Android Speech To Text Tutorial

Android comes with an inbuilt feature speech to text through which you can provide speech input to your app. With this you can add some of the cool features to your app like adding voice navigation(Helpful when you are targeting disabled people), filling a form with voice input etc.,

In the background how voice input works is, the speech input will be streamed to a server, on the server voice will be converted to text and finally text will be sent back to our app.

Example

1) Create a new project in Eclipse by going to File ⇒ New ⇒ Android Application Project and give required information.

2) strings.xml

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<resources>
<string name=”app_name”>Speech To Text</string>
<string name=”action_settings”>Settings</string>
<string name=”hello_world”>Hello world!</string>
<string name=”speech_prompt”>Say something&#8230;</string>
<string name=”speech_not_supported”>Sorry! Your device doesn\’t support speech input</string>
<string name=”tap_on_mic”>Tap on mic to speak</string>
</resources>
3) colors.xml

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<resources>
<color name=”white”>#ffffff</color>
<color name=”bg_gradient_start”>#31244e</color>
<color name=”bg_gradient_end”>#6b394c</color>
</resources>

4) activity_main.xml

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android=”http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android”
xmlns:tools=”http://schemas.android.com/tools”
android:layout_width=”match_parent”
android:layout_height=”match_parent”
android:background=”@drawable/bg_gradient”
android:orientation=”vertical” >

<TextView
android:id=”@+id/txtSpeechInput”
android:layout_width=”wrap_content”
android:layout_height=”wrap_content”
android:layout_alignParentTop=”true”
android:layout_centerHorizontal=”true”
android:layout_marginTop=”100dp”
android:textColor=”@color/white”
android:textSize=”26dp”
android:textStyle=”normal” />

<LinearLayout
android:layout_width=”wrap_content”
android:layout_height=”wrap_content”
android:layout_alignParentBottom=”true”
android:layout_centerHorizontal=”true”
android:layout_marginBottom=”60dp”
android:gravity=”center”
android:orientation=”vertical” >

<ImageButton
android:id=”@+id/btnSpeak”
android:layout_width=”wrap_content”
android:layout_height=”wrap_content”
android:background=”@null”
android:src=”@drawable/ico_mic” />

<TextView
android:layout_width=”wrap_content”
android:layout_height=”wrap_content”
android:layout_marginTop=”10dp”
android:text=”@string/tap_on_mic”
android:textColor=”@color/white”
android:textSize=”15dp”
android:textStyle=”normal” />
</LinearLayout>

</RelativeLayout>

5) MainActivity.java

package info.androidhive.speechtotext;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Locale;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.ActivityNotFoundException;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.speech.RecognizerIntent;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.ImageButton;
import android.widget.TextView;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

private TextView txtSpeechInput;
private ImageButton btnSpeak;
private final int REQ_CODE_SPEECH_INPUT = 100;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

txtSpeechInput = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.txtSpeechInput);
btnSpeak = (ImageButton) findViewById(R.id.btnSpeak);

// hide the action bar
getActionBar().hide();

btnSpeak.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
promptSpeechInput();
}
});

}

/**
* Showing google speech input dialog
* */
private void promptSpeechInput() {
Intent intent = new Intent(RecognizerIntent.ACTION_RECOGNIZE_SPEECH);
intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_LANGUAGE_MODEL,
RecognizerIntent.LANGUAGE_MODEL_FREE_FORM);
intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_LANGUAGE, Locale.getDefault());
intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_PROMPT,
getString(R.string.speech_prompt));
try {
startActivityForResult(intent, REQ_CODE_SPEECH_INPUT);
} catch (ActivityNotFoundException a) {
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),
getString(R.string.speech_not_supported),
Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}
}

/**
* Receiving speech input
* */
@Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);

switch (requestCode) {
case REQ_CODE_SPEECH_INPUT: {
if (resultCode == RESULT_OK && null != data) {

ArrayList<String> result = data
.getStringArrayListExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_RESULTS);
txtSpeechInput.setText(result.get(0));
}
break;
}

}
}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
// Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
return true;
}

}

 

Preview