Voice Activated Remote Control
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 5:09PM 
Ten or so years ago I bought a voice activated remote control from a Brookstone store whilst on holiday in the US. It didn't work and if I remember correctly, a button had to be pressed before each command was spoken - negating any the point of having free voice activation
Well enough time has gone by for things to improve significantly and I've decided to revisit voice activated remote control by testing out the Voice Me from Hotech.
A couple of things that I should have pointed out in the video is that I reviewed a Version 1 model. This can only recognise one voice but the Voice Me II can be trained to respond to up to four voices.
The full review is below - but there is one overwhelming and not unsurprising thing that I learned whilst testing this. In films and on TV, speaking to an imaginary computer looks cool. Even in home automation demos it looks like a good idea, 'close curtains', 'heating up 2 degrees', ' dim lights 20%'. However in reality speaking commands out loud looks and sounds pretty ridiculous. Picture the scene, you are sat on the couch with your partner, he/she says 'lets watch a film'. You say 'OK that sounds like a good idea' then proceed to shout out a string of commands into the room'. It would be much quicker and a lot less disruptive to just silently press a few buttons on a remote control.
Anyway, I'm really not sold on the idea - but you can make your own mind up...video below.
Reader Comments (1)
Ok, now you have me looking for a wholesaler. This could be a great holiday gift idea.
As far as the romance-killing factor, that only applies to non-Trekkies. Trek girls might dig voice automation!