The system does not understand me correctly

livil focuses on in-vehicle productivity solutions and we use the digital assistant / voice interface that the manufacturer provides. The Android ASR (Automated Speech Recognition) allows us to quickly build a prototype so that we can focus on testing the productivity use cases. The quality of the recognised text is mixed and tends to function best for native English speakers.

To speed up the development the project team agreed that we would use the the Android ASR and accepted its limitations. We use this solution only during the prototype stage and would strongly advise to use an Automotive-grade ASR for a series development.

To make the most of the Android ASR, try using simple names and utterances, e.g. test with using "Peter" rather than "Nils".

To see what the system thinks you said, you can select "Show recognised text" in the user menu. We then show a little pop-up each time you say something. If you notice that the ASR keeps getting it wrong, try saying a word differently.

The system does not find my contacts

The speech recognition solution we use for the prototype (Android ASR) particularly struggles to understand contact names that are uncommon in English. See the information shared above.

If the system does understand you correctly, but the contacts are still not found:
Names of persons are only matched correctly if there are corresponding contacts in EITHER your Google Contacts or Outlook People integrations OR in the database stored in your phone:

Contacts from emails sent in the last 8 weeks:

At onboarding we ask the user for permission to sync the contacts used in the last 8 weeks from connected email sent folders. We do this to be able to “fuzzy match” the users’ voice inputs to these recent contacts. This way we always get a recognised contacts result for the user input (and it tends to be the correct one!). The contacts data is stored on a database on the Android device, and is wiped each time the user logs out.

Contacts from integrations:

• If you use Google Contacts

  • You can review who your contacts are here: https://contacts.google.com/

  • Note that only "Contacts" are relevant. If a name is listed under "Frequently Contacted" you may have to add them as a contact for them to be available in the Porsche Desk app.

• If you use Microsoft 365 Contacts / Outlook People

  • You can review who your contacts are here: https://outlook.office.com/people/

The system understands me correctly but it does not do what I want

We have created a big range of commands that the user can try out, but this is not exhaustive. You may refer to a certain functionality different to how the system refers to it. To understand what inputs the system can comprehend, please view the list of possible commands below. We are constantly updating this list.

The latest list of possible voice commands can be accessed in the user menu of the app.

We keep adding to this list. Please let us know if there are voice commands and utterances missing (you may refer to functionalities differently).

I do not hear the "beep" that tells me when I can speak

Please confirm that on your device the "ring volume" is not currently set to zero. You can increase the slider for "ring volume" by going to "Settings" on your Android device and searching for "Sound & Vibration".

The microphone stops listening / pressing the orange square has no impact

Occasionally, the Speech Interface may become inactive, for example because your Android device deactivates it.

If the circular icon is no longer displayed next to the clock, see below, the Speech Interface is inactive. In this case, simply click on the app icon for the Speech Interface again, and the Speech Interface will work again.

The Speech Interface is "draining the battery"

You may see this warning message on your device during the prototype stage. Even though the current strain on the battery is not overly high, this is not representative of a series-grade product.

You can close the Speech Interface by clicking and holding the app icon (long press). When the menu shows, select "App info", followed by "Force Stop".

The Porsche Desk app closes itself right after I open it on my device

The token to access the backend of the app is set to expire after a certain number of days. Please un-install the Porsche Desk app and ensure to re-install the latest version.