User’s Guide

Running

To run PriVoice enter the following command

./scripts/privoice_start.sh

If you would like to view the log files in real time run

tail -f tmp/logs/*

To stop the PriVoice voice assistant type

./scripts/privoice_stop.sh

Note - you may have to hit Ctl+C first if you tail’ed the log files as shown above. All this assumes you are in the base directory where you installed PriVoice.

General Operation

PriVoice is what is known as a ‘wake word activated’ voice assistant. This means it listens to everything but only attempts to interpret an utterance if it is preceeded by the wake word.

A ‘wake word’ is a word (or words) which, when recognized by the system causes it to enter the ‘active’ state. You may say the wake word as part of the sentnece

hey computer what time is it

Or you may say the wake word by itself

hey computer

In which case it will beep at you and then attempt to execute the next utterance it hears. In other words

hey computer

<<Brief Delay>>

what time is it

The system also has the concept of an out of band (OOB) command. For example ‘stop’ is considered an out of band statement and is normally handled by the system as expected (stop the currently active skill) as well as ‘pause’ and ‘resume’ having the expected behavior.

hey computer stop

or

hey computer

<<Brief Delay>>

stop

Common Commands

The following commands assume you say the wake word followed by the command. The documentation will often use the following convention when describing commands …

WW what time is it.

Which simply means you spoke the wake word (WW) first. Note you control what the wake word is by modifying the value in the yava.yml file. See Configuration for more information on how to change the wake word.

The system ships with six skills installed by default.

  • time and date skill

  • volume skill

  • weather skill

  • wiki skill

  • radio skill

  • example skill

Typical usage might be

  • WW what time is it

  • WW what is today’s date

  • WW <<brief delay>> set the volume to ninety percent

  • WW what is the volume set to

  • WW what is the weather forecast

  • WW who was Abraham Lincoln

  • WW play smooth jazz

  • WW run example one

Note the out of band (OOB) phrases like ‘stop’, ‘pause’, ‘resume’ are often handled better by saying the wake word in isolation, then after the beep, speaking the command. For example

WW <<brief delay>> stop

The System Monitor

The system monitor is a web page which is found in the test/ directory. You simply open it in any web browser and it will show you all the messages being sent on the message bus.

System Monitor Image

If you are viewing the system monitor on a different machine than where PriVoice is running you will need to click the PriVoice logo in the upper left of the screen and enter the IP address where your PriVoice device is running.

You can use the PriVoice system monitor to see what the speech recognizer thought you said. This can sometimes be helpful with debugging and adjusting the audio levels.

System Information

By default, the system operates in offline mode. If it should happen to have an internet connection and if it should happen to have a skill installed which uses the internet, that will work as well.

The skill manager controls the installation and removal of skills and supports the following spoken commands …

  • install skill

  • delete skill

  • show active skills

  • show installed skills

  • show available skills

  • help skills

  • help skill manager

PriVoice consists of services, system skills and user skills. Users may install new skills or remove existing skills using either the skill manager or the command line. The Creating Skills page shows how to easily create new skills and add repositories to the system.

PriVoice Services

  • Speech Recognizer (STT) converts audio in to text

  • Intent Handler converts text to intents and dispatches skills

  • Text to Speech (TTS) provides ability to play a text string

  • Media allows playing mp3 or wav data

  • Skill Manager manages skill installation and removal using voice

Default System Skills

  • system skill

  • volume skill

  • fallback skill

  • media skill

Default User Skills

  • time and date skill

  • example skill

  • weather skill(i)

  • wiki skill(i)

  • radio skill(i)

Note: i = requires internet connection