SW/Firmware: My experience with voice commands so far... not really impressed.

[FlasherZ]

I spent some time yesterday trying to speak to my Model S. I wasn't all that impressed. I really would like for it to be able to handle context a bit better.

I am a native english speaker from the midwest, the part of the country with no accent. Seriously, though, I have no thick accent.

1. I live in a town called "Bartelso", pronounced "Bar-TEL-so". I asked Model S to "navigate to south washington street, bartelso, illinois" and the screen popped up a search for "south washington street, bartell so, illinois" or and reported "no matches". So, I changed the emphasis, changing it form "Bar-TEL-so" to "BAR-tel-so". The search then appeared for "Bartonville, IL" which is 150 miles away, instead of the address I entered just 2 miles away, or "bartle so, IL" which generates "no matches" -- not even a fuzzy match. I tried various pronunciations of Bartelso but could not get the Model S to properly choose it, except ONE time out of fifteen or so (and I don't know what made it properly identify the city). I could have said "south washington street" and picked from a collection of them that pop up, but this should be basic contextual analysis combined with the voice recognition. It should have picked up that the syllables just before "illinois" are a city name and therefore should be compared against the list of cities in IL.

2. Bartelso is near Germantown, which model S can correctly guess. I asked Model S to navigate to "St. Boniface Church in Germantown, IL". I tried many times, but it kept picking a "St. Barnabas Church" over 50 miles away. It wasn't until I asked Model S to navigate to "church, Germantown, IL", that it finally offered it to me in the list of possible destinations in the city. More weight should be placed on a city+state name rather than a proper business name, if provided -- I should have gotten a list of churches in Germantown, IL with St. Boniface at top (or in close, nearby cities) that were close to the proper name I provided rather than a name 50 miles away.

3. Bartelso is also near Breese, IL, pronounced "breeze". I asked Model S to navigate to "north 4th street, breese, IL" and it brought up some place with the name "breeze" in it near Chicago. I was able to get it to use "breese" when I purposely mispronounced it as in Drew Brees' name. Again, like #1.

4. Bartelso is also near Albers, IL, pronounced "Alberz". I asked Model S to navigate to Albers, but it kept calling up places in random cities with "Albert" in their names in Illinois. I could get Model S to properly recognize Albers, but only when mispronouncing it pretty grossly. Same as #1.

I like the idea of voice commands but so far it's been useful in only 1 of about 25 searches.

 

[dsm363]

It's worked fairly well for me so far but the names I've given it must have been easier for the system to recognize. I went out and tried the names you attempted (also grew up in Midwest) and got exact same errors. Definitely needs some work. I think it may do better with business names so if you happen to be going to a business like Staples, that seems to work better than saying the street name.

For music at least, it's worked well. Things like 'play Pearl Jam' or playing a particular song seems to work well.

 

[pete8314]

Aren't these things always a bit crap? I've never had luck with the Ford/Microsoft, Mercedes and Audi variants. Siri is better for me, but it's still more of a novelty than something that's useful. Of course, I'm British, so use the UK siri, anything that's expecting an American accent never works, whenever I call American Airlines or my bank, I have to put on (what I assume) is a horrible attempt at a generic American accent

 

[FlasherZ]

Aren't these things always a bit crap? I've never had luck with the Ford/Microsoft, Mercedes and Audi variants. Siri is better for me, but it's still more of a novelty than something that's useful. Of course, I'm British, so use the UK siri, anything that's expecting an American accent never works, whenever I call American Airlines or my bank, I have to put on (what I assume) is a horrible attempt at a generic American accent

Voice recognition in a Scottish Lift

 

[jerry33]

Aren't these things always a bit crap? I've never had luck with the Ford/Microsoft, Mercedes and Audi variants. Siri is better for me, but it's still more of a novelty than something that's useful. Of course, I'm British, so use the UK siri, anything that's expecting an American accent never works, whenever I call American Airlines or my bank, I have to put on (what I assume) is a horrible attempt at a generic American accent

The main problem with voice recognition in cars is the ambient noise level and the ability of the microphone to filter it out. This makes voice recognition mostly useless in an ICE car. I expect that the Model S will be somewhat better but far from perfect. The Prius is really good at setting the temperature to 65F regardless of what is being said. Too bad I don't set the temperature to 65F frequently

 

[tdiggity]

Can you try leaving off the city/state? Try "south washington street" and see what happens.

On mobile phones, Google maps assumes you mean the city/state you are in if you omit that. Hopefully Tesla uses the same API's as Google to do their search.

 

[FlasherZ]

Can you try leaving off the city/state? Try "south washington street" and see what happens.

On mobile phones, Google maps assumes you mean the city/state you are in if you omit that. Hopefully Tesla uses the same API's as Google to do their search.

I did that, and while in this case it worked because it's the nearest town, asking it for "south washington street" for a town with a non-recognized name 20 miles away is going to be problematic, as the number of towns near me with "south washington street" is going to be numerous.

 

[pete8314]

Voice recognition in a Scottish Lift

Here's another Scottish take on Siri (caution: obscene language)

 

[Krugerrand]

I'm sorry, FlasherZ, but that's funny. Perhaps if you speak in Spanish? :biggrin:

 

[FlasherZ]

I'm sorry, FlasherZ, but that's funny. Perhaps if you speak in Spanish? :biggrin:

I tried again -- used a spanish accent and tried rolling my R's but it did no good. It searched for "bar harbor don't want" for "navigate to Bartelso, IL".

 

[hvb]

Can you try using the zip code, assuming you know the zip code?

 

[NigelM]

...I'm British.....anything that's expecting an American accent never works, whenever I call American Airlines or my bank, I have to put on (what I assume) is a horrible attempt at a generic American accent

Same here, although Siri works fine for me. I'm adopting an accent that Model S accepts although my daughter cracks up every time she hears me!

 

[FlasherZ]

Can you try using the zip code, assuming you know the zip code?

Good idea, I'll have to try that.

 

[Krugerrand]

I tried again -- used a spanish accent and tried rolling my R's but it did no good. It searched for "bar harbor don't want" for "navigate to Bartelso, IL".

At this point, you might want to consider it a sign from a higher power and steer clear of Bartelso, IL.

 

[strider]

I've used it a few times and it's worked flawlessly for my wife and I. Went to see the Hobbit opening night and said, "Navigate to Metreon San Francisco". Popped up perfectly. Then coming home at 3:30am the on-ramp I usually use was under construction so after turning to avoid the construction told it, "Navigate to Belmont California". Popped up perfectly. Guess I just have unique destinations that are easy for the computer to figure out.

 

[timdorr]

I had some initial problems the very first time I used it. It wasn't hearing me or giving errors before I even spoke. It seems to have improved over time. If it's Google-powered, they do have the ability to learn your voice over time. I hope Tesla's enabled that functionality, even though there is a privacy document you're supposed to agree to when enabling it.

 

[Todd Burch]

Works flawlessly for me. I'm really impressed.

Make sure you wait long enough after pressing the button until the message pops up that it's recording. If you start right after the button press you'll be cut off.

Also, make sure you enunciate (but speak naturally). Don't yell at it or this will make things worse. Don't release the button too soon--silence is OK--and as the manual (amazingly) says, provide context when possible to help the recognition out.

Maybe these tips will help. Maybe not. Maybe you already know them.

 

[FlasherZ]

I'm familiar with the tips... just seems to lack context. Better context based fuzzy matching would improve it dramatically.

 

[Zapped]

Just got my 3G working and the voice button now shows "recording" but I can't get any commands to work.
Nothing in my manual to say what they are ..
Anyone tell me where to find a list of basic commands ? Climate fan speed, audio volume control ?

 

[Todd Burch]

Just got my 3G working and the voice button now shows "recording" but I can't get any commands to work.
Nothing in my manual to say what they are ..
Anyone tell me where to find a list of basic commands ? Climate fan speed, audio volume control ?

The commands are listed in the 4.1 release notes. "Navigate to", "Call", "Play" are some of them. Support for climate control/pano roof haven't been added yet.

BTW: You probably don't want voice control to do audio volume. 8 seconds of recording and audio analysis when a fraction of a second spinning the wheel on the steering would do the trick? :biggrin: