Talking to Smart Homes to Improve Quality of Life
From: IST Results - 01/11/2005

The goal of IST's 30-month INSPIRE project was to develop an interactive
computer system that allows homeowners to control lights, appliances, and
other equipment through voice command, although its initial target market
will be elderly and disabled people. The system utilizes microphone arrays
mounted on walls to pick up spoken commands, while voice mail over mobile and
fixed-line communications facilitates remote access. The system can be
programmed to function in any language, and was tested in five pilot programs
in Greece and Germany involving about 100 users. "The greatest difficulty we
faced was enhancing the speech recognition technology to an acceptable level,
although we managed to ensure it would recognize voice commands successfully
in more than 85 percent of cases," notes INSPIRE scientific coordinator
Anastasios Tsopanoglou. He says most users gave the system a score of 5.5 on
a scale of one to seven. The system's considerable cabling requirements carry
a hefty price tag, although Tsopanoglou believes pre-installed cabling or
Bluetooth wireless connectivity technology could address this problem. He
reports that most average users did not consider the system to be a critical
component for the household, although they saw some value in owning such a
product. The INSPIRE project partners expect a commercial version of the
system to make its market debut within two years. 

http://istresults.cordis.lu/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/73661