6 ms·

Dicio: Free and open source voice assistant for Android

83 points by commoner 5y ago

commoner 5y ago
Newly added to F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.dicio.dicio_android/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.dicio.dicio_android/ To choose Dicio as your default digital assistant on Android (replacing Google Assistant), go to Settings > Apps & notifications > Default apps > Digital assistant app > Default digital assistant app. On Android 10+, this lets you activate Dicio by swiping from the bottom left/right corner toward the center of the screen.
- robmsmt 5y ago
  >To choose Dicio as your default digital assistant on Android (replacing Google Assistant), go to Settings > Apps & notifications > Default apps > Digital assistant app > Default digital assistant app. On Android 10+, this lets you activate Dicio by swiping from the bottom left/right corner toward the center of the screen. This is great, one of the barriers to entry before was that you needed to manually open the app. Although I don't see that this resolves the issue of the wakeword/hotword triggered with "Hey Google" ?
  - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
    I have a Motorola g30. It has a dedicated google assistant button. Since the ui is stock android, I was able to uninstall google assistant and all other crap. Problem is, the button is dead now without google assistant. Maybe using easer or tasker I could reuse it. Maybe tasker/easer has something for the wakeword detection? That would be great.
  - commoner 5y ago
    The "Hey Google" detection in the Google app has a hard Play Services dependency. Unfortunately, I don't think a replacement for the wake word is possible without some kind of system-level implementation. microG might be able to implement this, but I don't think the project has enough resources to make it a priority.
    - robmsmt 5y ago
      Thanks, this was my thinking. I took a look at microG and couldn't see any reference to it on the status page: https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/wiki/Implementation-Status https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/wiki/Implementation-Status The options to make a true opensource assistant that would work in the same capacity as Alexa/Siri/Google (invoked via wakeword) is therefore quite limited. An alternative is to have it listening constantly, maybe as a background service, but this would use up too much battery I suspect.
betwixthewires 5y ago
I don't see text messages/calling in the skills/features list, or using any other messaging apps. Are there any particular plans to build skills for these sorts of applications? Also, doe sit use whichever speech engine you have installed for tts? I'm interested in using this primarily because I only use FOSS and up until now I've been going without a voice assistant, but I do use flite tts.
- david_allison 5y ago
  Apparently uses Vosk for TTS. Looks like it's welcoming of external contributors, a PR is in for telephone functionality. You could very likely get the functionality that you need included. https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    I think it uses Vosk for speech to text, the docs say it uses "android text to speech", I'm curious if it uses Google's TTS hardcoded or if it uses API calls to use whichever TTS engine is default in your system.
    - commoner 5y ago
      Dicio uses the default text-to-speech engine on your Android device. Most Android devices are sold preloaded with Google's TTS engine.[1] A FOSS alternative that works offline is RHVoice.[2] To set your default TTS provider on Android, go to Settings > Accessibility > Text-to-speech output > Preferred engine. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.tts https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... [2] Website: https://rhvoice.org https://rhvoice.org / F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.olga_yakovleva.rhvoice.android/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.olga_yakovleva.rh... / GitHub: https://github.com/RHVoice/RHVoice https://github.com/RHVoice/RHVoice
      - rjzzleep 5y ago
dddw 5y ago
Wow normally I find this stuff on HN first, but I installed it just hours before this post finding it on fdroid. An open source voice assitant is very welcome imho. If it can match the old blackberry bbos10 voice assitant in usability, I'd be very gratefull. My first impression was that the speech to text was allright, but the interpretation of that is kinda spotty still.
encryptluks2 5y ago
I tried using this, but it just kept saying... "I did not understand, could you repeat."
- commoner 5y ago
  The available commands are limited to the five actions described on the screen when you open Dicio, and the language you use has to match the app's grammar rules. If you phrased your query in a way that the app doesn't understand, I'm sure the developers would appreciate a bug report: https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android/issues https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android/issues
kybernetikos 5y ago
I'm very much looking forward to the day that open source local assistants are as good as the other alternatives. Since the people I've seen use Alexa seem to use it for * playing music / radio streams / podcasts * setting alarms and almost nothing else, it doesn't seem that it's all that unrealistic.
jbaber 5y ago
Vosk speech-to-text means my initial voice prompts aren't sent out of my phone, and RHvoice means the TTS responses wouldn't be either, right? At least in principle. I understand virtually anything you use a digital assistant for involves lots of internet. But it's tantalizing to imagine writing my own skill that would be heard and responded to by my phone with no internet involvement.

83 points by commoner 5y ago

Newly added to F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.dicio.dicio_android/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.dicio.dicio_android/ To choose Dicio as your default digital assistant on Android (replacing Google Assistant), go to Settings > Apps & notifications > Default apps > Digital assistant app > Default digital assistant app. On Android 10+, this lets you activate Dicio by swiping from the bottom left/right corner toward the center of the screen.

robmsmt 5y ago
>To choose Dicio as your default digital assistant on Android (replacing Google Assistant), go to Settings > Apps & notifications > Default apps > Digital assistant app > Default digital assistant app. On Android 10+, this lets you activate Dicio by swiping from the bottom left/right corner toward the center of the screen. This is great, one of the barriers to entry before was that you needed to manually open the app. Although I don't see that this resolves the issue of the wakeword/hotword triggered with "Hey Google" ?
- 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
  I have a Motorola g30. It has a dedicated google assistant button. Since the ui is stock android, I was able to uninstall google assistant and all other crap. Problem is, the button is dead now without google assistant. Maybe using easer or tasker I could reuse it. Maybe tasker/easer has something for the wakeword detection? That would be great.
- commoner 5y ago
  The "Hey Google" detection in the Google app has a hard Play Services dependency. Unfortunately, I don't think a replacement for the wake word is possible without some kind of system-level implementation. microG might be able to implement this, but I don't think the project has enough resources to make it a priority.
  - robmsmt 5y ago
    Thanks, this was my thinking. I took a look at microG and couldn't see any reference to it on the status page: https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/wiki/Implementation-Status https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/wiki/Implementation-Status The options to make a true opensource assistant that would work in the same capacity as Alexa/Siri/Google (invoked via wakeword) is therefore quite limited. An alternative is to have it listening constantly, maybe as a background service, but this would use up too much battery I suspect.

betwixthewires 5y ago

I don't see text messages/calling in the skills/features list, or using any other messaging apps. Are there any particular plans to build skills for these sorts of applications? Also, doe sit use whichever speech engine you have installed for tts? I'm interested in using this primarily because I only use FOSS and up until now I've been going without a voice assistant, but I do use flite tts.

david_allison 5y ago
Apparently uses Vosk for TTS. Looks like it's welcoming of external contributors, a PR is in for telephone functionality. You could very likely get the functionality that you need included. https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  I think it uses Vosk for speech to text, the docs say it uses "android text to speech", I'm curious if it uses Google's TTS hardcoded or if it uses API calls to use whichever TTS engine is default in your system.
  - commoner 5y ago
    Dicio uses the default text-to-speech engine on your Android device. Most Android devices are sold preloaded with Google's TTS engine.[1] A FOSS alternative that works offline is RHVoice.[2] To set your default TTS provider on Android, go to Settings > Accessibility > Text-to-speech output > Preferred engine. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.tts https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... [2] Website: https://rhvoice.org https://rhvoice.org / F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.olga_yakovleva.rhvoice.android/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.olga_yakovleva.rh... / GitHub: https://github.com/RHVoice/RHVoice https://github.com/RHVoice/RHVoice
    - rjzzleep 5y ago

dddw 5y ago

Wow normally I find this stuff on HN first, but I installed it just hours before this post finding it on fdroid. An open source voice assitant is very welcome imho. If it can match the old blackberry bbos10 voice assitant in usability, I'd be very gratefull. My first impression was that the speech to text was allright, but the interpretation of that is kinda spotty still.

encryptluks2 5y ago

I tried using this, but it just kept saying... "I did not understand, could you repeat."

commoner 5y ago
The available commands are limited to the five actions described on the screen when you open Dicio, and the language you use has to match the app's grammar rules. If you phrased your query in a way that the app doesn't understand, I'm sure the developers would appreciate a bug report: https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android/issues https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android/issues

kybernetikos 5y ago

I'm very much looking forward to the day that open source local assistants are as good as the other alternatives. Since the people I've seen use Alexa seem to use it for * playing music / radio streams / podcasts * setting alarms and almost nothing else, it doesn't seem that it's all that unrealistic.

jbaber 5y ago

Vosk speech-to-text means my initial voice prompts aren't sent out of my phone, and RHvoice means the TTS responses wouldn't be either, right? At least in principle. I understand virtually anything you use a digital assistant for involves lots of internet. But it's tantalizing to imagine writing my own skill that would be heard and responded to by my phone with no internet involvement.