The idea of simply uttering your wishes and having the devices in your home respond is no longer a pie-in-the-sky notion. Voice assistant technologies like Amazon Alexa have made it a reality, and homeowners are embracing the idea by adding speaker-equipped listening devices to their dwellings. Initial consumer reviews of the technology have been strong, with Amazon reporting an average 4.4 star rating on its website.
Despite the appeal and relative reliability of voice-control in the home today, there are shortcomings. One of these is the inability for smart speaker devices to hear requests accurately when there is mild to moderate noise in the room. Today, the ability to use a smart speaker from 5 meters away in a quiet room sounds impressive, but what happens to its hearing ability when you throw a big party at your house or you need to issue a voice command to it from across a large room?
To prove that better listening skills from smart speakers is possible, Conexant recently conducted a test (see the video below) of its new technology under extreme conditions including 100+ meters away on the roof of building next to a major airport.
While this scenario may seem impractical, Conexant believes that improving the hearing capabilities of voice-control speaker devices is important for the health of this burgeoning smart home market, and the company hopes to make an impact with its a new four-microphone voice pickup reference design for smart speaker devices with embedded voice pre-processing technology. By combining Conexant’s new 4 mic system with their noise reduction and echo cancelling speech processing technologies, smart speakers will be able to overcome noise and distance challenges (imagine a big party at your house) using fewer microphones than current state-of-the-art systems, allowing them to capture crystal clear voice requests.
According to Conexant, key advantages of this reference design are:
- Four microphones are required, not 7 or more
- Advanced active noise cancellation (similar to headphone ANC technology)
- Multi-channel acoustic echo cancellation (enables users to interrupt device or barge-in via Alexa command, even when sound is playing)
- Smart source pickup noise rejection technology (can pinpoint a user’s location 360 degrees around device)
Conexant hopes to bring this technology to market by working with third-party speaker manufacturers. Watch the video to get a glimpse into the future of smart speaker performance.
The post Amazon Alexa Boasts Super Human Hearing appeared first on Electronic House.
from
https://www.electronichouse.com/smart-home/amazon-alexa-boasts-super-human-hearing/
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