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florianSB's avatar
florianSB
Brass Contributor
Jan 13, 2020

Web Speech API support ?

Currently Edge (81.0.381.0) is behaving strange when using the Web Speech API for speech recognition. The interface exists, but does not work AND does not throw any error. Here is a quick code examp...
  • GurpreetV's avatar
    GurpreetV
    Feb 12, 2020

    florianSB thanks for reporting this issue. We are aware of this and are working to wire up Speech recognition in the upcoming future versions of Edge for our customers. Once this feature is out in Canary, I will let you know so you can try it out.

florianSB's avatar
florianSB
Brass Contributor
Poodll_Guy wrote:

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

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 ^^).

 

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. 

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.

Poodll_Guy's avatar
Poodll_Guy
Copper Contributor
Jun 02, 2021

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,

  • StephaneDez's avatar
    StephaneDez
    Copper Contributor
    May 12, 2022

    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

  • dtyles's avatar
    dtyles
    Copper Contributor
    Jul 25, 2021
    florianSB
    I tried your test application the day after your post and it indeed worked but the following day it stopped working (same as my own tests) producing "Error: 'E0? - network'". In Edge release notes I see that Microsoft says that support for speech recognition is added for google.com and similar web sites. I wonder if speech recognition worked for all web sites for couple days (as an oversight) and then was shutdown? Would be good to understand what Microsoft's intentions are here.
  • florianSB's avatar
    florianSB
    Brass Contributor
    Jun 09, 2021
    It seems to work fine for me. You can test it here: https://sepia-framework.github.io/app/index.html
    (simply skip the login to get to demo mode and press the microphone below). Its an older version of my app that wasn't working for a while in Edge because of all the initial quirks in Edge's Web Speech API but it has fixed itself recently and now works almost with the same performance as in Chrome ^^.
  • mikohead's avatar
    mikohead
    Copper Contributor
    Jun 08, 2021

    florianSB 

     

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

  • florianSB's avatar
    florianSB
    Brass Contributor
    Jun 07, 2021

    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 😛

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