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Voice commands on convention floor
Anyone has experience with voice commands in the floor of a public event? I'm afraid noise is going to render them useless.
Best Answers
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james_ashley
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The directional microphones are specifically trying to find your mouth and have other noise reduction techniques that ignore external crowds. It depends on the setting, of course, but it'll also be much better than you think. Definitely do some tests to settle your concerns.
James Ashley
VS 2017 v5.3.3, Unity 2017.3.0f3, MRTK 2017.1.2, W10 17063
Microsoft MVP, Freelance HoloLens/MR Developer
www.imaginativeuniversal.com5 -
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mark_grossnickle
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It works best in loud/open public areas if you hold your hand up in front of your mouth so the audio bounces off of your hand and back to the device.
Taqtile
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HoloSheep
mod
@Karlos
My experience with using and showing the devices in exhibit floor type environments is that the keyword recognition works amazingly well.Every once in a while you will get someone with an accent that gives the keyword recognizer a little hassle, and you many find yourself becoming a speech coach, but as @james_ashley points out, 2 of the 4 mics are specifically focused on the mouth of the user and the other 2 are sampling the environment to perform awesome recognition and background noise cancellation.
The one problem that we did have with the noise in the exhibit floor space was not with voice commands, but with the audio output. The speakers over each ear work okay in low noise environments but are lacking when it comes to noisy ones. Do not plan demos for public events that rely heavily on the user being able to clearly hear the audio. If things get really loud in the environment I have found the speakers just don't put out enough volume to compensate even when the volume is turned up to max.
Cupping your hands over your ears does help a little, but doesn't turn out to be a very good or effective demo strategy or experience for the user.
HTH.
Windows Holographic User Group Redmond
WinHUGR.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - @WinHUGR
WinHUGR YouTube Channel -- live streamed meetings5
Answers
@Karlos,
The directional microphones are specifically trying to find your mouth and have other noise reduction techniques that ignore external crowds. It depends on the setting, of course, but it'll also be much better than you think. Definitely do some tests to settle your concerns.
James Ashley
VS 2017 v5.3.3, Unity 2017.3.0f3, MRTK 2017.1.2, W10 17063
Microsoft MVP, Freelance HoloLens/MR Developer
www.imaginativeuniversal.com
That was my understanding and so far the tests in a controlled environment worked pretty well ( even with one syllable commands ).
It works best in loud/open public areas if you hold your hand up in front of your mouth so the audio bounces off of your hand and back to the device.
Taqtile
@Karlos
My experience with using and showing the devices in exhibit floor type environments is that the keyword recognition works amazingly well.
Every once in a while you will get someone with an accent that gives the keyword recognizer a little hassle, and you many find yourself becoming a speech coach, but as @james_ashley points out, 2 of the 4 mics are specifically focused on the mouth of the user and the other 2 are sampling the environment to perform awesome recognition and background noise cancellation.
The one problem that we did have with the noise in the exhibit floor space was not with voice commands, but with the audio output. The speakers over each ear work okay in low noise environments but are lacking when it comes to noisy ones. Do not plan demos for public events that rely heavily on the user being able to clearly hear the audio. If things get really loud in the environment I have found the speakers just don't put out enough volume to compensate even when the volume is turned up to max.
Cupping your hands over your ears does help a little, but doesn't turn out to be a very good or effective demo strategy or experience for the user.
HTH.
Windows Holographic User Group Redmond
WinHUGR.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - @WinHUGR
WinHUGR YouTube Channel -- live streamed meetings
Not that you want to share them around, but a set of earbuds plugged into the headphone jack does work very well in those noisy environments. People often forget there is a headphones jack. Earbuds are generally the way to go since it's harder to get the over the ear type to work with the HoloLens...
That would probably be me!