Voice Actions Plus

Summary

“AndroidPIT test report Take 1432, camera on, voice, aaaand ACTION!” Sounds like we’re filming a movie? Nope, we’re talking voice controls! Androids would’ve definitely fit into a 1960s James Bond 007 type film...

Voice Agent’s mission (with a little bit of help from Google) is to help you control your phone using only your voice.
 

We tested this app using an HTC Desire / Android 2.2

Voice Agent helps you control your phone and its actions via speech commands using Google Voice Search, which records your words on the Google servers and interprets it into a readable text. Lots of options are available, some of which work better than others.

Talk to your android. Ask it to:
• Voicedial your contacts
• Set alarms and reminders
• Send text messages and email
• Listen to music and poems
• Get news, facts and translations
• Search images, videos, apps and places

Use Voice Agent to start a dialogue every time you begin a search. For instance: if you want to call one of your contacts the app will ask you if you’re really sure that you want to make the call—this can help prevent cross cuts. The same goes for text messaging: you don’t want to accidentally send a romantic SMS to your boss... Then again, you might finally get that raise ;)

Not only does the app support searches, it comes with many useful functions. At the moment the list of functions is in English only. We were particularly impressed by the Reminder option: just say "remind me to call Diddy in 20 minutes" and the app will put an icon in your status bar reminding you to make your call in precisely 20 minutes. Energy controls are also possible via speech commands. Simply saying "enable/disable Bluetooth" will let the app know what to do regarding Bluetooth.

Another great feature worth mentioning is the translation tool with which you can translate entire sentences into another language. Say something like "translate I love you to Russian" and Voice Agent will display the translated sentence.

Searching for news follows a similar principle: the main issue is that the duration of the display of results is often much too short to actually be able to read let alone understand the search results.

Install opens the Google Market and searches for the app you’re looking for. Starting apps such as Facebook takes only a moment; this function works really well.

Writing SMSs has never been so easy. Just say "Text Diddy I like your new car" and Voice Agent sends off the message, after checking with you that everything is in order. However, a big drawback is that text messages don’t show up in the standard SMS category. This issue should really be sorted out.

The app’s developers are constantly adding new voice control features and pimping the app out even more. The existing list of options is pretty extensive:

* call James at home
* text Maria that I love her
* news about Barack Obama
* set alarm clock:
* wake up monday at 8am
*ask for the distance to the moon,
the capital of brazil
... and other simple facts!
* play music by bach
* launch browser
* open favorites,recent contacts
* search ebay, amazon, wolfram, etc.
* where is berlin center
* enable bluetooth
* translate I love you in spanish
* email john ... I liked your song
* what sound does an elephant make
* install adobe reader
* make a video
* navigate to Alaska
* contact john doe
* remind me to pick up Joe in 30 minutes
* video of snoring cats
* get me a pizza
* record audio
* image of the sunset
* facebook.com
* just-any-url.org
* define luck
* spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
* horoscope for pisces
* play a game (test)
* close this application
* previous, next

Control wifi, bluetooth, volume by voice
Weather forecasts
Painting/Drawing by voice
Sent messages & reminders are saved
Jump to system settings

Advantages

• Fast search via speech command
• Access contacts
• Write SMS
• Lots of options that help control your phone
• The app is constantly being expanded

Drawbacks

• SMS don’t show up where they’re meant to
• Results are contingent on precise pronunciation

Bottom line:
Voice Agent is a nice app that comes with a definite fun factor. Some commands are met with responses such as "Do you wanna see me undress". The app’s surprisingly polite, too; "Thank You" is always followed by "You're Welcome".

The app does what it claims to do even if it needs a bit of polishing in some departments. Searching for news doesn’t always work and when it does the results are shown in a pop-up that disappears before you’ve had time to properly read through the results.
 

There’s one icon for Voice Agent which appears on your screen when you start the app. A Google search opens up when you click on the app and transmits whatever it is you’re looking for to Google servers. Provided everything has gone smoothly Voice Agent does what you tell it to do.

The search rate is contingent on how complex your command is. The app is pretty nifty with simple commands such as starting apps or turning Bluetooth on and can execute these commands a lot faster than a complicated web search. All in all the app’s speed is satisfactory. There were no crashes, so it’s safe to say that Voice Agent does a good job.

Voice Agent can be downloaded for € 1,23 in the App Center.