressed with its abilities. I would like to know if there is any way to merge my Echo with EZB so I can get the benefit of both systems through my Echo. This sounds confusing but I want the benefit of information and voice interaction of my Echo and the Robot control aspects of EZB by using my Echo's great voice recognition. I love the Echo speaker system and microphone and its ability to answer almost any question. I also want to use the Echo for voice commands to the EZB and I want to use the Echo voice for both.
I realize I may have to use Windows Cortana since the voice comes through Windows but I like Echo Better and it has the ability to connect and control items through IFTTT.
Are you planning on taking the Echo apart and mounting pieces or are you going to mount the Echo as a single component? Just curious.
I also had the idea to use the Amazon echo for my project...the IFTTT connection makes it a pretty cool gadget if combined with the maker channel!
How did you incorporate this into your robot, how did you get it to work?
Alexa technology is amazing! I have it on my Amazon TVFirestick, plugs into a HDMI port on my TV. Had audio playing from it, thru a bluetooth speaker on my robot, paired with the Firestick. It worked well for a while, till I tried operating the robot at the same time. I think the WiFi and bluetooth had interference, the Firestick gave me a warning that it may cause issues unless I change to a different router type. The Firestick eventually slowed and locked up. The best solution may be having a plugin, but I am not talented to create one. I have thought about getting a small HDMI monitor or a HDMI audio breakout board?
My robot is medium size robot. I am going to mount it on my robot assembled. I agree that an app would be great. I am not yet at the point of being able to create my own app. Also I think Ifttt might be two slow to be effective. It might be worth a try though. What I really need is an Alexa voice on my Windows narrator. Or a way of taking text from Alexa and using it in narrator.
This is part of my project to add Alexa to my Ezb. Does Ezb use windows 10 narrator for the voice of my robot?
ARC uses the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI 5.4 I believe), so it uses the same voices as Narrator, which also uses SAPI 5.4, but I don't believe it uses the Narrator services.
Alan
Does that mean that there are different choices of voice that can be added to my Robot? Windows 10 only shows two voices. If it does not use these voices than can I upload other voices to Ezb?
Microsoft used to have more voices available, and better support for adding 3rd party voices. The last few years they have really messed up SAPI, so it takes a little work to get other voices to work properly, but it can be done.
Steve G did a good tutorial on the process based on our (mostly his) work figuring it out. https://synthiam.com/Tutorials/UserTutorials/32/1
Alan