cordova-plugin-speechrecognition

This is a cordova plugin for Speech Recognition.

Installation

cordova plugin add @spoonconsulting/cordova-plugin-speechrecognition

Supported Platforms

• Android
• iOS

Usage

This plugin requires internet connection.

isRecognitionAvailable()

window.plugins.speechRecognition.isRecognitionAvailable(
  Function successCallback, Function errorCallback)

Result of success callback is a Boolean.

startListening()

let options = {
  String language,
  Number matches,
  String prompt,      // Android only
  Boolean showPopup,  // Android only
  Boolean showPartial 
}

window.plugins.speechRecognition.startListening(
  Function successCallback, Function errorCallback, Object options)

This method has an options parameter with the following optional values:

• language {String} used language for recognition (default "en-US")
• matches {Number} number of return matches (default 5, on iOS: maximum number of matches)
• prompt {String} displayed prompt of listener popup window (default "", Android only)
• showPopup {Boolean} display listener popup window with prompt (default true, Android only)
• showPartial {Boolean} Allow partial results to be returned (default false)

Result of success callback is an Array of recognized terms.

There is a difference between Android and iOS platforms. On Android speech recognition stops when the speaker finishes speaking (at end of sentence). On iOS the user has to stop manually the recognition process by calling stopListening() method.

If you set showPartial to true on iOS the success callback will be called multiple times until stopListening() called.

stopListening()

window.plugins.speechRecognition.stopListening(
  Function successCallback, Function errorCallback)

Stop the recognition process. No return value.

getSupportedLanguages()

window.plugins.speechRecognition.getSupportedLanguages(
  Function successCallback, Function errorCallback)

Result of success callback is an Array of supported languages.

// getSupportedLanguages result on Android:

let supportedLanguagesAndroid =
  ["af-ZA", "id-ID", "ms-MY", "ca-ES", "cs-CZ", "da-DK", "de-DE", "en-AU", "en-CA",
  "en-001", "en-IN", "en-IE", "en-NZ", "en-PH", "en-ZA", "en-GB", "en-US", "es-AR",
  "es-BO", "es-CL", "es-CO", "es-CR", "es-EC", "es-US", "es-SV", "es-ES", "es-GT",
  "es-HN", "es-MX", "es-NI", "es-PA", "es-PY", "es-PE", "es-PR", "es-DO", "es-UY",
  "es-VE", "eu-ES", "fil-PH", "fr-FR", "gl-ES", "hr-HR", "zu-ZA", "is-IS", "it-IT",
  "lt-LT", "hu-HU", "nl-NL", "nb-NO", "pl-PL", "pt-BR", "pt-PT", "ro-RO", "sl-SI",
  "sk-SK", "fi-FI", "sv-SE", "vi-VN", "tr-TR", "el-GR", "bg-BG", "ru-RU", "sr-RS",
  "uk-UA", "he-IL", "ar-IL", "ar-JO", "ar-AE", "ar-BH", "ar-DZ", "ar-SA", "ar-KW",
  "ar-MA", "ar-TN", "ar-OM", "ar-PS", "ar-QA", "ar-LB", "ar-EG", "fa-IR", "hi-IN",
  "th-TH", "ko-KR", "cmn-Hans-CN", "cmn-Hans-HK", "cmn-Hant-TW", "yue-Hant-HK",
  "ja-JP"];


// getSupportedLanguages result on iOS:

let supportedLanguagesIOS =
  ["nl-NL","es-MX","zh-TW","fr-FR","it-IT","vi-VN","en-ZA","ca-ES","es-CL","ko-KR",
  "ro-RO","fr-CH","en-PH","en-CA","en-SG","en-IN","en-NZ","it-CH","fr-CA","da-DK",
  "de-AT","pt-BR","yue-CN","zh-CN","sv-SE","es-ES","ar-SA","hu-HU","fr-BE","en-GB",
  "ja-JP","zh-HK","fi-FI","tr-TR","nb-NO","en-ID","en-SA","pl-PL","id-ID","ms-MY",
  "el-GR","cs-CZ","hr-HR","en-AE","he-IL","ru-RU","de-CH","en-AU","de-DE","nl-BE",
  "th-TH","pt-PT","sk-SK","en-US","en-IE","es-CO","uk-UA","es-US"];

hasPermission()

window.plugins.speechRecognition.hasPermission(
  Function successCallback, Function errorCallback)

Result of success callback is a Boolean.

requestPermission()

window.plugins.speechRecognition.requestPermission(
  Function successCallback, Function errorCallback)

This method requests access permission to system resources if it was not granted before.

Ionic Usage

import { SpeechRecognition } from '@ionic-native/speech-recognition';

constructor(private speechRecognition: SpeechRecognition) { }

...

// Check feature available
SpeechRecognition.isRecognitionAvailable()
  .then((available: boolean) => console.log(available))

// Start the recognition process
SpeechRecognition.startListening(options)
  .subscribe(
    (matches: Array<string>) => console.log(matches),
    (onerror) => console.log('error:', onerror)
  )

// Stop the recognition process (iOS only)
SpeechRecognition.stopListening()

// Get the list of supported languages
SpeechRecognition.getSupportedLanguages()
  .then(
    (languages: Array<string>) => console.log(languages),
    (error) => console.log(error)
  )

// Check permission
SpeechRecognition.hasPermission()
  .then((hasPermission: boolean) => console.log(hasPermission))

// Request permissions
SpeechRecognition.requestPermission()
  .then(
    () => console.log('Granted'),
    () => console.log('Denied')
  )

Required: ionic-native/speech-recognition

See Ionic Native documentation.

Android Quirks

Requirements

• cordova-android v5.0.0
• Android API level 14
• <android:launchMode> must not be singleInstance. It can be singleTask, standard, singleTop.
• RECORD_AUDIO permission

How it works

It uses Speech API of Google. The Android public API recognizes when the speech is over and automatically begins the parsing process. The delay of result depends on the network quality.

Further readings

• https://developer.android.com/reference/android/speech/package-summary.html
• https://developer.android.com/reference/android/speech/SpeechRecognizer.html

iOS Quirks

Requirements

• XCode 8.0 (requires 10.12+ macOS Sierra or 10.11.5+ OS X El Capitan)
• iOS 10
• NSMicrophoneUsageDescription permission
• NSSpeechRecognitionUsageDescription permission

How it works

The Speech APIs perform speech recognition by communicating with Apple's servers or using an on-device speech recognizer, if available.

Because your app may need to connect to the servers to perform recognition, it's essential that you respect the privacy of your users and treat their utterances as sensitive data. For this reason, you must get the user's explicit permission before you initiate speech recognition.

The plugin works in AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayAndRecord mode to enable playing audio.

Further readings

• https://developer.apple.com/reference/speech?language=objc
• https://developer.apple.com/reference/speech/sfspeechrecognizer?language=objc

Author

Peter Bakondy

• https://github.com/pbakondy

Spoon Consulting Ltd

• https://github.com/spoonconsulting

LICENSE

cordova-plugin-speechrecognition is licensed under the MIT Open Source license. For more information, see the LICENSE file in this repository.