Voiceitt, the Israeli start-up company that has integrated nonstandard speech recognition technology into voice-activated devices, is integrating its app for smart home systems.

The company’s speech recognition technology translates speech in real time, enabling those with severe speech impairments to communicate by voice to their phone, home, TV, smart locks and more.

Medical conditions such as cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease, and stroke, impair verbal communication alongside sometimes motor skills, with those affected turning to voice-activated technologies to improve their quality of life and overall independence.

Voiceitt’s marketing manager, Miri Feldsharov says, “Voiceitt is working to integrate its impaired-speech recognition technology with smart-assistant technologies which already support a wide range of smart home devices and appliances.”

In Summer 2019, Voiceitt launch its first smart home integration pilot in collaboration with Inglis House in Philadelphia.

The video of the pilot shows a resident, Jeanne Cwynski, commanding the Voiceitt software to turn off a lamp, and then a TV.

With technology leaning more towards a so-called ‘voice first’ world, the importance for independent living homes for individuals with speech impairments will change design’s outlook on the accessibility of design, specifically in smart homes.

Most voice-recognition technologies previously excluded those with speech-motor disabilities, but Voiceitt’s improvement of popular smart devices’ accuracy has helped bring technology to people who may benefit the most, which is still in beta testing.

The user records themselves, then the application uses the recording and information gathered and learns to interpret how the user speaks.

Once the user speaks into the app, the app reflects a synthesised audio translation as well as text on-screen.

The company has one of the largest databases of nonstandard voices and is continually adding to it, asking people to donate their voices as individuals use the app.

Voicett co-founder, Sara Smolley says, ‘All indicators are pointed towards voice technology continuing to grow, so the accessibility component would not just be nice to have, but really important.’

Voicett has participated in accelerator programs with Google and Amazon, alongside having being funded from the Alexa Fund and Amazon’s venture capital fund for voice technology innovation.

Sarah Buckley

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