Spoken indications
Michael Cooper
Hi All—
This weekend, I had a chance to test a new feature which I’m really excited about. I’ve managed to eke out enough clock cycles to make the FlySight speak.
The new firmware is available here:
http://flysight.ca/wiki/index.php?title=Latest_firmware
And, of course, I’ve updated the source on Github to include the new changes:
https://github.com/flysight/flysight
To install the firmware:
1. Download the beta firmware “.zip” file from the link above.
2. Copy the “audio” folder from the zip file to your FlySight.
3. Install the “.hex” firmware as usual.
Next, you’ll need to delete or rename your old configuration file and cycle FlySight’s power to generate a new one. The new file includes these new settings:
Sp_Mode Determines what value is dictated in freefall.
Sp_Units Determines whether mph or km/h is used when dictating speeds.
Sp_Rate Determines how often values are dictated.
I’ve found that spoken indications every 15 seconds or so (Sp_Rate = 15) provide feedback often enough without being obnoxious. For the moment a fall rate of, say, 65 mph would be dictated as “six five point zero zero”. I think this may actually be easier to understand in freefall than the more natural “sixty-five point zero zero” would be. Two decimal places is probably overkill, but I’ll leave it this way for the moment, and welcome feedback from anyone who has a chance to give it a shot.
Because the FlySight isn’t quite fast enough to flush logged data while speaking, you may notice that the FlySight won’t turn off right away if you slide the switch while it’s speaking. The FlySight should turn off as soon as the current audio file (i.e., the current digit) is done playing.
For anyone who’s curious, the audio files are simply 8-bit mono WAV files recorded at a rate of 31250 Hz. You can use the free Audacity audio editor to create and edit these files:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Once I’ve got the kinks worked out with the current beta version, I’d like to take a shot at spoken alarms. In principle, these could be triggered by elevation (e.g., to indicate the competition window, coaching cues, phases in the dive plan, etc.) or perhaps when a certain value in some other measurement is reached (e.g., to tell you that your fall rate is too fast).
Like the usual tones, I found that the spoken indications are easily heard and understood, but also easy to ignore if you aren’t interested at the moment. Flocking with spoken indications this weekend, I found that the spoken indications were not distracting, but simply made it so when I got to the ground, I could say things like, “Our fall rate stayed pretty close to 65 mph.” Like the tones, the spoken indications turn off when the speed thresholds aren’t met, so they don’t generally come up under canopy.
I look forward to hearing any feedback you guys might have.
Michael
spikeandjackie
Sounds cool will give it a try! Thx
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Scott Bland
That’s impressive that you could eek out enough cycles to do voice synthesis on this CPU. I’ll give it a try soon!
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