Oh I meant turning on everything. I know it certainly turns the console on.

How is talking to your TV cool?

This thing is a hunk of garbage, it works about half of the time, which is about half as often less than it should. I hate using it. just talking at my tv like a goddamn idiot. The only exception is "XBOX ON" turning on my xbox and tv. That's pretty cool. Most of the rest of it is clunky at best. Maybe I'm spoiled by Google Now's 75% accuracy and natural language stuff but I really really hate using the Kinect voice commands. Also the UI is so poorly laid out that sometimes even fumbling around with the Kinect and having to repeat yourself 2-3 times is still faster than getting there with a controller.

Kinect looks like it works like garbage even still. I probably wouldn't even connect it.

Uggh.

Again, it come down to people being far more non-verbal and the rules of politeness being on the side of discreet action. We as humans doesn't issues a lot of commands verbally in teh absences of other communication, most often we supplemented everything we say by non-verbal clues. Sitting in your living room even alone saying in a clear voice "Xbox do This" or "Xbox Do That" is weird enough, but it will become downright annoying if we have an audience. Truly, grabbing a remote to find "Mute" is less sociably grating than saying "XBOX Mute". Unless you are on fire, drowning, or falling down a cliff; silent, discrete, unnoticeable actions are preferred in every day society.

It does not matter how many verbal systems manufactures make, or how much they advertise them. It is quicker to cut the lunch line than stand in it, it is quicker to jump a curb and drive down the side walk in traffic, it is easier to microwave a turkey than to roast it in the oven; yet, we know quickness is not some unimpeachable good. Quick, discrete, action is what is prefer, but talking to your TV is not discrete. And, wildly gesticulating at your TV with mock punches in even less discrete. Talking loud and punching the air is what mentally unbalanced people do while pushing shopping carts as they talk to Elvis/Jesus.

We will talk to machines one day, but we will do that mostly when they communicate as we do. We will do it when we have maybe 4th generation Kinect which is watching for subtle clues of all types of communication. As it stands Siri lasted as a fad for what 6 months, now ist just a forgotten feature for most people. Some people use it everyday, most peopel don't and never will because talking in you phone of a street corner or at a coffee shop is RUDE. When we do use it it will be when it is 98% accurate, which is about as well as we are understood by the people around us.

Siri is handy as an interface into apps. For instance it is easier to setup an appointment using Siri than it is to use the calendar to enter it. When the context is limited, Siri works great. When it is not you have just as much luck going to google.com and typing in stuff. Since 7.0 they've been focusing on Siri support into apps instead of a general "assistant" thing they originally toughed because it just doesn't work.

But that isn't what is going on with Kinect where it is just simply that the voice command interface still doesn't work. It definitely doesn't seem like it is "partially working" well enough for the higher price tag.

I haven't done much TV watching yet but it's working fine for me.
Besides I think over time stuff like that will get better with software updates, or not, who knows.

I am digging the kinect. The voice stuff works pretty well and I like entering the room and saying "Xbox On" and having the xbox, tv, and receiver power up and then being logged in by the camera. It worked very well with p90x plyometrics and it is not in an ideal location. I just moved the camera to the top of the book shelf to the right of the tv and aimed it off to the right and started the workout. There were no issues and I didnt need to calibrate continually, which I have had to do with the Kinect Sports demo. Its not perfect and if I am flipping around tv, I dont use voice controls. However, if I am eating or working on the computer and just want to switch channels, I use it all the time. I also use kinect when I want to mute the receiver. Lastly, I love not having to switch inputs for tv and games. So far, I am happy with the kinect, especially since it works pretty well in a space that is not ideal.

• The Xbox One's voice recognition is not calibrated for Australians.
• The massive game downloads are useless for people in country's like mine with smaller monthly caps.
• The TV functionality does nothing if you just use the built-in tuner and have no desire to pay for television.
• The power brick gets fucking hot and it's noisy fan (in the brick!!) runs all night.
• The box itself is FUCKING HUGE and ugly as shit.
• The Kinect is also WAY too big. What a fucking joke!

Look I really like my Xbox One but it has some serious design flaws and my Kinect is permanently unplugged from here on out.

"XBOX ON" "XBOX FIND STAR TREK" ... who really needs this in their lives?

Love the voice stuff. Is it perfect? No, but what voice recognition is? And when it does work (in most instances for me) it's fantastic. People just need to adjust to the specific phrases it demands.

Can't speak for the tv channels, but Kinect has worked for me about 95% of time navigating the menus and using Netflix or Hulu. It's worked well so far in games, but most of the time when it doesn't it is probably because my audio is too loud. It's about 8 or 9 feet away from me.

So "you are using it wrong". Always a great deflection for something that is faulty.

The accuracy of voice commands varies about as much as a voice varies from person to person. Being someone who's been using voice commands for various devices over the years, and fairly active in using voice-to-text on my android phone I can say that it takes a whole new way of using your brain. Devices that listen for voice do not have the intelligence or sheer voice data to interpret the connotation and context of our speech. Remove the fact that English is wildly known to be the most nonsense language out there in terms of slang and illogical laws for pronunciation, the device is forced to parse each word by itself without the context we as humans thrive on. I can say 1/5th of a word as long as I am speaking through a sentence it's very likely the word is understood by another human, but to a computer trying to match up those speech patterns loses most of the sentence.

On this front Google is really the only leader of voice recognition simply because they have the largest pool of data, the largest raw amount of sentences constructed by humans with the intention of finding information based on those words. It knows the likelihood of how sentences 'should' go based on it's vast history of searches, and linking all that data together makes it exponentially more smart in predicting what you wanna say, often in cases where you haven't even said it yet. I think this "did you mean?" Segment that Google has the benefit of applying to voice is really the only way to power through that last 10% of voice recognition accuracy you need to reach perfect voice recognition.

The fact that Kinect helps me 90% of the time with a command and switches to what I want within a millisecond of me finishing the word is pretty magnificent. It takes a lot of effort to re-train myself to not speech to a person and instead speak to a machine and that means being straight forward and precise in my choice of words, leaving out ums and pauses and instead learning the commands similar to button presses and saying them in the rhythm that I've found best suites my own tone of voice and accent.

Voice commands have helped me troubleshoot my Xbox One when my screen wouldn't come back from a black screen, I didn't have sound at the time so I instead looked at provided screenshots of some menus and navigated my way through them blindly, with voice. I think that is lovely.

This is an important point in general regarding not only Kinect but other implementations of voice recognition that are in their infancy. If you watch Jeff's Quick Look of Xbox One & TV, it misses a lot when Jeff is speaking as he would to another human. "Xbox switch" is run together too quickly in normal speaking cadence and the Kinect just doesn't seem to be able to get it...it hears "Xboxswitch" and can't connect that to the command it's looking for, Xbox and then a brief pause. For now, it seems to need a clear separation between words, however brief, in order to function.

Think of it like branching conversation options in games like Mass Effect. One needs to choose the first option in order for subsequent options to present themselves. It's the same way with Kinect, but I don't think the average consumer out there has the necessary level of technological competence as of yet to realize this and adjust their speech accordingly. (I'm not referring to anyone on Giant Bomb when I say the average consumer!) Of course, ideally this stuff would just work and people could just speak normally and the Xbox would understand them, but that may be a few years off. The saving grace to this issue is that the Kinect hardware itself seems to be incredible, and software can always be updated over time. Let's hope it will be.

If you need to "retrain yourself" to use a interface that is supposed to supersede the old interface then and it doesn't work reliable, how useful is that interface? Given a controller or a remote, how useful is a voice interface that works intermittently if not at all? What is the exact "up sell" in this case? It is more expensive and complex because it might work? I'm not exactly impressed since the old interface was nearly faultless.

Let me put it this way: If Google TV or Apple TV had this voice command feature and it was as reliable as this there would be a lot of jokes and many would consider a failure. Why is Microsoft exempt?

Is there any way to disable the Kinect microphone for games and just leave it on for the main interface stuff? It seems there's no way to turn the mic off when playing Forza online unless you just turn the whole thing off.

edit - never mind, turns out you can disable the mic just for chat. I thought that disabled the mic for everything!

This whole process of revealing and releasing the XOne has never failed to leave me baffled. Why in the hell is a cumbersome, unreliable and totally unnecessary system of gestures and voice commands a central selling point of a dedicated gaming and entertainment console? The interface should be there to get you to your media and that's it. Why this obsession with interface in the first place? It seems like a very overpriced gimmicky toy. It's as if nostalgia is carrying the day for the XBox brand of 8 years ago - When Microsoft wanted to make an HD, broadband ready gaming machine with great exclusives.

@extomar said:

I wouldn't say that it necessarily took retraining, but there's a little bit of a learning curve to know what the voice cues are. For example, Xbox Off doesn't work, but Xbox turn off does. It took me about a day to learn these distinctions, and since then, the Kinect has actually worked great for me. Not 100% accurate, but probably around 95%. When it does fail, it usually gets it on a second time, which is actually less frustrating than I thought it would be, as it still is faster than browsing through multiple menus to start an app or a game or to watch a specific channel.

If I were using Kinect as a replacement for the remote or controller, I'd be a lot more frustrated. Having to say every command would be way more tedious and frustrating than using a controller. But as a supplement? It's fantastic. Being able to say Xbox On as I walk in the room and everything is on and ready to go as soon as I can sit down on the couch really feels futuristic. Or telling it to switch to Killer Instinct or Forza as I walk over to the kitchen and grab a snack while it loads is actually convenient. I still use my controller probably 75% of the time, but I do really like the added functionality.

Probably the best example I've had so far of the added convenience is when I was trying to fast forward to the last five minutes of a show from Time Warner On Demand. The fast forwarding in that goes at a glacial pace, and since I was starting from the beginning, I knew it would take 4 or 5 minutes to reach the 55 minute mark. So I just said "Xbox, snap Hulu" and used my controller to select a sketch from SNL. I was able to watch that and keep track of the progress of On Demand show I was fast forwarding. Once I was done, I just said "Xbox, unsnap" and I could watch the end of the show in fullscreen.

So far, my overall take has been that the Kinect is really cool, and actually works better than I expected. It's not perfect, and they have work to do to make it better.

In my eyes, if the kennect was just made to be a solution for not having to type super long product codes in your console it is a complete win.
Everything else on top of that is gravy.

Voice not great for TV, solid for everything else.

I'm not saying Kinect is useless either: It can recognize no one has a controller so it can pause the game. It can be used to recognize that no one is in the room. There are a lot of "quality of life" like "code reader" that can be implemented today that don't require complex algorithmic solutions with a dubious accuracy rate.

Simple and common scenario: Expecting visitors to a house to operate the entertainment system controlled with XBox One with their voice is impossible and not worth it compared to the fact the remote is sitting on the coffee table. Suggesting it is tedious and frustrating is amusing when people can quickly figure out TV remotes from many manufactures but will probably struggle with just XBox One.

If no one in this thread refers to themself or someone else as a "voice commando," I will be very disappointed.

Generally I've heard that the new Kinect is very impressive in some areas, but not good enough to be consistently reliable for say, turning over TV channels. I still think it has its worth, but that kinda sucks when it's such a central selling point of the system and it's such a significant chunk of the console price.

I agree! The Kinect Is a bit annoying. When you play a game and your talking to your mates and you say xbox it will make you stop playing your game lol But because of that I have disconnected as well.

No, he said you need to get used to it, which is not at all the same as "you are using it wrong."

Thus far I've observed a pretty even split in online comments between people saying it works perfectly fine for them, this is including non-Americans, and people claiming it hardly works at all. Which makes me think the people for whom it isn't working correctly, are indeed doing something wrong.

I'd like to try the voice recognition on the new Kinect. My experience with it's last-gen cousin invariably devolved into:

I have had the voice features work 9/10 times when my room is completely quiet. Speaking of not using the Kinect, does anyone know if there is a way to auto sign in without having to use the camera?

@hobozero said:

I'd like to try the voice recognition on the new Kinect. My experience with it's last-gen cousin invariably devolved into:

Yo dawg it's actually the Kinect that should be yelling.

It almost sounds like microsoft has made the interface purposefully more of a pain to use with a controller as a way to get more people using a kinect.

I haven't had any problems whatsoever with the Kinect. As a matter of fact, I've been using the voice commands exclusively for navigating the dashboard. I consistently turn the system (along with everything else connected) on and off utilizing the voice commands, and it works perfectly fine. Every now and then it will misunderstand a command--such as thinking I said "pause" instead of "off"--but that probably just comes down to enunciating a little better.

Ignoring the HMI for a moment, in terms of engineering a device that has a feature that doesn't activate when given the correct input is "faulty". If someone says "Bing Ryze" to a Kinect and thought they were going to get something that is when the user is at fault. On the other hand if a someone says "XBox One Bing Ryze" and it does nothing then it is device's fault. The user didn't misunderstand the input commands or the conveyance. The user doesn't need further training. The input was given and the device failed. How severe that failure is subjective (and in this case not very serious) but it is still a failure.

@extomar: Sure, but if you have your Kinect wrapped in a towel, pointing towards the ceiling, placed inside an entertainment center, beside a loud speaker or a number of other bad scenarios then there is some explanation for why it would not work correctly. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean that every person that is experiencing issues with the Kinect is an imbecile that can't figure out how to place a camera on the shelf - obviously there are moments where it will just not work. But when you have people like Patrick comment how in their homes the system works 90% of the time, when others report a near 100% failure rate in kinect comprehension, I get curious what would account for such dramatically divergent experiences. It seems strange that instead of middling results across the board, you get such peaks and valleys in performance.

I dunno if this would work but has anyone whom is far away from the kinect thought about using a lol a walkie talkie? I mean sure it would look and feel silly, but maybe it's an idea. If you do this, film it please. lol

well that sucks for you bro wish you had better luck with it, mine has worked around 90% of the time and can't imagine having the system without it. i was one of the people who didn't get kinect last gen and anticipated to hate it when i got it, but to my surprise i really like it. the way it interfaces with the UI makes navigating a through the UI a so easy.

tbh, when the best function of a CAMERA accessory is voice recognition, i think it's kinda pointless to begin with.

Instead of the camera they should have just put a microphone in the controller.

I heard if you unplug the entire console and take it back to store you'll be a happier person.

Or you know what? A button on the controller and easy to navigate menus!

@xalienxgreyx: nah bro that only works for $ony consoles cause $ony fail~station {65% of units r major defective chek the stats bro} $$$ucks lawlllzz

link

plus how long have you been practicing typing like that

plus plus I get the joke

If u had xbox u could just ask kinect to search 4 u lol wat a fail

You're a champion

I'm just bringing my rhetoric down to your level, I thought you would appreciate it. Every time I see you post it's usually some derogatory comment about Microsoft or Xbox styled in an insufferable console-war demeanor just barely falling short of absurdities like "failbox 360." Although I'm sure all of this will be sadly lost on you, I'm hoping to elucidate here that you don't need to prowl the forums in search of unsuspecting souls to enlighten with your ever so poignant opinion of Microsoft products.

It makes me happy

@xalienxgreyx: It's called being a dick. Rule #1. Stop it.

I only use it for Skype now, otherwise it's completely worthless. Voice recognition needs about a 95+ percent rate (preferably 99%) for it to be useful. The problems with the Kinect are extremely apparent after using Google Voice, a voice recognition software component that works 95+ percent of the time. You know what's annoying, when you are watching a movie and say "Xbox Skip" and it brings up Skype; and thats with annunciating like hell.

And it's turned the other way around now and is behind the TV. It's completely and utterly pointless. I'm hoping they make it better in the coming year or two because man, what a complete screw-up.

Bundling Kinect was the smartest thing Microsoft has ever done. Why? Because we need voice recognition technology to move on and develop. Having this in millions of homes will do to voice recognition what the PS2 did for DVDs. Siri should have done this but I don't know anyone who actually uses Siri, and I sure you lot don't know anyone either.

I've found the voice stuff on the dashboard to be so good that it has become my default way of launching games. This will be even more so in a few years time when I have 150 games in the system and not less than 10. I use it for Netflix (although why they made the "select 1" titles black out the programmes is beyond me… I've also found the voice recognition so good on the system that I miss it when I use another device.

I am scottish, I have a scottish accent and I have found that the new Kinect works about 99% of the time and the errors I get is me not using the right syntax for the command or I have the volume too loud to what I calibrated it with.

But, the beauty is that because everyone will have it Microsoft have to continually develop and improve it. Yes we need a more relaxed syntax, yes I would rather say "go to Assassins Creed" instead of "go to Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag" but it will get there. What we have now, as good as it is, will pale in to comparison to what it will be like at the end of this Xbox One generation and I think that is something to look forward to.