Microphones for Cortana

[Bobvfr]

Was playing about with Cortana last night (We get on pretty well), but 2 things spoilt the ambience.

1 When I said "Hey Cortana" my phone and SP3 chimed in as well as the Cortana who lives in my PC.

2 I was struck by the amount of background noise, it's summer so had the windows open, traffic noise, the TV etc.

So I am thinking I should sort this out before Cortana pops up on my Xbox One (In same room and working well on voice commands via Kinect) and maybe turning Cortana off on the SP3 unless I take it out of the flat.

And then I looked at what for me is the forgotten aspect of input on a PC, the microphone. I was originally using a Kinect on my PC and the mic worked fine, but changed to a small HP web cam with built in mic, typically this sits on top of my 27inch monitor and would be about 2ft away from where I speak, and above (So slightly looking down).

When a mic is further away it has to pick up more background noise to compensate. So I dug out my Skype headset a Microsoft LX3000.

All of a sudden she was all mine, hanging on my every word and not putting a foot wrong.

But I don't really want my nights with Cortana spoiled by wearing something over my head.................

What microphones do you use? Have you had to adapt or change what you started with to accommodate Cortana in your life?

 

[Chintan Gohel]

as a side note, there was an article where the next development with cortana would be where each device is listening but only one responds based on the context of the query instead of all devices responding as happened with yours

 

[Bobvfr]

I think they need to consider Geo-fencing so you could set Cortana on the more mobile devices to come on or turn off dependant on how far away you are from say your PC, but how far is far.

If I am only 10 feet away but in a different room with my Surface, I want it to respond, not think, ho well its only 10 ft, yet the same 10 foot in my lounge every device could respond, tricky one.

But I do think a good microphone will help a lot so I will go shopping this week and get a desktop mic and see how we get on.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

I think they need to consider Geo-fencing so you could set Cortana on the more mobile devices to come on or turn off dependant on how far away you are from say your PC, but how far is far.

If I am only 10 feet away but in a different room with my Surface, I want it to respond, not think, ho well its only 10 ft, yet the same 10 foot in my lounge every device could respond, tricky one.

But I do think a good microphone will help a lot so I will go shopping this week and get a desktop mic and see how we get on.

geo fencing could work but the issue is GPS isn't accurate. I think the best accuracy is about 30 feet and even more if inside a building. Probably wouldn't also work if some devices don't have GPS built in like laptops and desktops - don't know about xbox

 

[Bobvfr]

I went shopping yesterday and bought a desktop "Pro sound" USB 2.0 HQ podcast/vocal Microphone from a shop called Maplin for ?30.

This is much less sensitive than my web cam mic, firstly this means much less background noise is picked up, secondly it cuts out music when you say Hey Cortana so again cuts out background noise, thirdly because it sits much nearer when I do give Cortana a command she picks it up instantly, but only if I am sitting at my desk (So no shouting across the room). A much better experience all round, and Skype works well although I still have a headset that I can use as well.

It did take a bit of work in control panel as both the new mic and the HDMI camera wanted to be the microphone, so I had to disable one.

I am going to move my SP3 to the side of my comfy chair so that should cut down on cross device issues and I retrained Cortana on both my SP3 and 950XL to be less sensitive (Saying Hey Cortana with less volume so now unless I work hard at it I only get the device I want responding.

All of this could of course go out of the window when Cortana comes to the Xbox One :wink: