yes, mic is through the computer only.

The ez-b doesn't have a microphone, firstly because it is generally inside robots where it wouldn't be feasible to have a microphone, and also the noise coming from motors and servos would drown out any voice commands and also cause false positives. There are a couple forum posts on this, so if you have a search you can get more info.

Your tablet might also get some noise from the robot being mounted inside. Also, is this a Windows tablet? If not, I don't believe voice recognition works on other operating systems like android or iOS.

Thanks @CochranRobotics .

@MazeHorizonTech, I was wondering about how well it would work... but for some reason, I just accepted there to be one having viewed all the videos and the immersion effect of people talking to robots .

And yes I have a windows tablet that I am dedicating to a bot. I am using the SDK and the Tablet will eventually also function as the UI (Face) of the bot, so voice recognition should work reasonably well.

Thanks for all the extra info.

if the motors are quiet, you shouldn't have an issue. If the motors are noisy, you can pause the mic while the robot is moving and then unpause the mic.

Background noise can affect the robot also. This is the reason that my stuff listens for a unique phrase before listening for requests or commands.

Quiet motors make for a better experience though.

is there anyway to hook up a external mic to the ezb to give voice comands that way instead of hooking up to the computer/laptop

There is no mic input that is built into the EZB(4) You might consider a Bluetooth mic that connects with the PC.