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Voice controll .. UBI or Fibaro speakers


alandee

Question

So I'd like to easily integrate some responsive voice control into my HA system. I'm liking the look of UBI

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but I'm guessing the functionality will be similar to the Fibaro speakers recently rolled out. I think the integration of Fibaro will be easier, and I don't really need the lux, temp and pressure of UBI, and the cost is pretty high for the UBI once I take in US/AUD conversions and reshipping so I'm guessing the Fibaro will be a better fit, but I can't find any information on a firm release date, if they will be available in Australia, and what they actually do so I can start saving for a house load of them ..

Would anyone from Fibaro want to give just a hint to the above so I can make an informed decision ? After all if i was able to be at the show where they were launched I would have asked the same questions !

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/emoticons/default_smile.png" alt=":)" srcset="https://forum.fibaro.com/uploads/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> Also would have quizzed you on the intercom ..

Anyone else have any info to add either option or alternatives ?

Cheers,

al.

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  • Inquirer
  • Mad-Cat, Echo looks pretty cool too .. neater form than UBI for sure, and with a 7 mic array should be able to hear pretty clearly. nice one.

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    Mad-Cat, Echo looks pretty cool too .. neater form than UBI for sure, and with a 7 mic array should be able to hear pretty clearly. nice one.

    love to see an api for it to control fibaro. and a plug in to use the speaker. would be a nicer version of sonos at the same time i would think

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    Take a look at S.A.R.A.H. It's open source, you can use whatever mic you want, although Kinect isthe best and most affordable mic to use. It's in French, but I have translated the Fibaro HC2 plugin to english if anyone is interested to use it.

    Here's how it looks like in action (of course there's more plugins to use, this is only Fibaro)

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    It's all in French though. I have translated the HC2 plugin to English (don't think we can get it in dutch due to speech recognition from Microsoft)

    The installation is quite straightforward if you've done it once. There's more info here:

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    If you need help setting it up, just tell me. I'm dutch too, so even easier.

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    /emoticons/default_smile.png" alt=":)" srcset="https://forum.fibaro.com/uploads/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

    BTW, I see you have hue too. For some reason the plugin made by Fibaro hogs up major resources and can't really find another good virtual device here. Which one do you use?

    Also with hue and XBMC I found this

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    to be really cool!!!

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  • Inquirer
  • Tekvibes, SARAH looks great! can you pm me the english version you've translated ?

    U5tabil, Jibo .. if my wife or daughters see that Lilli will be unemployed !

    Cheers,

    al.

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    I'll just post it here, it's easier:

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    You have to have S.A.R.A.H. installed first though, see my post above

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    He here,

    I was folowing z-wave india. the have a new Iplay version (box)

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    or

    the work with fibaro and BleuTooth.

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  • remcoploeg, Still floating around the twitterverse a few months ago, so not gone, just forgotten i think ..

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    /emoticons/default_smile.png" alt=":)" srcset="https://forum.fibaro.com/uploads/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

    hanging out for just a smidge more information though, along with the intercom.

    Just looking at the dates though, that was pretty much shortly after they were announced so yeah, nar, nothing .. forgotten and moved on after that 5 minutes of excitement ..

    Cheers,

    al.

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    So I'd like to easily integrate some responsive voice control into my HA system. I'm liking the look of UBI

    Please login or register to see this link.

    but I'm guessing the functionality will be similar to the Fibaro speakers recently rolled out. I think the integration of Fibaro will be easier, and I don't really need the lux, temp and pressure of UBI, and the cost is pretty high for the UBI once I take in US/AUD conversions and reshipping so I'm guessing the Fibaro will be a better fit, but I can't find any information on a firm release date, if they will be available in Australia, and what they actually do so I can start saving for a house load of them ..

    Would anyone from Fibaro want to give just a hint to the above so I can make an informed decision ? After all if i was able to be at the show where they were launched I would have asked the same questions !

    Please login or register to see this image.

    /emoticons/default_smile.png" alt=":)" srcset="https://forum.fibaro.com/uploads/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> Also would have quizzed you on the intercom ..

    Anyone else have any info to add either option or alternatives ?

    Cheers,

    al.

     

    What did you decide in the end?

     

    Up until recently I had 5 UBIs but only 3 installed. I can now say I finally have all 5 UBIs up and running.

     

    They integrate just fine with the HC2. Anything you can do with the http api can be done via UBI including running scenes from voice commands.

     

    UBI also uses RegEx so you can create "smarter" voice activation commands which works well so that you don't have to train everyone on how to turn a light on or off.

     

    In the end I use them to turn lights on/off, open/close blinds and windows. The most useful place in the bedroom - where laziness is at it's max.

     

    I want to use them for heating, but am using the HC2 heating panel which I believe limits my ability to change the temp without the panel just overriding it... Maybe there is a way now to do that whilst using the heating panel, but I don't know about it.

     

    IFTTT integration to UBI is useful and I have around 7-8 daily reminders for my 1 year old son e.g. it's breakfast time, it's time for your nap, it's time for your bath. He loves it. I seriously think his first word will be UBI... it kind of is. He calls them anything from UGI to UDI... he's struggling with pronouncing the "B".

     

    Cheers

    Aleks

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  • What did you decide in the end?

     

    Up until recently I had 5 UBIs but only 3 installed. I can now say I finally have all 5 UBIs up and running.

     

    They integrate just fine with the HC2. Anything you can do with the http api can be done via UBI including running scenes from voice commands.

     

    UBI also uses RegEx so you can create "smarter" voice activation commands which works well so that you don't have to train everyone on how to turn a light on or off.

     

    In the end I use them to turn lights on/off, open/close blinds and windows. The most useful place in the bedroom - where laziness is at it's max.

     

    I want to use them for heating, but am using the HC2 heating panel which I believe limits my ability to change the temp without the panel just overriding it... Maybe there is a way now to do that whilst using the heating panel, but I don't know about it.

     

    IFTTT integration to UBI is useful and I have around 7-8 daily reminders for my 1 year old son e.g. it's breakfast time, it's time for your nap, it's time for your bath. He loves it. I seriously think his first word will be UBI... it kind of is. He calls them anything from UGI to UDI... he's struggling with pronouncing the "B".

     

    Cheers

    Aleks

    Sounds great ! I'm still hoping that the vapourware comes to fruition. I liked the look of the Fibaro speaker, but I have begun looking very closely at Jibo. Once I get some time to get into the Jibo dev api i'll probably jump into a couple of them... assuming again that they are released into Au in a timely manner ..

    I just want the functionality and the wow/waffle factor is a bonus. Just starting to get a little fed up with tablets .. my wife would be happy with a couple of clap lamps like we used to have in our younger days

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    /emoticons/default_smile.png" alt=":)" srcset="https://forum.fibaro.com/uploads/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

     

    UBI is still my fall back though, and sincere thanks for the info, I'm sure I'll be leaning heavily on someone ( you ) if I get them

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    /emoticons/default_smile.png" alt=":)" srcset="https://forum.fibaro.com/uploads/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

     

    Oh and our kids are in their 20's .. I'm pretty sure they would be saying ubi more than just about anything else too .. ubi when is my next lecture .. ubi where is the closest pub .. ubi, what is the old man cooking for tea .. you get the picture !

     

    Cheers,

    al.

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    aleks,
    how did you do your voice activated automation?

     
     

     

    moved from this thread: 

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    I have implemented voice automation by using UBI voice activated computers. I am not sure if you know anything about them. You can read more here: 

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    For integration with the HC2 you can use voice commands to kick off anything supported by the API e.g. turn on/off, start scene, change value of a device. You can also get the HC2 to kick off a voice announcement from the UBI for both pre-determined and on the fly messages and you can interrogate the UBIs 5 sensors… this is my next project. To create VD’s and/or scenes that collects info from my UBIs and uses them in my HC2 scenes.

     

     

    I started with using voice commands to control the HC2. To do this you need to set up lessons (a little but like setting up an IFTTT recipe).

     

     

    An example that I have created is for closing a window in a room (but you can see that this can be extrapolated to controlling any device connected to your HC2)

     

     

    In creating a lesson you need to setup an utterance i.e. what you need to say to get the UBI to identify that you are asking it to do something. and then you need to setup the command to send to the HC2 to actually do that thing.

     

     

    For the first part I started with setting up simple fixed commands like “close the window”. You find pretty quickly that teaching people how to close a window with a fixed command doesn’t always work, so with help form UBI support I learnt to set up a RegEx (regular expression) which enables multiple forms of voice input to initiate a lesson, for example the RegEx below will support many different ways of requesting that a window be closed. If you paste the example into a RegEx editor you can then test all of the possible outcomes that match the expression:

     

     

    "(please )?((shut )|(close )?)((all )?(of )?)(the )?(window(s)?)(( shut)|( close)?)( please)?"

     

     

    A list of some examples (there are many more for the above) of possible utterances that will match the above RegEx are:

     

     

    please close window

     

    close window

     

    close the window

     

    shut window

     

    shut the window

     

    shut all of the windows

     

    window close

     

    window close please

     

    window shut

     

     

    And of course you can expand on this RegEx to support any common requests that you find are made to close a window. For now, the above expression satisfies all of my standard requests.

     

     

    For the second part you then use the API to send a command to shut the window, for example:

     

     

    "

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    The possibilities are limited by the HC2 API and your imagination. I have a good morning scene (like a lot of people on this forum 

    Please login or register to see this image.

    /emoticons/default_smile.png" alt=":)" srcset="https://forum.fibaro.com/uploads/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> but rather than pressing a wall switch I say to the UBI on my bedside table:

     

     

    "Ok UBI" + "Good Morning"

     

     

    But because I have written the lesson using RegEx I can say anything I want as long as the words "good" and "morning" are heard, and a scene will be run which turns on a light for a bit and then opens two blinds in my bedroom and then finally turns the light off. Next I am going to add music so that some relaxing tunes start up a few minutes later (I really need get playlists to work with Krikroff’s Sonos VD!) … anything to help me get out of bed.

     

     

    TBH, right now I am far more excited about HTTPS in v4. I just found out about it today. It means that I can get my UBIs to announce things based on triggers within the HC2. Initial testing produced some lags, but after an hour or so it's been very responsive i.e. within 1-2 seconds max – faster than my Sonos TTS (which seems to take up to 10 seconds) by a country mile! I am not sure yet why the responsiveness improved, but it's only been about 8 hours of testing, so time will tell.

     

     

    I have just implemented a set of UBI announcements when air filters are turned on or off or when they have 1 minute left to run on a scene. I have a list of other announcements I want to implement 

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    /emoticons/default_smile.png" alt=":)" srcset="https://forum.fibaro.com/uploads/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />  

     

     

    With the UBI there are a tonne of other things you can do. I have seven daily reminders that blurt across the house for my 13 month old son… Starting with breakfast in the morning to his bath and bed time at night. He loves them. His first word may actually be UBI. Right now he says ODI; he’s struggling with the b’s. There’s integration with lots of other things like Google calendar, Sonos, Nest, Smart Things, Wemo, Harmony remote, IFTTT and so on ….

     

     

    I hope that gives you a starting point as to how I did it. The actual implementation is a tad more complex, but the above covers the basics of how I ended up where I am.

     

    As with the HC2 it was all very cutting edge when I implemented it and there is a lot to learn about what actually works for voice commands (and voice announcements) versus the seemingly limitless things that just don't work. It will be interesting to look back in a year and see what actually sticks, for instance 8 hours after implementing this announcement:

     

    "The air filter in the office is now off"

     

    I can see that it won't last, but I'm pretty sure these will:

     

    "All air filters in the house will turn off in 1 minute"
    "The lighting has been adjusted and the TV is ready to use"

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    I just found about about this today: 

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    It looks like another way of adding voice interaction into your home automation setup.


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    Unfortunately every review I have ever found on this product is not good.

     

    I did just receive my Amazon Echo and it is working perfectly.

    Instantaneous response so far.

    I have setup my Hue bulbs on the device and now I just say "Alexa Lights On" and the turn on almost instantly.

    'She' then responds with an "OK". 

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    I think people have grand expectations of what a version 1.0 product should do and how it should work. 

     

    If you are sitting within a couple of metres of it and you speak clearly then it works well. I am planning to use it more to make announcements rather than interact with it to trigger events. In my testing so far there is a limited number of events that work well with voice activation, voice announcements on the other hand so far seem to be more appealing.

     

    Also the UBIKit sounds very promising. You can add your own microphone and use existing speakers. 

     

    I am interested to see how you go with the Echo. I heard it is a closed ecosystem, so how are you intending on integrating it with the HC2?

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