kaylee/README.rst

Kaylee
======

Kaylee is a somewhat fancy speech recognizer that runs commands and
performs other functions when a user speaks loosely preset sentences. It
is based on `Blather <https://gitlab.com/jezra/blather>`__ by
`Jezra <http://www.jezra.net/>`__, but adds a lot of features that go
beyond the original purpose of Blather.

Requirements
------------

1. Python 3 (tested with 3.5, may work with older versions)
2. pocketsphinx 5prealpha
3. gstreamer-1.0 (and what ever plugin has pocketsphinx support)
4. gstreamer-1.0 base plugins (required for ALSA)
5. python-gobject (required for GStreamer and the GTK-based UI)
6. python-requests (required for automatic language updating)

**Note:** it may also be required to install
``pocketsphinx-hmm-en-hub4wsj``

Usage
-----

1. Copy options.json.tmp to ~/.config/kaylee/options.json.  Default
   values for command-line arguments may be specified in this file.
2. Copy plugins.json.tmp to ~/.config/kaylee/plugins.json and fill the
   ".shell" section of the file with sentences to speak and commands
   to run.
3. Run Kaylee with ``./kaylee.py``. This generates a language model and
   dictionary using the `Sphinx Knowledge Base Tool
   <http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/tools/lmtool.html>`__, then listens for
   commands with the system default microphone.

   -  For the GTK UI, run ``./kaylee.py -i g``.
   -  To start a UI in 'continuous' listen mode, use the ``-c`` flag.
   -  To use a microphone other than the system default, use the ``-m``
      flag.

3. Start talking!

Examples
~~~~~~~~

-  To run Kaylee with the GTK UI, starting in continuous listen mode:
   ``./kaylee.py -i g -c``

-  To run Kaylee with no UI and using a USB microphone recognized as
   device 2: ``./kaylee.py -m 2``

-  To run a command when a valid sentence has been detected:
   ``./kaylee.py --valid-sentence-command=/path/to/command``

-  To run a command when an invalid sentence has been detected:
   ``./kaylee.py --invalid-sentence-command=/path/to/command``

Finding the Device Number of a USB microphone
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are a few ways to find the device number of a USB microphone.

-  ``cat /proc/asound/cards``
-  ``arecord -l``