Voice commands useless unless in pure silent room

runamuck83

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So, I don't know what everyone else's experiences are so far, but I've found using the kinect voice commands to be pretty much useless.

the only time I can get them to possibly work, is when the room is DEAD quiet. No one else can be speaking in another room, there can't be any background noise, and I have to say the commands perfectly like a robot.

ive run through the setup multiple times now thinking I did something wrong, but apparently it just ain't that smart....

my my wife pretty much told me I wasted our money lol
 

runamuck83

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And no, I'm not a troll. I love the damn thing and was waiting for months in bated breath for it. I'm disappointed and maybe that's why I'm venting here... Maybe I'm doing something wrong though
 

MrGoodSmith

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Yesterday when I was trying it. I was testing the console disk player and watching a DVD and tried changing the volume and pausing/resuming the movie with my voice. English is not my native language, yet Xbox One was responding pretty well to my commands even while the movie was running and the room obviously wasn't quite. So I'm pretty sure something wasn't correct on your side.

My only criticism to voice commands is that it's still not yet natural enough. I was expecting the system to be smarter and have far more vocabulary to perform the same tasks. For example I was yelling "Xbox shutdown" and "Xbox off" when actually I had to say"Xbox turn off".
 
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Coreldan

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So, I don't know what everyone else's experiences are so far, but I've found using the kinect voice commands to be pretty much useless.

the only time I can get them to possibly work, is when the room is DEAD quiet. No one else can be speaking in another room, there can't be any background noise, and I have to say the commands perfectly like a robot.

ive run through the setup multiple times now thinking I did something wrong, but apparently it just ain't that smart....

my my wife pretty much told me I wasted our money lol

There's a few possible problems:

1) Room acoustics
2) You could try relocating Kinect and running setup again. Many people say that doing this (while having the TV volume high during setup) has greatly enhanced the outcome if they've had problems
3) User error. Some people might have weird accents, but you also need to remember the other end is a robot, this is not like Siri that you can talk to almost naturally. Remember to leave a pause after the "Xbox" and the command, and remember the command needs to be spot on.
4) Defective Kinect. A lot of people are reporting no problem using the Kinect without "pushing it" like you need to. I would try to troubleshoot other things first, perhaps even take the TV and Xbox to another room to see if it helps.

Yesterday when I was trying it. I was testing the console disk player and watching a DVD and tried changing the volume and pausing/resuming the movie with my voice. English is not my native language, yet Xbox One was responding pretty well to my commands even while the movie was running and the room obviously wasn't quite. So I'm pretty sure something wasn't correct on your side.

The Xbox knows what comes out of the console/TV, thus it can ignore it completely. However when the noise comes from the room, such as kids playing or wife nagging, the Xbox has no way to filter that out as easily.
 

runamuck83

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I will try moving the Kinect to the top of the tv if I can get it to balance up there... Right now its sitting under the tv, but the speakers of the tv are under the tv so maybe that's a problem??
 

MrGoodSmith

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I have my Kinect placed below the recommended 2-feet height, as my TV stand is low. I would love to mount it on top behind the TV as well.
 

jdom

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So, I don't know what everyone else's experiences are so far, but I've found using the kinect voice commands to be pretty much useless.

the only time I can get them to possibly work, is when the room is DEAD quiet. No one else can be speaking in another room, there can't be any background noise, and I have to say the commands perfectly like a robot.

ive run through the setup multiple times now thinking I did something wrong, but apparently it just ain't that smart....

my my wife pretty much told me I wasted our money lol

not true
voice controls work perfectly even with my radio on
 

jdom

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I am sure most of problems you guys are having is because you placed Kinect in the wrong place
mine is on top of my tv and it works perfectly
 

MobileVortex

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i havent had too many troubles, had to repeat a few times, but i blame myself for speaking to quickly... I do hope at some point i can talk more fluently to it.
 

runamuck83

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not true
voice controls work perfectly even with my radio on

Trust me, I wish it did work perfectly but it isn't. I had people over last night and they wanted me to demonstrate it, and it made it look like crap because I had to repeat myself at least 5 times any time I wanted to do anything. They all walked away thinking Kinect is a sales gimmick...

Today, some friends came over and I said I didn't set it up yet so I wouldn't have to go through that again...

I want it to work, and I'm trying to figure out how else to optimize the setup. But the only time I can get it to work well, is if the room is dead silent. If anyone is talking in another room, it doesn't work without repeating commands over and over
 

theeboredone

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Sounds like your Kinect maybe messed up and needs to be exchanged out. I don't agree with Coreldan's potential solution in moving your system to another part of the house. It's unfair for you to move your system to a location, because MS failed to design it for your kind of room.

Which sort of reminds me. My living room and kitchen are openly connected. Not many walls going on...I wonder how Kinect would handle a room like that?
 

runamuck83

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Yes, that is how my house is. The living room and kitchen are very openly connected - and just beyond that is a dining room.
So, my entire first floor is somewhat open. Even if people are in a different room, they're quite audible in the living room. I shouldn't have to rescind myself to the basement to use this thing... That was where my Xbox 360 was... The whole idea for me of getting the One was so I could use it in my living room for all my entertainment... Now one of the major selling points is proving to be a disappointment and I'm just hoping I got it setup wrong... but not sure what else I can do... I can't tell everyone in my house to shut up and go silent anytime I want to "talk to my TV" I might just go back to using a remote...
 

coip

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I have been incredibly impressed with Kinect's voice control commands. I have my Kinect placed atop my TV stand, right in front of the TV, about 6' from the couch. Granted, I don't have any radios blasting or kids running around making a ruckus, so I guess you'd call my apartment reasonably quiet, but I have about a 97% success rate with Kinect's voice commands. It almost always hears me, but I do make an effort to speak in a loud, clear voice. I also made sure to use the speech tutorial beforehand so that I know what commands it can understand. In most situations when I don't know what to say I'll just say "Xbox" and up will pop a list of voice commands. When I want to select something on the screen I say "Xbox, select" and then the subsequent voice commands you can say on the screen will turn green. Very useful, especially the "Xbox, on" and "Xbox, turn off" commands, as well as the "Xbox, go to..." and "Xbox, snap..." commands. So awesome. Sony made a huge mistake by not including the same features into PS4.

I would at least test it out in a more quiet setting if I were you, just to be sure it's the ruckus that's interfering with your ability to use it.
 

Pete

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Using a particular tone and clarity seems to be important for a high success rate. I've taken to talking to kinect as though its a naughty dog.
 

jkidd01

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Yes, that is how my house is. The living room and kitchen are very openly connected - and just beyond that is a dining room.
So, my entire first floor is somewhat open. Even if people are in a different room, they're quite audible in the living room. I shouldn't have to rescind myself to the basement to use this thing... That was where my Xbox 360 was... The whole idea for me of getting the One was so I could use it in my living room for all my entertainment... Now one of the major selling points is proving to be a disappointment and I'm just hoping I got it setup wrong... but not sure what else I can do... I can't tell everyone in my house to shut up and go silent anytime I want to "talk to my TV" I might just go back to using a remote...

I have mine setup right on top of my One, just below the TV. I waited until my heat turned on (it's quite loud and always caused problems with my 360 Kinect) then did the audio setup. Mine works perfectly, I've only had to repeat myself 3 times since I've had it hooked up, including when people were in the room or another room talking. My floor plan is also laid out very open, so even when someone is all the way back in the laundry room they can be heard perfectly audible. I can take a picture of the setup for you if you want to see how it's setup exactly to try and replicate for yourself.
 

Jas00555

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I have about an 85% success rate with Kinect. The only thing that messes up a decent amount is internet explorer. I have mine situated about 7 feet away with an overhead fan running with the Kinect on top of my Xbox. I'm very impressed with it.
 

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