If you set it as default while ARC is open, ARC will need to be closed and reopened to initialize the device.

That makes sense. Thanks DJ :)

Steve, let me know what you end up with. I plan on mounting my computer in the B9 and will need a remote microphone mounted somewhere in the room that is wireless attached somehow. As we all know mounting a mic on the robot is not a good idea because of the noise problem. I've been looking for a good desktop mic because I don't want to carry one around.

Hi Dave,

I got this microphone to work and I played around with it last night, BUT, it is a really cheap set ($10) and I had to play around with the mic levels in the computer quite a bit to get the speech recognition to work with any degree of reliability. You definitely get what you pay for. It turned out to work best with all levels up flat out. If I had the levels down lower I needed to hold the mic right in front of my mouth for it to work "reliably"

With what you want to do, putting the computer in your robot and having a mic in the room, I was thinking a conference call style mic may work well but I dont know if there's one that can be wirelessly tethered to your laptop. There's also ceiling mounted conference mics which may be worth looking into but again, not sure if they can be wirelessly tethered.

Food for thought though

Steve

I've tried out a few different microphones. I wanted something small that would fit in my ear but I can't find anything that works. The one I settled on and have been using for awhile now is the Logitech Wireless Headset H800. I might hack it so it's a little smaller.

@Bob... thanks for that.... I have been looking for a wireless headset for sometime now... :)

You should buy a new micro phone device.

Tony (@Toymaker) uses the Revolabs xTAG Here is a quote from a post by @Toymaker

Quote:

The AIMEC;3 and AIMEC:4 robots use DNS11 with almost 100% accuracy. The EZ:1 robot currently uses Microsoft engine 8 as the robot is controlled by an EZ-B and I have yet to make the DNS link with ARC. But I still get really good accuracy with engine 8 in grammar mode (dictation mode is not so good, but grammar mode is what you use with ARC), but I use a really good wireless mic that just clips to my shirt pocket or collar. This works so well that I can even control music volumes etc as the SNR (signal to noise ratio) is so good with regards to my voice. I use the Revolabs xTAG its pricey but you have to pay if you want this level of performance.

Revolabs

Thank you for this. I will have to pickup one of these.

Here is another one that looks nice. Is anyone on the forum had experience with this mic?

Andrea WNC-1500 KB Wireless Headset

Glad you got your mic working. Also thanks for the suggestions. Food for thought. I have kept Toymakers suggestion in mind since I first read it last year. It seems like a quality unit. However I'm looking for something I can place out in the room with the CPU mounted in the robot. I also had thought of the ceiling mounted type after seeing them in a conference room at work. However that still leaves me how to get the signal to the robot mounted computer. I'm intrigued with the possibilities of a good smart phone used as a stand alone Wifi microphone set on it's speakerphone setting. I haven't looked very closely at this so I don't know if it can be done but seems possible. If your ever looking for a wired desktop microphone that does a real great job it's the Blue Snowball. It's a bit pricey but it's configurable and does a better job with voice recognition then others I've tried. It's problem like all others is if there is a lot of noise in the room it has trouble. However if set up properly it still out preforms other expensive mics I've tried.

I just wanted to add that I'm still looking for something like a DSR (distant speech recognition) microphone. The only one I have come across is the Voice Tracker l and the Voice tracker ll microphones that can apparently do the job and works well with conference calling. But at $276 and $360 respectively, that's a bit more than I would like to pay for something with no reviews with use with speech recognition.

I did recently buy a new mic called a CrispMic, which is USB connected and designed for speech rec and VoIP communication, but I'm not that happy with it just yet. It can pick up my voice up to about 2 meters away, but recognition is patchy at best (but this could also be due to me using a fairly new laptop so A LOT more Windows speech rec training is needed).

I'm looking for something I can plug in to an Acer W3 and have the mic installed in K-9. I'm still using my iPhone for Pandorabot control recognition via a VCN app which still works great (gotta love that iPhone speech rec), but it's still a case of holding a mic in front of your mouth and pressing a "Send" button to pass my spoken phrase to ARC. Having a mic on-board where anyone can speak to K-9 without holding a phone or holding/wearing a microphone is still a dream for me at the mo, and I'm always on the look out for something I could use.

Amazon has the Acoustic Magic Voice Tracker II Array Microphone for $342 USD useing their Prime program it free 2 day shipping. There are 3 customer reviews - each giving 5 stars. Sounds promising. I gotta keep my eye's on this one. Thanks for the tip.

Acoustic Magic Voice Tracker II Array Microphone at Amazon

EDIT: Here's the VT-1 on Amazon Prime for $255 with a 4 star rating from 9 users.

Voice Tracker 1

Quote:

If you set it as default while ARC is open, ARC will need to be closed and reopened to initialize the device.

Resurrecting this thread because of some good fortune I have had with Windows 10. I have struggled to get voice recognition working on my Acer W3. Plug in mic's just didn't work, and Bluetooth headsets would connect and then disconnect (I have had trouble with Bluetooth on all Windows 8.1 computers. Worked better in Windows 7).

I upgraded yesterday to Windows 10 (see note below about upgrading the W3) and now two of my Bluetooth headsets work perfectly. I can set the Mic as the default input and still have the ACER speakers be the default output if I want (although I will be sending most sound out through the EZ-B anyway). It works with A Motorola H710 and a Plantronics Legend-PLT, which can simultaneously connect to my phone and flawlessly switch between devices when I get a call. It does not work with my Plantronics M165. When I turn off the headset, the internal becomes the default, and when I turn it back on, it automagically becomes default again. However, I do need to have the headset connected before I start ARC or it doesn't hear it. I can live with that...

Note on Acer W3 upgrade to Windows 10: If you check compatibility from the Windows 10 reservation tool, it will tell you there is not a compatible driver for the video, but I did some research and the video doesn't need a driver. Youc an download the media creation tool from here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and when you run it, select "upgrade this machine" and it will upgrade just fine. (you might need the driver if you connect an external monitor with the Micro HDMI cable. I haven't tried and have no need to). I am going to post this as a separate thread as well since a lot of us use the W3 for our robots.

Alan