When I was younger I really liked the computer of the Enterprise in Star Trek TNG. Always on, always listening. “He” understands all languages, accents and background sound is easily filtered out. Even with red alert in the background and explosions all around. Oh, and I still like it. Today I have my own “smart home” and can control stuff with my voice with an application written for Android. Easy as eating cake, right. Have done this in a few ours in my spare time. But wait. There is something missing. It’s not always on. I can’t just run around and say “Computer, locate [PUT ANY NAME HERE]” or “Computer, it’s to hot. Please reduce temperature by 2°”. You ask why?

Current issues:

– Maturity of voice recognition (I’m talking Linux here, more concrete Raspberry Pi!) and the overall approach (I don’t want to send every word to a Google service!)
– The environment itself. On the Enterprise you could say something in the endmost edge of any floor. This does currently not work for me at all 🙂
– Security. Don’t want to allow any stranger to control stuff just by saying something at the front door

My goal is to solve the issues as far as I can and build something which is not only cool but also useful. I’ll keep posting my results and approaches here.