SpeakUp, the speech recognition click board, starts shipping

[srdjan.misic]

SpeakUp, the speech recognition click board, starts shipping today!



Today we start shipping our speech recognition click board, The SpeakUp. The wait is finally over.

Discover the convenience of issuing commands with your voice and turn any electronic device into an obedient servant.
Just say the word, and turn your lights on or off, control your home entertainment system, or build more complex home
automation systems. The SpeakUp allows you to do all this through a simple & straightforward configuration process,
regardless of your language, dialect, or slang.

The SpeakUp is a small 25.4mm x 57.2mm board with a microphone, an audio IC and an STM32F415RG MCU with a DTW
based firmware developed specifically for it. It works by listening to what you're saying, and matching the sound to a
voice command you previously recorded. And the way you do that is through the free software configuration tool
we developed:

Download SpeakUp's configuration software right now to get a sense of how it works. It's all buttons and drop-down
menus. No programming required. You can configure it in minutes. For a more detailed overview and walkthrough,
download the manual we just released.

After you configure it, you can put it into action. See how we did it with two demonstration videos.
In this one we navigated an RC buggy through our dinning hall. The second video we released demonstrates
the SpeakUp as part of a home entertainment set-up (with a Raspberry Pi + Pi click shield, and XMBC).
But since the SpeakUp is finally leaving the confinement of our HQ, we expect the community will come
up with many new ideas.

For $39 you won't find a speech recognition solution like it. Turn talk to action - order yours today.

Yours sincerely,
MikroElektronika

[captainigloo]

Hello,
I ordered your SpeakUp Click and Pi because I saw the video RPI + XBMC + Pi + click Speakup.
1 - I am very disappointed with the performance in speech recognition (with my professional quality microphones).
2 - Your video demonstration is nice, but the XBMC project is where?
3 - You could at least share this project.
I reiterated I am very disappointed

[filip]

Hi,

1 - I am very disappointed with the performance in speech recognition (with my professional quality microphones).

The high quality microphones are very sensitive to ambient noise, accept much wider frequency range than the ordinary human voice/speech.
Therefore, the sound spectrum that is perceived by the microphone could have some unwanted components which can deteriorate the speech recognition.

So, it is advisable to use computer microphones, hands-free headsets, etc. - in other words electret microphones.

2 - Your video demonstration is nice, but the XBMC project is where?
3 - You could at least share this project.

We are planning to release this project soon, so please have patience.

Regards,
Filip.

[futaba]

Hello,

I also ordered your SpeakUp click and try some tests but i have a issue with the notify a master.

I try to get index of command on USB or UART interface but nothing worked.

The SpeakUp recognizes my command but nothing goes out on the interface.

I known that my wired is correct because i get "READY" message at startup with UART output but nothing more.

Do you have any idea of what is wrong ?

Regards,

Benoit

[filip]

Hi,

Please, can you open a new ticket on our Support Center regarding this issue ?

Regards,
Filip.

[middleca]

Has there been any progress on this? I'm trying to connect my speakup click board, and I'm seeing the same issue "READY" over UART after power up / background noise calibration, but no recognized command indexes written out over UART. I also can't seem to find any open tickets on the support site.

I'd really appreciate some help!

Thanks,
Davdi

[marina.petrovic]

Hi,

Please, can you tell me which hardware you use to connect SpeakUp click with the PC?
How you connect your hardware (you can send me some simple connection schematic if you use custom hardware)?

Best regards,
Marina

[damkholer]

I had the same problem. I connected the SpeakUp board directly to the RaspberryPi GPIO with the sequent connections:

SpeakUp --> Raspberry
3.3V Power 3.3V(pin1)
GND GND (pin6)
RX TX(pin8)
TX RX(pin10)

Opening a serial monitor on Raspberry (using minicomm) i see the "READY" message but no more....
Can you please explain what is wrong in my setup?
Thank you.
Marco.

[marina.petrovic]

Hi,

If you receive "Ready" message it seems that SpeakUp click is properly connected with the PC.
Please, pay attention whether you recorded the same command which you test.

You can test SpreakUp click first in stand-alone mode with SpeakUp application and when you confirm that SpeakUp recognized your command properly, you can try to connect it in click mode.

Best regards,
Marina

[chippy]

Sorry but the replies on this topic Raspberry pi with click shield has been very poor indeed.

I am having the same issue as all above posters spread all over this forum and since most of those other posts are redirected to this post, I will report the same problem here.

I get no information over uart serial from the speakup click used in conjunction with the pi 2 click shield (which comes with little documentation).

The only thing I can think of is that there is this weird ground pin, at least on the pi 2 click shield that I have no idea why its there.
You have to connect tx to rx and rx to tx and a common ground for uart to work, but that should all be taken care of on the mikrobus.. port as it has 3.3v, ground, and tx and rx all on it. Here is the pin in question..

pi2_click_shield_02huh.png (210.55 KiB) Viewed 28107 times

I got a set of headers that was missing a pin, so I figure this is used to avoid 5v as the speakup and uart of the pi and pi 2 is only 3.3v so I used that pin header to by pass that pin on the mikrobus, I have also not bothered soldering the programming pins, I'm not sure that they are needed. No cold solders and all joints are conical. The speakup is also connected on the mikrobus with its flat edge indicator and all pins lining up.

IMG_20150811_114030_695.jpg (330.57 KiB) Viewed 28107 times

On the software side, I have gone into raspi-config in my raspian distro and advanced options and turned off uart messages and the like which frees up up ttyAMA0 to be able to be used on a board like this. This is in the advanced menu which also makes changes to cmdline.txt and /etc/inittab to remove kernel messages and the like. (this is something that used to have to be done manually but is now offered in the advanced settings in raspi-config by turning uart off which frees up the uart for use)

Code: Select all

getty is commented out in /etc/inittab
#T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyAMA0 115200 vt100

/boot/cmdline.txt
dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p6 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait

(yes the system was rebooted)

I have tried two different img files with this speakup click and pi2 click shield. One with only uart enabled, and anther with uart, spi, and i2c also enabled, which is a chore as well, documentation can be found on adafruit as well as other pages on the web, as well as this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTOIzdwE84k just in case.

I have tried setting the speakup to a 9600, 28800, 38400, and 115200 buadrates.

Using minicom and in using python -m serial.tools.miniterm -p /dev/ttyAMA0 -e
9600 baud from the speakup click returns nothing, types a space, or makes the cursor jump position.
I have even tried to force my raspberry pi 2 b to 9600 by typing stty -F /dev/ttyAMA0 9600
All other baudrate settings will either type a solid block character, or a single ascii character of varying sorts on a positive match (red light comes on strong)


The symptom really suggests a baudrate mismatch(unrecognized, single characters or solid square blocks received)
but I really can get anything to work at all.

I am a disabled vet and really could use this technology to help me. After a week of trying this has just caused me more aches, pains, and frustration.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[viktor.milovanovic]

Hello,

The ground pin is connected to the ground plane of the board. So that should not cause any problems.
You can always try to connect the SpeakUp with the PC and see what messages are being sent through usb-uart.
Also, have you tried checking the signals with an oscilloscope?

Best regards,

Viktor Milovanovic

[mykrob]

Hello Mikroe Folks,

thanks for your interesting SpeakUp board. I'm currently testing it and here is a list of things that could be improved:

1) I'd highly welcome a radio button in the SpeakUp config app to toggle between binary / text format of the index of a detected word that is communicated over UART/USB. Binary formats are difficult to debug and nowadays all interchange formats among various systems tend to be text/string based. I noticed that somebody had already asked for this feature in May 2015 and he had been said that this request would be forwarded to the dev team.

Q1: When can we expect this functionality (word index format switching between binary/text) to be implemented ?


2) My biggest disappointment stems out from the *very limited* USB functionality: I expected a connected SpeakUp board via USB to be available in a target USB host system as a Modem device type with a virtual COM port/serial device assigned, via which the index of a detected word could be easily read in Python/bash/C ...

Instead the only option is to wire up CMOS level UART pins to some kind of UART/USB converter that makes the whole solution clumsy and inelegant ... Why should I do this when there is a USB interface already ?

I understand the low-level approach od Mikroe dev team stating that SpeakUp board is primarily intended for microcontroller applications where UART comms are a commonplace, but still ... USB interface is a flexible and ready-to-use standard for interconnecting systems at a little higher level than a microcontroller board ...

Q2: What does the option "Settings | Notify Master: USB" in the SpeakUp app mean ? How can I make use of this in W7 / Linux ?

Q3: Does Mikroe DevTeam consider implementing the functionality described above ? If not, why ? If so, when ?


3) When I connect SpeakUp board via USB to Win7, it gets powered via USB and works (PWR LED & LD1 is lit up), the board detects words, everything is ok. When I connect SpeakUp board via USB to a Raspberry Pi ver 2 (with Raspbian installed), the board is powered up (only PWR LED is lit up), the board is detected in the system (ID 1234:0001 Brain Actuated Technologies ), but again, no /dev/serial device available.

Moreover, the board does NOT work at all - it does not detect words, nothing happens.

Q4: Why the SpeakUp board does not work when powered from a RaspiPi ? (the current available from the RaspiPi USB port is strong enough to power the board!)

Q5: Is it a problem of a USB driver in Raspbian ? How can this be influenced / tuned at a system level ?

Thanks & looking forward to hearing from you soon
Yours,
Mykrob

[biljana.nedeljkovic]

Hello,

I will tell our developers to consider the new features you asked about.
The option to notify master via USB means that it will notify the master (MCU or PC) when the voice command is recognized by sending a 16-bit index
number of voice command via USB. You can choose UART instead.
Please take a look at the User Manual for further explanation.
http://download.mikroe.com/manuals/clic ... manual.pdf

You can submit a ticket or send direct email at support@mikroe.com so we can solve the issue with RaspberryPi.

Kind regards,
Biljana

[mykrob]

Hello Biljana,

thanks for your reply.

> The option to notify master via USB means that it will notify the master (MCU or PC) when the voice command is recognized by sending a 16-bit index
> number of voice command via USB. You can choose UART instead. Please take a look at the User Manual for further explanation.

I understand the meaning of the "Notify Master via USB" option in general.
What I did not know was how to make use of it in Windows 7 / Raspberry PI.

I devoted some time to fiddling with SpeakUp board connected to a RaspiPI via USB and found out a viable way
how to read indices of pronounced words ... So problem with SpeakUp / RaspiPI platform is solved for me now.

Currently I would like to ask your developers for a favor:

Could they post a C language example for Windows 7 how to programmatically read incides of pronounced
words from the SpeakUp board connected to Windows 7 via USB interface ? I mean how to communicate with a SpeakUp board
connected to Windows 7 via HID USB driver ...

This would solve the rest of my problems.
Thanks a lot,
Regards,
Mykrob

[biljana.nedeljkovic]

Hello,

unfortunately, for now, we don't have C example code.
When you open the HID terminal in the compiler, and use SpeakUp App, you can see the hex format of the communication of the microcontroller and the USB HID.

I will forward your request to our developers nonetheless.

Best regards,
Biljana