Feature: Consumer
The remote control will soon be a thing of the past
W
hen searching for content on a television set today, the “process” always seem to start by searching for the correct remote control unit, then scrolling through multiple pages, eventually
resorting to typing search words into a tiny keypad. Add the time this takes, plus the repetitive keystrokes to select the right character, and the experience becomes a frustrating scramble. This is what every TV household in the country – nay, the world! – goes through on a daily basis. In an age where we communicate around the world
seamlessly, surely it should be possible to just utter words like “Hey, TV, find ‘Fast and Furious 7’!” from anywhere in the room?! Little wonder manufacturers and content providers are
focusing on integrating voice control into their products and services. Consumers familiar with using voice to search and stream music through their smart devices are starting to expect the same ease when searching for content on TV sets – which has long been the main entertainment hub in most homes.
Beyond push-to-talk The ways in which consumers search for TV content has evolved over the years; not that long ago, we had to cross the room to change channels. Apart from any (willing!) youngsters within the family, the
The evolution of television control using voice technology
By Mark Lippett, CEO, XMOS 54 September/October 2020
www.electronicsworld.co.uk
first remote control was a tethered device with two buttons, which simply ‘moved’ the channel control button into the remote. The connecting wire soon disappeared, thanks to infra-red (IR) technology. Today, most remote control units use IR light to signal the receiver, which decodes its pulses into binary code through a microprocessor. Its limitation, however, is that it still requires line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver. The arrival of push-to-talk (PTT) marks a significant
shift in the way we interact with the TV. It consists of just pressing a button on the remote control unit and voicing the search words. Wireless links to the TV still use button control, but,
thanks to a microphone in the remote, also allow near-field voice capture and transmission of short audio segments to cloud-based ASR (automatic speech recognition) for processing. However, whilst near-field voice via the remote adds a fresh search experience, we still find ourselves hunting for the right remote control unit and pressing buttons. This, in effect, does not ‘liberate’ us from hunting for the unit all around the house. Enter the ‘just talk’ experience. Here, voice control is built
into the television set itself. With far-field voice capture, there’s no need to push buttons on a remote control unit. You simply tell the TV set what you want to watch, from anywhere in the room. Tis handsfree experience is when voice hits its full stride.
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