Essential Install | Voice Recognition
Speak And Sell!
Customers are increasingly using voice interfaces as a hands-free
way to manage their lives. All predictions are that this is only just the
beginning. EI reports.
Martin Ellis,
Pulse-Eight’s
managing director
56 | July 2017
Martin Ellis, managing director of Pulse-Eight, says that
when talking about voice control, there are two core
variants, ‘local voice’ or ‘cloud voice’.
Martin explains: “Local voice is something unique to
that product or brand (for example Sky Q). Cloud voice
is one of the emerging services from, Google, Amazon,
Microsoft and Apple – these platforms are far more
generic and allow for multiple devices to interact with one
another under a common standard.
“Pulse-Eight is not planning on creating a local voice
service, we think it’s very restrictive and we want our
system to be as open as possible. We are, however,
rapidly embracing as many cloud voice services as
possible, this is shown with our unique Alexa smart home
skill that requires no set-up and uses the built in phrases
supported by Alexa.
“Much like Pulse-Eight’s CEC control, this gives the end
customer a natural experience without having to learn
custom phrases that are unique to our hardware.”
Martin adds: “This direct interaction mantra is how we
are extending into Google Home and Cortana (Microsoft
Home Hub) later this year.
“Alexa is growing, we are proud to be a launch partner
of Alexa’s Smart Home expansion to AV devices which was
announced earlier this month. This major enhancement
allows you to gain full control over your source device
(such as Sky Q), simply say ‘Alexa, change channel to
Discovery Channel’ and our neo matrix will automatically
switch to Sky Q (from what you were previously watching)
and navigate to channel 520.”
Martin continues: “We do this by maintaining an
active database of channel names and channel numbers,
your customer does not need to update this, also we
identify which set-top box is available (based on current
usage) and switch to one that is either available or a
default if specifi ed.
“We truly believe this is a ground breaking change to
the way customers will start to use Alexa and voice control.”
WyreStorm says it was at the forefront of Echo and
Alexa integration fi rst showing off its functionality with the
web-based Enado controller at ISE 2015.
James Meredith, WyreStorm NetworkHD and control
product manager, says: “Thanks to the existing IFTTT
integration of Enado – adding voice commands was a
simple addition for Enado integrators although at the time
Echo was only available in the United States.
“With this integration comes the ability to use
voice commands to trigger Enado to perform a huge
number of functions. These can be simple actions
such as turning on or off a display to huge macros with
hundreds of commands. These options are endless
with IFTTT’s constantly growing database of supported
devices and triggers.
“Key Enado features using IFTTT and Echo could be
location triggers with the IF app, date, time, sunrise/
set and weather triggers, mute AV in an emergency
with Nest protect, Apple Watch integration with the
DO app and limitless and customisable actions with
IFTTT’s database.”
James says the reason IFTTT was so powerful was
because the integrator could tie any words to any
Enado macro, making it a powerful solution f