How to install and configure - voice assistant Alice from Yandex

What is the voice assistant Alice?

As mentioned earlier, Alice is a voice-controlled virtual assistant. Production of the assistant at Yandex began back in 2016. The idea of ​​​​creating a virtual assistant was not innovative; large Western companies had already introduced Siri from Google and Alexa from Amazon. Developing such a large project as creating a voice assistant is not an easy task. Nevertheless, Yandex specialists did an excellent job and already on October 10, 2022, the program was added to the company’s search application, which means anyone could ask: “Alice, how are you doing?”

This is interesting: when creating the assistant, Yandex specialists relied on the experience of Western companies. Please note that Siri, Alexa and Cortana speak in female voices. Why not show a little originality?

Yandex almost decided to give its assistant a male voice, but after a series of studies and surveys it turned out that a female voice is more pleasant to the user.

As expected, many people liked the virtual assistant that recognizes live speech. In just six months, Alice was installed by more than 50% of users on their smartphones . If you want to install the program on your PC, but don’t know how to do it, read on.

How to use Google Assistant

How to remove Google voice input on Android

Voice dialing through the built-in assistant is carried out in the following order:

1. If the screen is locked, you need to say “Ok Google”; if it is unlocked, then press the “Home” button. After these steps, the utility will switch to the mode for receiving voice commands, and a microphone image will appear on the device display.
2. Set the command “Dial number” or “Call”.
3. When selecting the first command, you will need to dictate your phone number.
4. When you select the second command, you will be asked to say the contact's name. In this case, you can call only those people who are in the user’s address book, as well as any public company officially registered with Google. After receiving the necessary information, the assistant will make the call.

Some Android devices allow you to dial by voice and via the keyboard. To do this, you need to go to the call menu, open it and click on the microphone icon. Once the assistant is ready to work, dictate one of the above commands to him.

Keyboard for dialing with voice input

Note! In addition to dialing a number, the utility allows you to use speech commands to search for information in the browser, write and send SMS, messages in instant messengers and social networks, and type text in the Google Docs online office.

How to install and configure the voice assistant

Yandex.Browser already has Alice installed, but there are times when it still needs to be activated or updated. If the program is not on your computer, you will need to add the virtual assistant yourself.

To install the Alice voice assistant, you just need to perform a series of sequential steps:

1. You will need Yandex.Browser (). If you already have it on your computer, for convenience, it is recommended to update it to the latest version. By default, Alice is already integrated into the latest versions of the browser. If for some reason Alice is not activated for you, then:

What are the advantages

Let’s immediately talk about the strengths of this method. With normal activated voice input, all commands must be spoken close to the smartphone so that your voice is heard clearly and clearly by the system. This method may be inconvenient in some situations. The situation can be corrected by connecting a Bluetooth headset and speaking commands into it while holding the smartphone in your hands as conveniently as possible.

In addition, commands such as “Okay, Google, set the alarm for 7 am” do not require the participation of a smartphone at all: it is enough that the headset is within range of the radio module and the “Recognition from all applications” mode is activated.

Settings

After the virtual assistant is successfully installed on your PC, you can contact the assistant with the phrase “Listen, Alice” (Hello, Alice), by clicking on the microphone icon or by holding down the hotkey combination.

Unfortunately, “Alice” will not turn on the microphone if the user asks it to, but will display sound settings on the screen. The assistant has no problems searching for specific information on the Internet. Simply enter your query after the greeting and the assistant will show you the most relevant and popular resources. The virtual assistant “Alice” will follow any user instructions: tell you about the weather, turn on music, and tell you the time in Moscow.

Of course, the program is developing and improving, but there are also errors. The assistant may respond to the wrong request. If you're bored, just say "Alice, let's chat . Such an interlocutor will always support the conversation, and if you get tired, just say “Stop chatting .

What is Alice for?

Alisa is a “smart” assistant created by the Russian company Yandex. The assistant is designed specifically for a Russian-speaking audience, so the functionality is more extensive compared to Google. Alice can:



• conduct a dialogue with the user;
• voice the weather forecast in a specific city;
• launch any application installed on the phone;
• play entertaining and educational games;
• look for specific facilities in your area (restaurants, cinemas, shopping centers, etc.);
• call a taxi;
• manage video viewing;
• search by photo and recognize QR codes;
• set timers and alarms;
• turn on music and a morning show;
• find interesting information based on your queries.

As you can see, Alisa greatly simplifies the daily routine by performing a huge number of useful actions. The voice assistant is synchronized with Yandex branded services, such as Music, Video, Market, Zen.



The main functions of Alice in managing a smart home

The initiative in the form of “Yandex.Station” has grown from a multimedia platform into a virtual assistant “Alice”.

The fact that Yandex would sooner or later create a “smart home” project under the control of its notorious assistant was a matter of time.

First you need to create a home control center. This role can be performed by any accessory that contains “Alice”. The main and only requirement is constant access to the Internet , because without it, the program will not be able to accept user requests, since commands are processed on Yandex servers, and not by the device itself.

More information about the functionality of the “smart home”:

• The Redmond kettle Alice can only turn on and off. “Alice,” unfortunately, currently does not have the ability to heat it to a certain temperature or remind about the necessary water change.
• The Redmond smart base is installed in the lamp, and ordinary light bulbs are screwed into the base itself. Such a “smart device” can only turn the light on or off.
• Smart plugs. The functions are extremely trivial - turn on power or turn off power. It is recommended to connect a humidifier or fan to such outlets.
• A smart light bulb looks the most useful among all the accessories. “Alice” will not only be able to turn it on and off, but also adjust the brightness and change the color.
• The Yandex remote control can currently only control TVs and air conditioners. Both the remote control and Alice perform the same list of tasks: adjusting the volume, changing channels, turning on and off.

Explore Voice Access features

Voice Access offers four categories of features:

1. Text composition
2. Menu navigation
3. Gesture control
4. Basic phone functions

Let's see how to use them.

Composing text using voice commands

Text composition allows speech-to-text transcription within any text input field. For example, you can write an email using only your voice by doing this:

1. Activate Voice Access from the Gmail home page, as shown in the screenshot on the left.
2. Say “write a letter” or “five.”
3. Verbally state the recipient's email address.
4. Write your email saying the words you would normally type.

Voice Access recognizes commands such as "backspace" and "enter." Additionally, it includes many advanced composition voice commands, such as “delete sentence,” which erases an entire sentence, and “delete word,” which erases the word next to the cursor.

There are many more commands than shown here. For a complete list, say "show commands".

Voice control menu

You can also use your voice to navigate menus. Commands let you open apps, move forward and back, go to the home screen, and more. Some voice navigation commands include:

• Show notifications
• Show quick settings
• Show latest apps
• open
• back

Voice Controlled Gestures and Functions

Since Voice Access is an accessibility tool, it can turn voice commands into gestures, such as opening the notification panel. If an app requires a specific gesture to perform an action, you only need to say the name of that gesture.

The best example is on the unlock screen. Saying “unlock” will activate the unlock gesture. You can also say "swipe up".

The combination of composition, navigation, and gestures makes Voice Access capable of doing everything you do with your fingers.

Basic phone functions

You can also switch the phone's Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, adjust the volume, or mute the phone. Take a look at the Google Voice Access commands help page for a longer list.

How to disable Alice in Yandex browser

On personal computers running Windows, it is possible to completely disable Alice, including in the Yandex browser, in several ways:

Disabling through the settings menu in Yandex browser:

• left-click on the icon with the image of three horizontal lines in the upper right corner of the browser;
• go to the pop-up tab – “Settings”;
• Find the option to disable voice activation.

Deactivation by editing the browser context menu:

• on the taskbar, find and right-click the icon with the image of the voice assistant;
• In the drop-down list, click “Turn off Alice.”

After completing the operation, the program icon will disappear from the Windows taskbar, and the voice assistant itself will be forcibly disabled.

Enabling the built-in assistant in settings

How to delete a contact from an Android phone - erase unnecessary numbers

To launch the assistant in the Android device settings, you need to:

1. Log in to your Google account.
2. Open "Settings" in the phone menu.
3. Select the “Google” section.
4. Find and open the “Account Services” item.
5. Go to the “Search, Assistant and Voice Control” panel.
6. Select the “Voice Input” tab and click on “Voice Match”.
7. Activate access and allow Voice Match to unlock your device.

Important! Here you will need to record and save a voice sample. After this, the system will remember the speed, intonation and other features of the user’s speech, and Google Assistant will be able to better recognize it when contacted.

Next, it is recommended to configure some additional settings. To do this, in the “Settings” menu you will need to find the “Advanced settings” section and select “Language and input” in it, where there will be two important items: “Speech synthesis” and “Google voice input”.

In the first section, the assistant parameters are set:

• language selection;
• voicing numbers;
• volume;
• Enable or disable the function of downloading data only via Wi-Fi.

Setting up speech synthesis

In the Google Voice Input block you can:

• set language;
• select and configure voice packages;
• enable or disable voiceover of results;
• Allow headset recording via Bluetooth and control via Bluetooth when the screen is locked.

Important! Voice dialing on Android only works with a stable Internet connection.

Disadvantages of Voice Access

While you can use Voice Access to unlock your phone, it only supports PIN lock. To protect your password, the labels display random words, such as color names, instead of actually saying your password out loud.

To use this, go to the settings page as above and make sure you have Activate on Lock Screen enabled. You can change your security type to PIN in Settings > Security > Screen Lock.

Voice control will significantly reduce battery life if left on constantly. This makes sense because it always listens for your next command.

Also, it can be a little buggy. Sometimes Google Assistant doesn't understand the command. Other times he doesn't respond. But for the most part the app works well.

Magnification and grid selection

Like most rich apps, Voice Access focuses on providing large icons and text to help with visibility. It can also split the screen into a grid, allowing you to enlarge areas of the screen and interact with smaller elements on the screen.

For example, the expression "open grid" will split the screen into a grid. Saying "swipe 23 up" after that will open the app drawer as shown in the screenshot on the right.

To enlarge any element of the screen, you can say "zoom in." This is especially useful for the visually impaired.