Microsoft Releases Voice Command 1.6 for Smartphone

[dornier]

[rfsmithsr]

Ti-Will

Yes. Leave the Dash in my shirt pocket. Make and receive calls.

[dornier]

[chsong]

The much hyped native BT support is a non-starter with the above Smartphone.

Anyone have similar experiences?

[joshbish]

[chsong]

I purchased my copy a few days ago from Handango for the Samsung i320 Smartphone.

Problems Include:

1.) Native Bluetooth Support is NOT working properly. I get the prompt to record but somehow my voice is not being picked up by the BT headset's mic.

2.) Announcement of names on incoming calls and messages. Worked only once and not any more.

3.) Announcement of Reminders on Calendar. Not working

Problem is that being a Microsoft product, it is not even searchable on Microsoft's website!!

Save your $40 bucks and wait for a month or two longer for them to work out the bugs.

[orgwizard]

So, I got tired of waiting for someone to try it out on the SDA and put up a review, so I went ahead and took the plunge. And here are my thoughts so far...

My Equipment: T-Mobile SDA Running the Imate firmware. Plantronics Voyager 510.

Installation

Fairly straight forward. It's true that you have no choice but to install it into main memory. You get to the screen to choose the install location, but it doesn't let you change it. Another unusual thing, is apparently the program requires a reboot to actually take over the voice dial functionality from the OS, though at the end of the install, it doesn't tell you to reboot. It's interesting, you can tell that that the voice command is kind of jumping in on top of or right after the built in voice dial software, because it starts off with the normal beep and then the one for the voice command program.

Voice Recognition

So, I've tried it in my house under quiet conditions and it seems to do a nice job of recognizing the contact I was looking for. In addition, I also did some tests this morning on my way to work, at about 70mph in my not so quiet car. Though I had to speak up, it again did a good job of recognizing the contact I was looking for. One interesting thing to note, if you use Outlook like I do, I guess voice command wants you to speak the full name to find the right contact. On the plus side, you can do what I did and assign nicknames to the contacts you call most often, or all of them if you feel so inclined. This allows voice command to find the contact by that nickname rather than having to say the full name. Something interesting about it though, is while the recognition is good over the headset, when I tried the same tests using just the phone's built in mic, the recognition was less than accurate. Actually, it was pretty bad. I looked in the troubleshooting documents, and there were some references to adjusting the mic or turning off some gain control, but I wasn't able to find any settings in the program or in the SDA config that would allow me to adjust he Mic.
It's nice that you can also choose how to dial, by either just saying call whoever and waiting for it to tell you which numbers are available (ie mobile, work, etc), or you can just do the quick dial method of saying call whoever at work or mobile, etc. It's nice flexibility to have.
I've also played with the calendar features a little bit, and I guess it could come in handy to ask the phone to tell you what your upcoming appointments are.

Announcements

This one has been somewhat interesting. I've been through the settings several times and can't seem to figure out how to get it to announce the person calling through the bluetooth headset. For some reason, it does however announce it through the phone, as if the speaker phone was on. The announcement comes between the regular ringtone on the phone, but not on the headphone, though I do still get the regular ringtone through the headset. My calendar reminders on the other hand actually do play through the headset, so I'm not quite sure what needs to change.

Volume

This is worth discussing briefly. Though I have my headset turned up all the way, and the 510 is plenty loud, the announcements as well as the repeat of your contact selection doesn't come through very loud, and I've not found a way to adjust this. What this meant was in loud environments I was having trouble hearing the commands or announcments when in my car.

General Performance

Maybe it's because I have several apps installed on my phone or the fact that it only left me with around 4mb of storage space, but the phone does at times take a few seconds to prompt me that it's ready for me to speak. It's usually after the phone's been sitting around unused for a while though, and not every time. That's the most significant performance hit that I've noticed, so it's very tolerable, since it does eventually beep to let you know it's ready for you to speak.

Is it worth it?

I've not used the other tools much and still haven't delved into all the features and available voice commands, but this program adds the one feature I've been waiting for. I can now initiate a phone call using my bluetooth headset. I've tried the built in OS voice recognition and this program is still quite an improvement, especially since I don't have to prerecord the names of my contacts. It's a bit pricey, and not perfect, but it's does the voice recognition over bluetooth well, so for me it's still worth the $40.

I'm still going to test the program on my wife's phone, which doesn't have the imate firmware and doesn't have as many additional apps running as mine does. I'm also looking forward to trying this out on or hearing from someone else who tries the software when attached to a car hands free system.

Hope this helps those of you who might be on the edge of buying. I'm sure there will probably be another update soon that will fix some of the little quirks of the program, but for now it still works well. Let me know if you have any questions.

[chsong]

Thanks for the great post. I tried a Jabra BT speaker phone and I could hear the beep request (albeit very soft) from VC after pressing the speaker phone's button. However, my voice is not being picked up by its mic.

Seems like this software works with some BT models and not others. Could those who have it working share which BT headsets are working?

Thanks in advance.

[ebadger]

[jimfee]

Has anybody installed the app on mutiple devices?, I would go the 39.99 if I can install it on the wife's SMT5600 as well as my 8100. Don't want to get locekd to one install per download. Don't particularly care to patronize Handango but then Smartphone Thoughts partner store doesn't seem to have this yet

EDIT: Never mind, I see that Handango lists the two versions on separate pages. I should have known that I would need to buy two licensed copies, what was I thinking,