Microphones and VR

[mcable1004]

Hi Everyone,

I've been tinkering with HA (Insteon mostly) for the past couple of months. I'm starting to venture in to VR and am trying to find a solid (cheap, but still effective) microphone for picking up commands. I am thinking something that I could mount to the ceiling or some inconspicuous place that could listen to an an entire room - particularly the kitchen or bedroom.

A second related question I have - right now, I'm just using a desktop microphone plugged in to the microphone jack of my laptop to test and setup some initial commands. When I close the laptop, it no longer is responding to voice commands. I am using Powerhome. The other triggers I have setup continue to work correctly. Does anyone know if the mic input is disabled when the laptop is closed? If so, any way I can enable the mic even when the laptop is shut?

Thanks everyone for the help,

Matt

 

[ver0776]

My opinion is room mics simply will not work. It will hear too much and will spaz out on how much it recognizes. That is unless you have a way to use a button or remote to be able to shut it off, which I still have to play with...

I am using is the Star Trek badge approach. I am using wireless mics from Geeks.com for $8 and have modified them with a touch sensor. I put the device in my shirt pocket and it only listens while you touch it. Even then, if there is company or the TV is too loud, or I am too close to one of her speakers, I can still have trouble with false recognition, but it is getting better as I tweak it....

I have bought a decent Nada wireless mic for about $100, but so far, I am just as happy with the Geeks units. Now I use both, each running to a different computer so one is trained to my voice the other to my roommates. Which is a feature you lose when using a mic mixer type system...

Vaughn

 

[CollinR]

Stick with a desktop mic, get a desktop machine... You can be creative and mount those mics pretty easily in a variety of places. Mounting a single mic in a room is probably not going to yield the results you desire.

 

[compuguru]

You might want to check out James Lipsit's website. He spent a whole lot of $$$ but got everything working well.

http://james.lipsit.com/home.htm

 

[Steve]

Our own pkoslow has also done alot with VR. Look at his stuff here.

 

[jarcher]

You might want to check out James Lipsit's website. He spent a whole lot of $$$ but got everything working well.

http://james.lipsit.com/home.htm

That's a cool video, but how does he then shut the music off, or do anything else once it's playing?