Voice to text is horrible when I'm driving my car

[garybeckvt]

Hello,

I am having this issue whenever I'm in the car and trying to use voice-to-text it is HORRIBLE.

The other day, I tried to have it type out the word "beautiful" as I was driving. It took 10 tries before it got it right. It gave all these responses first. It's kind of funny but very annoying that I can't use this when I'm driving:

Spoken clearly into the mic: "beautiful" each time
responses:

Salt
tell paul
Joseph Paul
the Fall
Deb Hall
False
Yoga Ball
Step Falls
Paws

I read online that some people have an issue when they're driving and the windows are down. But this all happens to me when the windows are up, I don't have the blower on, or anything.

As a note, I am not using blue tooth. I'm just speaking into the phone mic. Sometimes I have headphones on and I get the same results.

If anyone has any idea what is going on here and how I can make the voice to text work in the car, I would be very happy.

thank you
gary in vermont

 

[anon(238680)]

To be truthful, with all the ambient noise and low resolution of speech devices in autos I'm surprised anything works. You don't say what your phone or car model are, but you might call your dealer and ask if they have a firmware update for your car. If so, that may help. I would also suggest that your car mic may be better suited to what you're trying to do as that's what it was designed for. Too many things I don't know, but those are my best guesses.

 

[smvim]

Just to add, any voice to text app requires a steady, stable, and relatively high bandwidth online connection to that app's online servers. That's where all the heavy work is done, the app is just the user interface you interact with on your phone.
The translation itself is a processor-intensive task tied to elaborate software (including a lot of accumulated voice sampling), a smartphone just doesn't have the system resources required to do this on-the-fly.

 

[smvim]

Forgot to include, as far as the microphones in our phones we should be appreciative at how well they work even when there are odd issues like those misinterpreted words you listed. The microphone is at the end of that little pin-hole opening on the bottom edge (and if you have a water-resistant phone model, a covered pin-hole) -- it's a miniature, mono-only component that picks up whatever sound it can. Plus there's no windscreen like you'll have on a stand-alone, full-sized microphone either.

 

[treetopsranch]

But there are devices that work better, such as my Garmin GPS map device. That thing is about 1.5 feet from my face. Located on the dash and it picks up my voice commands just fine. It also has a tiny hole where the mic is located.

 

[garybeckvt]

thanks for the replies. to clarify, my car does not have any kind of system in it that could be upgraded. I am just using my phone's microphone, or sometimes the microphone that is built into a headset.

I can talk with someone on the phone while I drive and the connection is good.
I can do lots of other data things and the connection is good. This happens regardless of how many bars I have, and whether or not it says 3 G or 4G....

It's only when I try to use the voice to text. In addition to reading words incorrectly very often, sometimes it just sits there. I'll say a sentence, and I have to wait a long time and eventually it will print out what it thinks I said.