Subject: From: Date:

Re: [ECS] VR LEC1964.aol.com Tue, 8 Sep 1998 14:38:28 EDT

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     Dan,
     I'm sorry that I haven't gotten back to you sooner. I wanted to make
fairly sure that any results that I tell you are repeatable and that there are
no more surprises either in the hardware or software. I also struggled with
whether or not to give an objective evaluation. The results can be very
misleading if the test conditions are not explicitly stated. I suspicion that
most of the voice recognition performance numbers we have all seen are done
under very narrow test conditions. Varying ambient noise conditions, for
example, are and always will a factor.
     Yes, I can get those levels of recognition performance. For example, this
morning I picked up the cordless handset, pushed "intercom", issued 40
commands and had  0 misses. Came back and repeated the test 30 minutes later
in the living room and had 0 misses. I can do the same tests from any area
inside the house or the outside yard areas with just about the same results. I
do get misses, but they are infrequent. The real test, however, will be using
VR regularly in these upcoming weeks and months.
     Right now my Command Set consists of 35 (two to five word) phrases. All
of the Commands are "active", that is, integrated into events. I am not sure
as to how adding to the Command Set, say tripling it, may effect VR
performance. That is one of the things yet to be determined.
     I have also added handset control for VR "on" (wake) and VR "off"
(sleep). Now when I go to "Intercom", using the cordless handset pushbutton,
Voice-Session is set to VR (wake) and when I close "Intercom" Voice-Session is
set to VR (sleep). This was necessary from a practical sense, but it also
improved performance significantly. I now have cabling from the base unit for
audio in and audio out as well as cabling for control signals.
    It's really too early to give a good definitive evaluation, but so far,
the results are good enough to continue adding VR. I also suspicion that VR
will never totally replace the dozen or so X-10 keypads located around my
house but, on the other hand, VR can work in some very special ways.

Larry C.

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