voicerecog

Bluetooth headsets could turn out to be the most widely available interface for speaking to the computer, so we wanted to do some tests to see if the demos that came with Sphinx-4 would work with a headset.

One useful thing to note is that I had to jump through some hoops to get the Bluetooth headset to pair with my Powerbook G4 that I purchased in 2003. Basically, I had to update my bluetooth software AND FIRMWARE for it to be able to pair with the NOKIA HDW-3 headset that we wanted to use. Dig into the Apple forums here and here for useful tips on this update process.

Once you have the headset paired with the computer, change your line-in settings in System Preferences / Sound to your bluetooth headset so that the computer is listening through the headset instead of its internal mic.

I tested several of the demo applications from Sphinx-4 with the Bluetooth headset and the mic built in to the laptop with very similar results. Neither input achieves total accuracy with the demos, but both are frequently recognizable by the computer. I’m not sure how to run the diagnostic applications yet to compare exactly what the difference is, but both seem to work to some degree. There’s something I don’t understand yet with the timing of when the computer is actually listening in the demos, so that is something to look into.