Hey Cortana is a joke..

[husam2277]

I'm one of the most enthusiasm people about voice recognition and artificial intelligence and I was waiting for always listening Cortana for months. I think the future is most about artificial intelligence.
Yesterday I got the chance to have hey cortana on my lumia 1520 and I can say one thing, It is useless. It recognize hey cortana once in 20 times. It is really bad experience. Bad recognition even in quite room. Hey cortana is a feature that suppose to make life easier, imagine a situation while you driving and just say hey cortana in a natural way and your phone immediately response and you tell cortana to call someone on speakerphone. But currently hey cortana is many times worse and less efficient than holding your phone by your hand and make tasks in the usual way.

 

[theefman]

Provide feedback to that effect to Microsoft.

 

[RumoredNow]

Let me guess... You have an Asian variant of 1520, flashed to a Finland ROM and region changed to what, the US? UK? Speaking a second or third language with an accent? Bet you are invested in P4D as well...

I hardly think that is an optimal test.

​I'm going to add a grain of salt to your review.

 

[naeem151287]

I have no problems with Hey Cortana. I am an Indian with speech and location set to English UK and it works fine for me. I would say that I don't have a heavy Indian accent, so that probably makes things easier.

 

[aximtreo]

Let me guess... You have an Asian variant of 1520, flashed to a Finland ROM and region changed to what, the US? UK? Speaking a second or third language with an accent? Bet you are invested in P4D as well...

I hardly think that is an optimal test.


​I'm going to add a grain of salt to your review.

Brass ones my boy. I love it.

 

[husam2277]

Let me guess... You have an Asian variant of 1520, flashed to a Finland ROM and region changed to what, the US? UK? Speaking a second or third language with an accent? Bet you are invested in P4D as well...

I hardly think that is an optimal test.

​I'm going to add a grain of salt to your review.

I have a German variant and flashed the Finnish rom and this normal and should not affect the testing, different variants of rom differs only in very minor additions (some region specific apps) and branding and some minor settings like the availability of the google search in IE.
I set the region and language to US as I do always since 4 years of using WP. English is my second speaking language but I rarely have problems making Cortana recognize what I say. so why could this be a problem to just recognize "Hey Cortana", add to this that Cortana listened to me saying "Hey Cortana" many times before I can activate the feature. So the accent shouldn't be a problem.
So I think it is an optimal test scenario. hope to listen for more reviews.

I have no problems with Hey Cortana. I am an Indian with speech and location set to English UK and it works fine for me. I would say that I don't have a heavy Indian accent, so that probably makes things easier.

Hey Cortana respond always with no problems? Good for you. maybe I will try to change the region and language to UK.

 

[RumoredNow]

Firstly, I'll withdraw the comment about you maybe having an accent. I don't want anyone taking that the wrong way. I'm sure you are very competent in English.
__________

German model, flashed Finish ROM, changed Region to US on unoptimized P4D software...

Yeah. Those are lab conditions. My mistake.

 

[husam2277]

Firstly, I'll withdraw the comment about you maybe having an accent. I don't want anyone taking that the wrong way. I'm sure you are very competent in English.
__________

German model, flashed Finish ROM, changed Region to US on unoptimized P4D software...

Yeah. Those are lab conditions. My mistake.

No offence here, I am just saying my experience. No problem about what you said about my accent as it is my second language, the case is just that Cortana usually recognize my talk. you may see the test not optimal and you maybe right but according to my thinking and knowledge I see it optimal. that's why we discuss our different point f views.

 

[th34monk3ys]

Actually it is probably his accent. Let me explain!

When people bought dragon software for their pc, the speech was set for English speaking, all very well for uk! However the American and Canadian buddies who speak English do not have the same accuracy levels out of uk edition even though speaking English.

The reason why is the microphone picks up different waves for how words are pronounced in the setup, English will summarise different to summarize for American but mean same thing. Kind of like tomata, tomato! So Cortana will look for the hey Cortana in uk setting style, when you train it it puts near matches to their algorithm to hey Cortana.

Maybe this is your problem.

 

[mathsisbest]

Yeah your accent is not optimised for the microphone. Change your accent.

 

[EspHack]

what can I say... cortana is likely to be a hit or miss most of the time, it surprises me though that she ALWAYS understand "disable quiet hours" no matter what conditions, I can barely understand myself talking at 2am or after waking up early, and last time I was on a crowded mall with people talking to me and it actually shows completely wrong words when processing but gets it right at the end, I wish everything was that easy

 

[anon(8141431)]

Did you train Cortana to understand your normal voice?

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Since Hey Cortana happens before Cortana gets involved, I can imagine how Cortana could understand perfectly but whatever interprets the sounds for "hey Cortana" might not. It even seems likely to me. I mean if the whole voice recognition engine was being applied to every sound near the phone to see if the sound was "hey Cortana", the battery drain would be huge. It's probably a simpler more rudimentary check and therefore more likely to make a mistake.

 

[emiel1976]

I am from the Netherlands and my main language is Dutch and my English s not that good as it was.
I tried Cortana just to see how it worked and he recognized everything without any problem. I was very surprised because I tried it also in Android and there it did not work that well. That was the reason why I was skeptical about it but Cortana did just great.
I hope that there comes a Dutch version soon.

 

[a5cent]

Since Hey Cortana happens before Cortana gets involved, I can imagine how Cortana could understand perfectly but whatever interprets the sounds for "hey Cortana" might not. It even seems likely to me. I mean if the whole voice recognition engine was being applied to every sound near the phone to see if the sound was "hey Cortana", the battery drain would be huge. It's probably a simpler more rudimentary check and therefore more likely to make a mistake.

100 points for this contestant!

"Hey Cortana" is NOT Cortana. The former is based on the voice recognition engine made by Qualcomm. The later is 100% MS. They are not the same software. One has nothing to do with the other... except the name, and the fact that "Hey Cortana" is the launcher for "Cortana".

 

[husam2277]

Anyone still believe that "hey Cortana" is actually working most of the time? for me (after the final official denim) it is still doesn't.

 

[peachy001]

I don't have denim. But I am on the developer preview. I find Cortana really slow. Sometimes I don't even get any results. Bing search works far better.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Anyone still believe that "hey Cortana" is actually working most of the time? for me (after the final official denim) it is still doesn't.

I absolutely believe you if you say it doesn't work for you most of the time. But I have zero reason to believe that would be true for others. If someone else says it works for them almost all the time, would you call them a lier or on the other side of the coin think that means Hey Cortana works for everyone? You are one data point.

 

[EspHack]

after using it on a cheap 17" laptop I realized how important is the actual hardware for it to work, we normally take it for granted on our phones since they are.. after all... "phones" they should have best in class audio, but that doesn't apply to other devices, im not saying the mighty 1520 has bad mics, but maybe this one isn't that good... you should check that, record a message and then compare it to another phone, preferably a similar lumia too

after trying it on my main computer(a desktop one) "hey cortana" works even when im in the bathroom, with 2 fans on in the room(don't ask) and music on

 

[Daniel Olsen]

Really cause mine has worked 98% of the time and I LOVE it