wireless microphone methods?

[ddxfish]

Hey all, I posted a few months back asking about the am-100 computer mic which I decided not to buy (smarthome door locks are next in budget).

I am still looking for some type of microphone and as someone suggested in that last post, wireless microphones that I can use around my house for speech recognition.

simply put:
1) can i use a phone and a modem as a microphone for my computer?
2) bluetooth microphone seems crappy quality farther than 2 ft out, does anyone use bluetooth mics with success?
3) what other options am i missing for speech recognition in my house?
4) does anyone have any speech recognition engine preferences? I have dragon naturally speaking 10, and of course microsoft SAPI, but which to use for full house, very basic command set?

thanks to the person that rescues me from this seemingly impossible 'full house speech recognition'

 

[electron]

Voice Recognition is just not there yet. That said, some software allows you to pick up the phone and use it to interact with your home automation system via speech (Homeseer with a way2call modem comes to mind). Maybe there is a way of doing this with Asterisk (probably should look into this myself). What home automation software are you using?

 

[damage]

you can get the hal deluxe ( http://www.automatedliving.com ) starter kit at fry's if you have one of those nearby. it has been on clearance for a long time for $49. it includes the software & a modem that you can use for VR over your local telephone handsets. it also comes with a upb pim & lamp module. hal's VR is very good over the phone. open air mic VR with little kids in the house is useless.

 

[DeLicious]

ooh, we're looking for something very star trekky

at one point, i had a bluetooth speakerphone set up, and a computer with a 100m bluetooth dongle so that it would cover the whole house. i thought about using a bluetooth headset, but some of them didn't have the right profile (to make it look to the computer like speakers and a microphone), and plus, i didn't want to walk around the house with a bluetooth headset all the time.

but if you're only using a 10m bluetooth dongle (which it sounds like you are), and you like what you have inside the 2m radius of reliability, then try upgrading that.

 

[rbr451]

I've tried the bluetooth route with some minor success. (As long as I tilted my head just right) Wasn't really the solution, though. I used to use a wired mike when I was stationary in my lazyboy. That worked great until I forgot I was wearing it and pulled over an end table and lamp when I got up. I'll be watching to see if you come up with something. I'm still looking.

 

[ddxfish]

Right now I am using girder 5 to run the smarthome parts including speech recognition (girder allows me to use 3rd party like dragon)

I have, as you suspected a 10m / 30 ft dongle and im sure if i wanted this to work with bluetooth Id have to get a super power one.

I am looking at good headsets that dont require much work to carry around... like a short range BT headset for my phone but stronger. Some that came up were the 'jawbone' and some 'nuance capable' headsets made for speech rec.

Its the same conclusion i come to every time i look into speech rec, but none the less I ask around often. And as a side note, yes this was inspired by star trek, a computer (workstation even?) without a mouse, keyboard, or monitor. It would be nice but I suppose Ill keep testing things like a good bluetooth headset in the meantime and post my results.