Fonix VoiceCentral Gets an Update - Version 3 Released

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=157638&productType=2' target='_blank'>http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/...8&productType=2</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Fonix Voice Central is a voice driven application that helps you navigate quickly through Calendar appointments, Contact information, Inbox messages, and Tasks. In addition, Fonix Voice Central can be used to launch or close applications, quickly lookup a contact or make a phone call. You can even create your own commands to play music, browse a website, explore your device. The possibilities are endless!"</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20050211-FonixVC3.gif" /><br /><br />Fonix VoiceCentral 3 has been released. Funnily enough, the Fonix website has not even been updated yet, so I'll fill you in on more details when they come in, but it's worth noting that Handango does have a brief overview of the product <a href="http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=157638&productType=2">here</a>. The latest version can be purchased for $29.95. Unfortunately, no trial version is available at this stage. [Affiliate]

[ctmagnus]

It's $10 cheaper than MS Voice command, at least.

[threedaysdwn]

The previous version didn't work very well on my PPC Phone. I'm intrigued by the new one, but I already bought MS Voice Command which works amazingly well (but doesn't offer some of the more advanced functionality that this does).

However those advanced options aren't very useful if the basic functions aren't as good. So a trial version is very necessary here.


Also, I don't know if this supports it or not, but I'd like to see a product that is always "listening" and responds only if a certain word is detected. This would be awesome in my car, as right now I have to reach over and hit one of the buttons on the 4700 in order to issue it a voice command. If I could say "Car - what are my appointments for tomorrow?" well... that would just completely rock. Even if it was like the older systems where you had to say "Computer please" before every command, it would still be really cool.

[Jorgen]

Oh, god! Not only do we have to hear yapping on threir mobile phones everywhere; now they start yapping to their PDAs! What an awful invention.

Jorgen

[onepieceman]

I have a beta of this product. It has many nice features, but unfortunately some major flaws. For example, it has the rather nice feature of reading out your appointments. However, if you have any recurring appointments (and who hasn't?), then the software gets very confused, and it can take literally minutes before it reads out the answer, during which time it slows your PPC right down. Hope that one has been fixed.
Also, bizarrely, saying lookup &lt;contact> was very reliable (for me), but saying call &lt;contact> wasn't.
Something that I found a disappointment also was that while their junior product, VoiceDial allows you to override those contacts that aren't recognised (e.g. because they have foreign names that the recogniser can't cope with), this functionality is missing from the version 3 beta.

I should emphasise these are all experiences with the beta, and I suppose the purpose of betas is to identify and eliminate bugs and problems, so don't take this as definitive. However, I would never buy a product like this without trialing it first.

[gcalfin]

You can download an eval directly from the www.fonix.com website. I'm evaluating it now.

I like that they offer several different voice options, but the feature-set compared with Microsoft VC doesn't seem as good.

Microsoft VC is pretty good (better accuracy for me vs VoiceSignal) but could be better. Looking forward to testing its accuracy while driving in my car with my i700 connected to the HFK...

[ebadger]

LOL, can't be any worse than listening to you yap here.

Oh, god! Not only do we have to hear yapping on threir mobile phones everywhere; now they start yapping to their PDAs! What an awful invention.

Jorgen

[jsloan]

I just downloaded and installed VoiceCentral 3 on my hx4700. Its greatest advantage is that, unlike Microsoft, it is able to recognize commands from my Bluetooth headset. The recognition capability is good and from the headphone's mike would be better in a car than Microsoft's Voice Commander.