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9. Audio

Let's plan how your robot will speak and hear!

Robots with audio capabilities provide a very interactive experience. The ARC software includes multiple skills that connect to WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB audio input and output devices. ARC has speech recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, and robot skills for playing music and sound effects!

Choose an Audio Input Device

Wired Microphone

Connects directly to a computer with a USB cable or through an existing soundcard's input port. It is only used in an embedded robot configuration.

Wireless Microphone

Connects wirelessly to a computer with an RF (radio frequency) or Bluetooth connection

Choose an Audio Output Device Type

Wired Speaker

Connects directly to a computer with a USB or Audio cable. It is only used in an embedded robot configuration. You can select whether the speaker is connected via an audio cable to an existing sound card or connects with a USB.

Wireless Speaker

Connects wirelessly to a computer over Bluetooth or WiFi.

EZB Speaker

Use an EZB that supports audio output (i.e., EZ-Robot IoTiny or EZ-B v4). Note that using this option, the EZB on index #0 is preferred. This is also necessary if you wish to use the Audio Effects robot skill found here.

Add Generic Speech Recognition

Once you have selected the type of microphone to use, the next step is to experiment with speech recognition. Many speech recognition robot skills range from Google, Microsoft, and IBM Watson. However, the most popular robot skill to get started is the generic speech recognition robot skill. This uses the Microsoft Windows built-in speech recognition system. Therefore, it's easy to configure, and you can get it up and running with little effort.

Using the Microsoft Windows Speech Recognition Engine, this skill uses your computer's default audio input device and listens for known phrases. Phrases are manually configured in the Settings menu, and custom actions (via script) are assigned to your phrases.

Get Speech Recognition

Audio Robot Skills

Now that you have selected the audio device your robot will use, many robot skills should be considered. They range from speech recognition to audio players. You can have as many audio robot skills as your robot needs to achieve the goals.

Advanced Speech Recognition by Microsoft

Azure Cognitive Speech recognition for ARC with custom API credentials, scripting, language control, and text output for detected phrases

Requires ARC v43

Advanced Speech Synthesis by Synthiam Inc.

Azure neural text-to-speech for ARCx scripts and skills, with multilingual voices, SSML support, and EZB audio output.

Requires ARCx v5

Audio File Out EZB by Synthiam Inc

Stream MP3 or WAV files from your PC to the primary EZ-B speaker for robot audio playback, alerts, music, and voice clips.

Requires ARC v1

Audiotoolbox Plugin by ptp

Enable UWP voices, change default audio devices, capture audio and route it to EZB controllers with session tracking and device control.

Requires ARC v15

Azure Speech To Text Engine by Microsoft

Azure-powered speech recognition via Synthiam account, with wake word support, phrase capture, and ARCx scripting/custom UI integration.

Requires ARCx v5

Azure Speech To Text Engine (Custom) by Microsoft

Azure-powered multilingual speech-to-text for ARCx with language detection, wake words, phrase recognition, and script listening.

Requires ARCx v13

Azure Text To Speech by Microsoft

Azure TTS for ARC robots: generate natural, customizable neural voices for companion, educational, assistive, and entertainment applications.

Requires ARC v11

Basic Speech Synthesis by Synthiam Inc.

English-only cloud TTS for ARCx using classic Windows voices; speaks project audio on PC or EZB speaker with one-login setup

Requires ARCx v5

Bing Speech Recognition by Microsoft

Accurate Bing cloud speech-to-text for ARC: wake-word, programmable control, $BingSpeech output, Windows language support, headset compatible

Conversational Menu by Synthiam

Voice menu tree to navigate options and run scripts on ARC robots. Multi-level, customizable prompts, speech I/O, timeout and repeat/back.

Requires ARC v10

Conversational Menu by Synthiam Inc.

Voice-driven nested menus for robots: ask questions, listen for choices, run scripts, and support clickable or tap-to-select options.

Requires ARCx v4

Frequency Detector by Synthiam

Detect audio frequencies via PC microphone (FFT), output a variable and drive servos within configurable min/max ranges with waveform feedback.

Requires ARC v7

Frequency Detector by Synthiam Inc.

Listens to microphone pitch, publishes frequency and note, moves servos, and triggers scripts from detected sound bands

Requires ARCx v2

Google Speech Recognition by Google

Google Speech for ARC: cloud speech recognition with waveform, configurable response scripts and PandoraBot support

Requires ARC v10

Microphone by Synthiam

Record audio from your PC mic, auto-trigger and edit sample rate/effects, then play or export recordings to an EZ-B v4 SoundBoard for robot playback.

Microphone Playback (Ezb) by Synthiam Inc.

Records microphone audio into named slots and plays it through an EZB speaker, with recordings stored in the project.

Requires ARCx v4

Midi Control by Synthiam

MIDI I/O for ARC: send/receive notes, run per-note scripts, control PC or external instruments, with panic to stop stuck notes.

Requires ARC v14

MP3 Trigger by SparkFun Electronics

Serial MP3 Trigger for EZ-B: plays MP3s from mini‑SD; configurable port/baud. Deprecated-replaced by EZB v4 streaming audio. 3rd‑party.

Onnx Text To Speech Voice Cloner by Synthiam Inc.

Offline F5-TTS voice cloning for ARCx: train voices, speak replies instantly, and save MP3/WAV with no cloud or per-sentence cost

Requires ARCx v10

Openai Text To Speech by OpenAI

Convert text to dynamic, real-time speech with nine expressive OpenAI voices-natural, varied, accessible robot communication.

Requires ARC v4

Openai Whisper by Synthiam Inc.

Speech-to-text with Whisper for ARC: transcribes phrases in many languages via OpenAI, Groq, or local OpenAI-compatible servers.

Requires ARCx v1

Output Audio From EZ-B by Synthiam

Example ARC skill demonstrating converting, compressing and streaming MP3/WAV to an EZ-B speaker, with play/stop commands and TTS examples.

Requires ARC v11

Sherpa-Onnx Speech To Text by K2-Fsa

Offline speech-to-text engine for ARCx using sherpa-onnx models; runs locally on Windows, Linux, Raspberry Pi, and Mac with no internet after download

Requires ARCx v7

Sherpa-ONNX Speech To Text by K2-Fsa

Offline continuous speech recognition with wake word support, custom phrases, and real-time transcription using sherpa-onnx models on ARC Windows.

Requires ARC v2

Sound Board by Synthiam Inc.

Import WAV/MP3 audio, store it in the project, and trigger robot scripts at exact timeline markers for synced sound and motion.

Requires ARCx v13

Sound Movement by Synthiam

Stereo mic sound localization triggers left/right scripts to control robot movement, enabling directional responses (turn/move) to audio.

Sound Script (Ezb) by Synthiam

Trigger a script when EZB audio plays, exposing live Min, Max and Avg audio-level variables for looped monitoring; stops when audio ends.

Requires ARC v3

Sound Servo (EZB) by Synthiam

Map EZ-B audio volume to servos; multi-servo mirroring, scalar range control, invert/min-max, waveform feedback to sync mouth motion.

Sound Servo (PC Mic) by Synthiam

Maps PC microphone volume to servo positions - control multiple servos (e.g., robotic mouth) with scalar, min/max and invert options.

Sound Servo (PC Speaker) by Synthiam

Maps PC audio volume to servos in real time with scalar, min/max, invert & multi-servo options-ideal for syncing robot mouth to sound

Soundboard (EZB) by Synthiam

Play WAV/MP3 via EZ-B v4, manage tracks, add timed scripts for synced robot actions, control via ControlCommand(), volume and clipping indicators.

Soundboard (PC) by Synthiam

Play and manage MP3/WAV sound effects from a PC soundboard, load tracks, trigger or script playback (one file at a time), export and automate.

Soundboard V2 (PC) by Synthiam

Play MP3/WAV via PC sound output with timeline scripts to trigger movements, auto-position actions, and optional looping for synced routines

Requires ARC v6

Speech Phrase Recognition by Synthiam Inc.

Voice command phrase recognition that triggers scripts via your project’s speech-to-text engine, with confidence filtering and wake-word support.

Requires ARCx v8

Speech Recognition by Synthiam

Windows Speech Recognition skill: detect custom phrases via PC mic, trigger configurable scripts/actions with adjustable confidence.

Speech Script by Synthiam

Run custom scripts when speech starts/ends to sync servos and LEDs to spoken $SpeechTxt, with loop support, stop button and logs.

Requires ARC v4

Speech Synthesis by Synthiam

Speak user-defined text via PC audio or EZ-B v4 speaker; configurable voices, effects and speed; uses Windows TTS; programmatically callable.

Speech Synthesis Settings by Synthiam

Configure Windows Audio.say()/Audio.sayEZB() TTS on EZB#0: voice, emphasis, rate, volume, speed/stretch and audio effects; copy control script.

Talk Servo V2 by Synthiam

Animate servos to simulate jaw/mouth with ARC text-to-speech; configurable vowel/consonant timing, start sync, multi-servo control, pause/stop.

Requires ARC v5

Total Speech Recognition by Synthiam

Offline Windows speech recognition with open dictionary, confidence filtering, and scriptable phrase actions for ARC robots

Requires ARC v8

Voice Activity Detection by Synthiam

Real-time microphone VAD using FFT to detect speech start/end and trigger scripts, with live level graph and sensitivity tuning

Requires ARC v9

Voice Activity Detection by Synthiam Inc.

Detects human speech from microphone energy, ignoring noise and robot speech, to trigger scripts or wake speech recognition.

Requires ARCx v6

Watson Speech To Text by ptp

Watson Speech-to-Text ARC plugin: cloud AI transcription with configurable models, selectable VAD (Windows/WebRTC), audio capture and visualization.

Requires ARC v11

Watson Text To Speech by ptp

Human-like audio via IBM Watson Text-to-Speech: multi-language, selectable voices for accessibility and automated interactions. IBM Cloud required.

Requires ARC v4

Windows Speech Engine by Microsoft

Local Windows text-to-speech and speech recognition for ARCx: speak, listen, wake-word detect, and run offline without internet or accounts.

Requires ARCx v8

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