I finally got some time this past weekend to work on something that I find fun... my house! After the holidays, and spending three weeks with the in-laws in Indonesia (and recovering from three weeks with the in-laws in Indonesia), my kid finally spent a day with my parents and the wife was out of the house for most of the day, so I did what any good geek would do... got on the computer (yes, I am a geek).
Over the past couple of weeks, I had dipped my fingers into the pools of getting some 3com Audreys, and lo and behold, I put my name to three of them (although, only two have arrived yet). Of course, I hadn't planned on getting 3, but that's what happens when you put your fingers into too many pools.
So fresh with my Audreys, I managed to flash a compact flash card with the Inifinty Audrey image and put it on the two Audreys (you know, after the regular trials and tribulations of trying to figure out how it's done and running into firewall problems when trying to mount a PC drive on the Audrey). So, the Audreys were ready to go.
On my own PC (more powerful than the free ones I got from friends), I downloaded the HomeSeer 30 day trial software with the UPB and mcsAudrey plugins, and first impression, I love it. With mature UPB support, something MisterHouse
still can't claim, it was easy to setup the lighting and link statuses. Plus, with the mcsAudrey plugin, it was fairly easy to get the Audreys speaking status messages based on HomeSeer events.
Furthermore, I busted out the Fujitsu Stylist ST4110 tablet PC that my father-in-law gave to me over the holidays and installed the HomeSeer speaker client, and as easy as that, I have a voice-recognition client in my bedroom.
I must say, what it took me weeks to accomplish and feel comfortable with in MisterHouse (plus stuff I never even thought of), it took me all of a day to get it up and working with HomeSeer.
Here the questions I now have:
1. Is there a way to get voice recognition on the Audreys? They have output capability, and I know they have microphones on them because you are theoretically able to send emails with voice attachments, so why can't they use the mics for voice recognition similar to what the HomeSeer speaker client does? I understand the HomeSeer speaker client probably parses the sound and sends some info to the HomeSeer server, and Audrey probably doesn't have enough computing power to do that. But the HomeSeer server regularly sends .wav files to Audrey for output, so why can't Audrey record input as .wav files and send it to the HomeSeer server for processing?
2. Is there a way to improve the voice recognition of the speaker client? That is, can I train it to my voice to understand me better?
3. Will I need additional PC's (tablets or otherwise) for additional speaker clients, or is there a way to have wireless microphones (IP mics?) that are connected to the one speaker client I have for voice control in other places around the house?
Well, I'm sure I'll have more questions after spending time with it over the next couple of days, but for now, I can't complain. I'll post these questions on cocoontech and possibly the HomeSeer message boards, and see what answers I can get.
EDIT: It should also be noted that I went to my local Fry's this weekend and asked about the HAL-branded SAI US11-30s (but priced half of standard retail on 11-30s), and there are none in the metroplex. However, they told me there were 8 in Austin and 30 in Houston. I called the Austin Fry's and had them put all 8 on hold for me. Then, I called a buddy in Austin to have him pick them up for me and I can pay him back next time he's up north (Dallas). In any case, it should be noted that there are a lot in Houston still in the stores should anybody feel the need to go down there and get em.
