App Setup

First Start:

  • Connect your device to the same Wi-Fi-Network to which your Philips HUE Bridge is connected.
  • Open the app and choose the Bridge from the list. When it is not shown, check the Wi-Fi connection and also the connection of the bridge.
  • After selection of the bridge quickly push the button on the middle of the HUE bridge to authorize the app as soon as the app tells you so.
  • From the next start on, the app will automatically connect to your HUE bridge.

Common Usage:

  • In order to give a single speech command push the round button with the speech symbol. The speech dialog is started then.
  • In order to be able to continuously give commands after a keyword, press the button 'Continuous Service'.
    Then at any time say the master keyword (standard keyword is 'Paula').
    The master keyword can be personalized in the settings. Please read the notes later in this help to this.

Available standard voice commands:

  • "Light on/off"
  • "Light scenes" Lists available scenes in your HUE Bridge (can be changed with the HUE app)
  • "Scene Beach" (name depends on your available scenes)
  • "Scene 1"
  • "Group Livingroom on/off" (name depends on your available groups)
  • "Group Livingroom green“ Switches all lamps of the group on and to color green (or any other color)
  • "Group Livingroom dimmed/bright“ Changes the brightness of all lamps of the group
  • "What time is it?"
  • "Set Timer to 10 minutes"
  • "Help“ Lists available voice commands

Possibilities for the activation of the speech dialog:

  • Android Wear: Activate the device. Push the screen to activate the menu. Choose “start…” and then the app “Talk To”. Next time the app should appear at the top of the menu list. Push the “Talk to” button and say the speech command. The result will be presented in a notification.
  • Android Wear: Activate the device. Say “Ok, Google” and then “Open Talk To”. Then give the speech command.
  • Push the button “Continuous service” in the app and speak the main shown main command everytime you need it. Please not, that for this mode the device has to do a permanent online speech recognition (by Google). This mode should only be activated in a charging cradle if possible as it consumes significantly more battery than in normal operation.
  • Ok Google, Tasker and AutoVoice: With this option you can later say “Ok, Google” and say a self-defined speech command, that starts the speech dialog. Please note that the installation is a little bit tricky. First install AutoVoice and activate the integration for Google Now. Install Tasker and add a http-Task, that calls the URL http://localhost:4250. This must be called by an event “Auto Voice Recognized” with self-defined speech command. A more detailed description can be found here: http://lifehacker.com/how-to-create-custom-voice-commands-with-tasker-and-aut-1282209195

Improving speech recognition:

  • You will be asked for a command by “Yes, please?”. Please wait for the following beep sound before you start to speak. Every word that you speak before will not be taken into account which can lead to a bad recognition result. The time span before the beep can take some 10 ms depending on the computing capabilities of your device.
  • The distance to the microphone should be 30cm to 2m for an optimal recognition.

Light groups:

  • Light scenes are stored in your HUE bridge. You can create scenes with a number of different HUE apps out there.
    After they are created you can use the speech command to activate the groups or set the color for it as described above.

Advanced usage:

  • You can also trigger the speech dialog by an http request (from some external device) by calling http://:4250/.
    With some trigger on the device itself make an http request to http://localhost:4250/, e.g. from Tasker.
 

OpenHAB Setup

Getting started

  • In the application go to settings -> Setup of modules and choose OpenHAB.
  • In the servers list your OpenHAB server should automatically be found. If not, choose Manual input and give the IP-Address of your server and the port (usually 8080 or 8443).
  • Choose the server from the list. It will take a little time as all your switches are setup automatically. You will be shown a dialog with all switch items where you can activate the ones you want to control by speech. For all others no speech commands will be created but can be added later.
  • For each Switch item in OpenHAB one ItemControl is created (logical control unit) and accordingly one command that controls it (configuration of speech command like speakable text).
  • In order to change item controls and commands read the next section.

Configuration Management

Item Controls

Itemcontrols represent your home automation items like light switches for HUE lamps or also HTTP services. The bindings will tell which subsystem of your home automation this items belongs to.

Types of Item Controls
  • itemControl
    Item that will be set with given data
  • switchItemControl
    Item that can be set on or off like a light switch
Bindings
  • openhab
    Set configuration like host, username and password in bindingsettings.properties. Then you can control all items from your OpenHAB home automation system. The itemname corresponds to the one configured in your *.items file. The data can be ON/OFF, INCREASE/DECREASE or a number for enums.
  • hue
    Commands for your Philips HUE lights.
  • rest
    Call to an http / REST service. You can provide an URL, username and password.
  • Example
    <itemControl id="COMMAND_EXAMPLE" binding="rest" hasResult="true" itemName="http://127.0.0.1:8080/rest/items/TEMP_SLEEP_Set/state" data="username:youruser password:yourpassword" />
Results

You can define a property hasResult="true". Then the item is queried and the result will be spoken by speech, e.g. the state of an OpenHAB item or the result of a REST/HTTP call.

Commands

Commands have a name, and always call one item. The itemName must be the same as configured in the itemControls.xml File.

Commands are executed by a list of keywords. Each keyword can have synonyms. One of the synonyms of each keyword-group must be said that this command is executed. The commands are tried to match in the given order so make sure that more specific commands (e.g. temperature sleeping room) are given before ones with a smaller number of keywords (e.g. temperature).

Types of Commands
  • command
    Controls an item and sets the given data.
  • SwitchCommand
  • Controls an item and set ON or OFF as data
  • listCommand
    Controls a list of items, only available for certain ones like HUE groups or HUE scenes.
  • talkCommand
    Gives the given response to a command. Set the response parameter accordingly.

Cloud synchronisation

Getting Started

In the application go to settings and click on Cloud synchronization. Then the default configuration will be copied to you Google Drive to a folder called Talk2HUEConfig in you main folder. There will be a subfolder called default. The easiest way to get started is to copy that folder and also place it in Talk2HUEConfig under a different name. Then you can edit the files and add new commands or edit existing ones.

The speech commands are defined in 3 files:

  • itemcontrols.xml
    Definition of the items, e.g. HTTP calls or OpenHAB items
  • base_commands_de.xml oder base_commands_en.xml
    Speech commands that call an item
  • bindingsettings.properties
    Configuration, e.g. for OpenHAB