Web Speech API support ?

Hy mikohead 
did you find a solution about the freeze ? I have the same issue 😕 
it seems that it came from the onError event but i'm not sure.

Regards

florianSB 

Did you try restarting the recognizer? Every time I try to restart it using `recognition.start()` Edge freezes for ~8s. 

I've just tested the Web Speech API in the current release of (normal, no-flags, non-dev, non-canary) version of Edge again ... and it seems to work well now :-). I'm cautiously optimistic that we have actually 3 browsers now (Chrome, Edge, Safari) with full support ^^. Took them only 9 years 😛

florianSB 

Well I'd rather say they forgot to disable the API when they switched to the Chromium based Edge 😉

This is correct. It is also the case with Brave browser, which behaves identically. I had not realised Safari Web Speech API was now working. That is very good news. Thanks for sharing,

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Poodll_Guy wrote:

I don't buy that the developers forgot to hook it up.

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Well I'd rather say they forgot to disable the API when they switched to the Chromium based Edge 😉

The API has been in Chromium for ages and Google simply adds the Server URL and authentication (I guess) when they build Chrome. Firefox handles this better, they have full API support as well but since they don't have a server they disable it (it was once working in Firefox Nightly when they licensed a Google Server ^^).

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Poodll_Guy wrote:

Its not really easy to implement speech recognition in a synchroneous way for mass users in different languages. Its got to be a massive project with timelines and project management and schedules. 

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True, that's why Firefox doesn't have it. Microsoft built the infrastructure for Cortana and has proven that it can work (in Edge Dev with Flags for example) but for some reason doesn't go main stream. Apple has the infrastructure built for Siri and has now enabled Web Speech API in Safari.

If it doesn't work why is the interface sitting there pretending it does, and making it really hard to code web apps that use speech recognition? 

I don't buy that the developers forgot to hook it up. Its not really easy to implement speech recognition in a synchroneous way for mass users in different languages. Its got to be a massive project with timelines and project management and schedules. 

mikohead 

I am very disappointed... 

After some more testing, it seems Edge's SpeechRecognition API is still not usable. Here are some notes:
 
1) On google.com test (google voice search)
 
System: linux mint 20.0 Edge Dev 90.0.803.0 (Official build) dev (64-bit) 
1st load - says not available
2nd load - crashes after clicking the voice search
 
 
2) With LipSurf Chrome Extension:
 
System: Windows 10
 
LipSurf semi works on Canary build, but confidence is "0" for all results, when it should be returning a decimal between 0 and 1, see below:

SpeechRecognitionEvent
bubbles: false
cancelBubble: false
cancelable: false
composed: false
currentTarget: SpeechRecognition {grammars: SpeechGrammarList, lang: "en-US", continuous: true, interimResults: true, maxAlternatives: 1, …}
defaultPrevented: false
emma: null
eventPhase: 0
interpretation: null
isTrusted: true
path: []
resultIndex: 2
results: SpeechRecognitionResultList
0: SpeechRecognitionResult
0: SpeechRecognitionAlternative {transcript: "Scroll down.", confidence: 0}
isFinal: true
length: 1
__proto__: SpeechRecognitionResult
1: SpeechRecognitionResult
0: SpeechRecognitionAlternative {transcript: "Scroll up.", confidence: 0}
isFinal: true
length: 1
__proto__: SpeechRecognitionResult
2: SpeechRecognitionResult
0: SpeechRecognitionAlternative {transcript: "Scroll down.", confidence: 0}
isFinal: true
length: 1
__proto__: SpeechRecognitionResult
length: 3
__proto__: SpeechRecognitionResultList
returnValue: true
srcElement: SpeechRecognition {grammars: SpeechGrammarList, lang: "en-US", continuous: true, interimResults: true, maxAlternatives: 1, …}
target: SpeechRecognition {grammars: SpeechGrammarList, lang: "en-US", continuous: true, interimResults: true, maxAlternatives: 1, …}
timeStamp: 32099.350000000413
type: "result"
__proto__: SpeechRecognitionEvent

An update on the current state:

- Flags are not required anymore

- Canary works on first try, a follow-up call wont work anymore and the 3rd call will crash the browser, always! This can be easily reproduced using google.com for testing or my own test-page

- Dev is stuck in "no internet connection" on google.com and will crash the browser occasionally

I've reported this about 2-3 weeks ago and it is unchanged ever since.

So to sum up the current state is worse than ever before due to constant crashes 😐

MissyQ Do you have any news from the dev team about it? Are they aware of these issues? Can they reproduce it?

I've just tested the newest Canary build and it seems some errors are fixed now 🙂

"Network error" is now a proper "no-speech" error and the end event seems to trigger on a regular basis!

Looking forward for the next Dev Build!

MissyQ I'm happy to see that the implementation of the Web Speech API finally arrived in Edge Dev. With a bit of code tweaking I've managed to run it in an "okay" state but I've found a few bugs that I already reported via Edge Dev tools.

Just to sum this up somewhere:

• The Web Speech API generally works at least in English and German and reliably delivers interim results ...
• ... but it occasionally drops the "onend" event
• ... and throws "network" errors where it should throw "no-speech" errors

This behavior also breaks the "continuous" mode, because it constantly throws "network" errors when no speech is coming in.

The drop of the "onend" event seems to happen more frequently on a "fresh" recognizer object.

I hope the team can find and fix these bugs since they make it very hard to work with the current implementation without building a lot of Edge specific safety nets 😞

Besides that I'm really happy that Edge will finally be the 2nd major desktop browser (after almost 10 years) that delivers a functional speech recognition feature 🙂

HenryLin 

I'm still getting the 'network' error on final result, but in general 'zh-CN' seems to work and most of the popular other languages like Spanish, German, French, etc. etc.

florianSB 

when I use the lang = 'en-US' , it's work

but change the lang to 'cmn-Hant-TW' or 'zh-TW' or 'zh-CHT' , it's error ..

it's only support 'en-US' now?

HenryLin yes, it does 🙂

florianSB 

thanks !! ur app is work for me , the microphone can get my speech content

do u ues Wep-Speech-API ???

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Speech_API

HenryLin I'm not entirely sure, to be honest! The only thing I can think of is that in your pathway to the exe file for Edge, it's missing your username (which, please don't post that here). Is that in the path when you try to run the command?

florianSB Thanks for this info! I'll forward this off to the team to let them know what you found. 🙂

Missy Quarry (she/her/hers)
Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

MissyQ 

Thanks for the info!  With this command its actually kind of working now in the latest Canary build 

The strange thing is that I'm getting an intermediate result but the final result triggers a "network" error again.

I've updated my own app for testing: S.E.P.I.A. Open Assistant (sepia-framework.github.io)

You can try it yourself by extending the login box and choosing "continue without login". The microphone button is the circle at the bottom 😉 errors will be shown in the console and chat view.

I'll use the integrated Edge feedback feature to send a bug report as well.

HenryLin 

I'm getting the same error. I think this page has some unrelated issues 😕
You can try my own app I've linked above for a more up-to-date implementation 🙂

"C:\Users\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge SxS\Application\msedge.exe" --enable-features=msSpeechRecognition

i try it and open "https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/demos/speech.html"

it's not work

Am I using the correct command?

florianSB Appreciate your patience while I chatted with the team. They let me know that this command line should turn on the feature for you. Let me know if you are still having troubles after that! 🙂

msedge.exe --enable-features=msSpeechRecognition

Missy Quarry (she/her/hers)
Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

florianSB Appreciate you letting me know. I have reached out to the team for advice on how to get this working for you. Stay tuned! 🙂

Missy Quarry (she/her/hers)
Community Manager - Microsoft Edge