VITO Voice2Go v1.51

INTRODUCTION
PDA voice control functionality has been rapidly moving from a luxury to a requirement. This is especially true with many converged PDA devices, which haven't necessarily been designed with the streamlined interface of a dedicated mobile phone. Combine this with contact lists many hundreds of entries long, driving or other personal multi-tasking, and you have a user interface nightmare. Users who wish to add voice control functionality to their Pocket PC device have a surprisingly limited number of choices, and VITO Technology's new offering, Voice2Go, is a welcome addition.

Voice2Go offers several great features. As a long time user of Microsoft's Voice Command (reviewed here), I was eager to evaluate Voice2Go, and see if it addressed some of Voice Command's limitations.

WHAT'S HOT
Voice2Go builds on VITO Technology's Voice Dialer software. Whereas the Voice Dialer software concentrates solely on phone functionality, Voice2Go provides a broader suite of features, and promises that "...you can forget about tapping the screen with the stylus..."

SETUP
Installation was simple and straightforward. I connected my Pocket PC to my computer via its USB cable, and launched the executable. I went through the standard Pocket PC dialog, and the setup program didn't install anything on my PC, which I appreciated.

PROGRAM FEATURES
Voice2Go offers 6 main features:

Call contacts from your address book
Announce incoming callers who are configured in your contacts list
Launch any application, and most system screens
Voice recognition for any language and all accents
"Magic Word" support. You simply say your magic word and then you can issue a command without touching your device
Custom macro creation and recording
The major distinction between Voice2Go and some of the other voice recognition solutions is that Voice2Go requires you to record a sample command for each contact, application, and macro. This is both a major asset and a significant frustration. Recording each command prior to actually using it allows for complete language and accent independence. After all, it's comparing what you previously recorded with what you just said. This feature alone may be the sole selling point for non-english speakers or individuals with heavy accents. It also allows you to have a little fun with what you record for each contact ("Call snookums at home").

However this same advantage can also be relatively problematic. Obviously it takes a significant amount of time to step through each contact, recording two or three phone numbers per person ("Call John Doe at work. Call John Doe on mobile etc..."). Although you do have the option of recording only your most used numbers. Recording each command like this also ties your device to you, especially as the Voice2Go seems relatively picky about the original pitch and timbre of your command.

Configuring Voice2Go

Because the voice recognition works on pre-recorded commands, you must configure the application before you use it. This is accomplished from the Voice2Go Settings screens.




The General screen provides three basic options. Auto start after reset ensures that Voice2Go is always running, and Detect incoming calls determines whether or not the phone announces incoming calls, although this particular functionality never worked for me. The Use magic word only with external power option greatly extends battery life by only using magic words when plugged into external power-More on this later.

On PDAs without an integrated phone an additional option appears on the General tab. This option allows you to specify the connection type you use to connect to your cell phone, and options include Cable, IR, and Bluetooth. With this setting, you can still use Voice2Go to dial contacts on your cell phone. However my test hardware had an integrated phone, and thus I wasn't able to test this functionality.



The Commands tab allows you to record, play, or delete a command for all contacts, magic words, applications, or macros. The general category you're working with can be selected via the drop down in the upper left. You may also change the sort between "names" and "record." Both of these selections sort the list ascending alphabetically, however the "record" selection shows all items that have recorded commands assigned to them first.

Selecting a contact from the contacts list is somewhat tedious, because there is no way to skip pages, or jump to a specific letter. In addition, you can't alter the size of the columns. This makes it difficult to see who you're selecting when you have multiple contacts with the same last name.

Recording and playing commands is simple and intuitive. Voice2Go immediately plays your command back to you to confirm what you have recorded. This is a necessary feature because any slight pause in speaking while recording can have unexpected results. This is undoubtedly because of the aggressive compression and clipping each recorded command undergoes to reduce storage space on the device. I didn't find this to be a huge issue, but I did manage to garble two recordings by pausing too long.



There are three magic words available. The main Magic Word brings up the command window, while Correct and Wrong confirm or reject a selection from the command window. When enabled, the magic words allow you to completely control your Pocket PC hands free without having to push a button. Unfortunately, this freedom comes at a price. With magic words enabled, your Pocket PC constantly monitors every word and sound it can hear, and it never suspends into sleep mode. This translates into an extremely short battery life. I was able to drain my relatively new battery from 100% to 10% in an hour and a half, which makes daily untethered usage of magic words all but impossible. However this feature was clearly intended to be used primarily on external power, and being able to issue commands from your desk is quite convenient.



My favorite feature is the powerful ability to create macros and launch them with a voice command. Selecting a new macro brings up a small window. You simply click the tap button and then click a button anywhere on screen. After you have created your macro, you click finish and then name and save your macro. I especially liked the ability to write text by using the on-screen keyboard. Who says you can't have speech-to-text on a PDA?

The one difficulty I had with the macro feature is that using drop down menus was not possible. After clicking the drop down menu, you had to click the tap button again, and this action shifted focus away from the drop down menu, thus closing it.




After spending significant time recording your commands, Voice2Go conveniently enables you to backup and restore your commands. Aside from the obvious benefits of being able to restore after a data loss, it also provides an easy way to migrate users from one device to another. Backing up and restoring 20 commands was quick, and worked flawlessly for me. I should point out however, that my 20 commands created a backup file that was 1.83 Mb. That averages out to about 91K per command, and it's easy to see how a number of commands could quickly use a significant amount of disk space.



The final Settings tab provides a way to change the image that comes up while issuing a command. This version of Voice2Go only ships with a single default skin.

Using Voice2Go

Once Voice2Go is loaded into memory, you interact with it via three channels. You can say a magic word to bring up the command window, you can press a user-definable button, or you can click on the icon in the system tray.




Clicking the icon brings up a self-explanitory menu, which among other things, allows you to launch the command window.




The Command window initializes with a futuristic sound. After you speak your command, it plays a confirmed or denied sound, and it also plays back your own recorded command on a positive match. Now here's where it gets tricky. If you have magic words enabled, you can say Correct or Wrong, but if you don't, you have to press correct or wrong on the screen. This seems to be a big design flaw. It would seem to me that you would want to enable magic words for a short period after a positive match so you could say Correct or Wrong.

Accuracy was relatively usable, but perhaps not as good a some other voice recognition products. Accuracy (and recording quality) improved tremendously by holding the mic much closer to my mouth. Obviously, consistency in your own pitch and timbre increases the accuracy, as does a low amount of ambient noise, but I still had some troubles in quiet environments (see the unsuccessful match video). Voice2Go had significant difficulty with positive matches in my car or with music playing, but to be fair, I have yet to find a voice recognition product that does an adequate job in noisy environments.

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