Windows 8 phone voice recognition

Brett May

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Dec 21, 2012
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I have tried out the windows 8 phone. Both the 810 and 822 lumia models. I have found that not only did they less accurately transcribe my voice compared to both the Samsung galaxy 3 and the iPhone five--it also did not pick up on basic commands like inserting a (,) rather than spelling the word comma. Has anyone been disappointed in these features and lack of accuracy. I'm interested in other people's thoughts on the subject. I heard Microsoft was supposed to have a really good voice recognition system. Is there something I'm missing?
 

iamtim

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Nov 12, 2012
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The only time WP8 has messed up my voice recognition was when I asked my brother, over SYNC with the windows down, "Brother, do you have any George Thorogood?" It came out as, "There, do you have any George Thoreau good?" (Interestingly, he replied with "Here, I do have some George Thoreau. Good.")

Other than that, it's been perfect. I have learned that if I'm VRing text messages with multiple sentences, I need to speak one sentence, let it recognize it, and speak another when it asks if I want to add more. I haven't gotten it to understand explicit punctuation, but implied punctuation (like, it knows when to use a period or question mark at the end of a sentence) and word recognition itself has been top notch; way better than what was on the T-Mobile G3, the Samsung Captivate, and the Google Nexus 7.

I've never had an iPhone with Siri, but it's heads and tails above the various iOS Dragon Dictation apps.
 

brmiller1976

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TellMe is a speak-and-go system, Siri and "S-Voice" are more gimmicks.

I use TellMe when I drive, to read text messages over the Bluetooth system and allow me to reply. I don't use voice for "complex transactions," since those are mostly gimmicks with little or no practical function.

I'd much rather have TellMe-style stuff than have to install Vlingo on an Android and get it to work correctly, or deal with all of Siri's problems with Bluetooth.
 

philxor

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It's worked very well for me, I was able to compose a decently long email the other day while in the car and it only screwed up like one word...

TellMe was a company that did voice automation, started quite awhile ago. They used to handle IVR for many large businesses like most of the airlines. MS bought them 4-5 years ago and have recently reused the term to cover all of their voice recognition products using the technology acquired.
 

anthonyng

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I was trying to voice dictate text message and found it not that great. I've also tried using it while driving while it was mounted about 6 inches away from me and the results weren't so good. I guess I talk funny?

I don't know, I haven't really found a time to be able to go and really use it I guess. Not that natural a feeling for me.
 

eshy

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TellMe is a speak-and-go system, Siri and "S-Voice" are more gimmicks.

Siri is an NLP app, it doesn't do voice recognition. The voice recognition itself is done by Nuance (so it's the same as the Dragon apps) and siri takes that and tries to understand what you wanted. Natural Language Processing is about allowing you to speak naturally to the app instead of having to know the commands that are pre-programmed in it.
That idea has potential but Apple decided to use it for marketing instead of making it great.

The real problem with siri is that it's only good for what's built into it and 3rd parties can't tie into it. This is where WP8 is far better than others, any app developer can add voice commands to their app and it's very easy to do it. That means the limited set of functions Microsoft came up with, like texting while driving, calling people, etc. will be added to without Microsoft having to do anything.
 

Rico

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For barking commands and short responses to texts, it's top notch with excellent recognition and easily more functional than anything I've used on android or Siri. It's not so great on dictating emails, as there's no way to add punctuation from what I can tell. Siri is the best here, but personally I can't see many circumstances where I'd be dictating an email versus tapping it out. Personally, I'm loving the ability for developers to plug into the speech API. Being able to tell Hey DJ to "surprise me" by playing a random track, or Cocktail Flow to give me a specific drink by saying "Cocktail Flow" and then the name of the drink is truly useful. I'm just waiting for someone to come up with an app called remind me that would make reminders similar to what's on iOS and Android.
 

Brett May

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So overall it sounds like most people are pretty happy with the Microsoft Windows phone 8 voice recognition. I even went back into a crowded Apple Store yesterday and tested voice features with Siri and was surprised how accurate it was even amongst the cacophony of noises. I wonder if there is something particular about my voice that is anti-Microsoft. It made me upset that even in a quiet room the Windows phones I tried could not accurately transcribe what I was saying. I'm using Dragon NaturallySpeaking on my computer right now and it seems to understand me just fine. Thank you to everybody for your input :)
 

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