Speech-enhanced interaction with TV

Television sets have gone through enormous improvements. So-called smart TV sets allow the development of applications that are independent from the TV set manufacturer. The control of the devices however is in most cases still solved by traditional infrared remote controllers. The number of buttons on the remote controller has grown significantly which hinders its use. Our goal was to develop a speech-enhanced demonstration prototype. It is based on standard, commercially available components and makes the use of the TV set not only simpler but also allows better user experience. Remote control is based on a smartphone with speech synthesis and recognition features. The smartphone controller can interact with smart TVs through Wi-Fi while traditional TVs can be controlled through a Bluetooth-IR converter. According to our overview this is the first such approach for Samsung smart TVs.