Add a voice user interface

You can extend your application with a do-it-yourself voice user interface. Imagine that your home robot assistant can take voice commands and give you advice like other voice assistants currently on the market.

By using your iOS application, your robot assistant could take requests to provide the current temperature at, say, the golf course.

To configure the voice interface, you’ll add the following services from IBM Bluemix:
• Watson Speech to Text
• Watson Text to Speech

You’ll also add the Weather Company Data service to your application to get a weather forecast.

1. In the existing application, set up the Carthage repository with the required SDKs by creating a cartfile and including the following SDKs:
   • Watson-Developer-Cloud SDK for iOS: Simplifies using Watson services in Swift.
   • Bluemix Services SDK for iOS: Helps with connectivity to Bluemix services.
   • SwiftyJSON SDK: Simplifies JSON operations in Swift.
2. In a terminal, issue the following command from the root directory of the application:
   cat > cartfile
3. Copy and paste the following Carthage GitHub commands:
   github "ibm-bluemix-mobile-services/bms-clientsdk-swift-core"
github "SwiftyJSON/SwiftyJSON"
github "watson-developer-cloud/swift-sdk"
4. Fetch the libraries from Git by running the command carthage update --platform iOS. Add in the Xcode references to the following libraries from the Carthage/iOS directory:
   BMSAnalytics.framework
BMSCore.framework
RestKit.framework
SpeechToTextV1.framework
TextToSpeechV1.framework
SwiftyJSON.framework
5. Create two new .swift files:
   • String.swift: Adds the encoding for the network.
   • WeatherData.swift: Manages the connectivity to the Weather Company Data service.
6. Add the following code to these files:
   String.swift
   import UIKit

   // Extending String to support Base64 encoding for network requests
   extension String {
   func fromBase64() -> String? {
   guard let data = Data(base64Encoded: self) else {
   return nil
   }

   return String(data: data, encoding: .utf8)
   }

   func toBase64() -> String {
   return Data(self.utf8).base64EncodedString()
   }
   }

   WeatherData.swift
   //
   // WeatherData.swift
   // WatsonIoTCreate2
   //
   // Created by Marek Sadowski on 2/25/17.
   // Copyright © 2017 Marek Sadowski. All rights reserved.
   //

   import Foundation
   import BMSCore //querrying Bluemix for Weather Company Data
   import SwiftyJSON //working with JSON with Weather forecast

   class WeatherData {
   let location = "94596%3A4%3AUS" //find the weather forecast for a zip
   let username: String
   let password: String
   let host: String

   var temp0 = 0
   var golf0 = ""

   init() {
   username = "Weather Company Data user name from bluemix"
   password = "Weather Company Data password from bluemix"
   host = "twcservice.mybluemix.net"
   }

   func getGolf() -> String{
   return "there is a forecast for the temperature \(self.temp0) and the \(self.golf0) golf conditions"
   }

   func getCurrentWeather() {

   let url = "https://" + host + "/api/weather/v1/location/\(location)/forecast/hourly/48hour.json"
   let basicAuth = "Basic " + "\(username):\(password)".toBase64()
   let headers = ["Authorization" : basicAuth]

   let request = Request(url: url,
   method: .GET,
   headers: headers)
   NSLog("sending request")
   request.send { (response, error) in
   if let error = error {
   NSLog("error sending request")
   print(error)
   return
   }
   guard let response = response else {
   return
   }
   if response.isSuccessful {
   //print(response.responseText!) //what we got from Weather Company Data
   let data = response.responseText!.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8)
   let json = JSON(data: data!)
   //print(json["forecasts"]) //JSON
   let forecasts = json["forecasts"].arrayValue
   self.temp0 = forecasts[0]["temp"].intValue
   self.golf0 = forecasts[0]["golf_category"].stringValue
   NSLog("end of weather company data call : golf0 - temp0")
   } else {
   if response.statusCode! == 401 {
   print("Failed to connect to the Weather Company Data service due to invalid credentials. Please verify your credentials in the WeatherCredentials.plist file and rebuild the application. See the README for further assistance.")
   } else {
   print("Failed Request to Weather Service :: Status: \(response.statusCode), Message: \(response.responseText!)")
   }
   }
   }

   }

   }

7. Add two new elements to the UI (Main.Storyboard).
   • Button: place it at the bottom center with the text MIC.
   • Label: place it above the button.
     
8. Reference these two elements in the code in ViewController.swift:
   //STT + Weather + TTS
   @IBOutlet weak var speechToTextLabel: UILabel!

   @IBAction func micButtonTouchedDown(_ sender: Any) {
NSLog("mic button pressed down - starting to listen")
}

9. Add imports:
   //STT
import SpeechToTextV1
//TTS
import TextToSpeechV1
//audio!
import AVFoundation
10. Add the code to the micButtonTouchedDown function:
    @IBAction func micButtonTouchedDown(_ sender: Any) {
    NSLog("mic button pressed down - starting to listen")

    //STT - listen for the *forecast* command
    let usernameSTT = "STT user name from bluemix"
    let passwordSTT = "STT password from bluemix"
    let speechToText = SpeechToText(username: usernameSTT, password: passwordSTT)

    var settings = RecognitionSettings(contentType: .opus)
    settings.continuous = false
    settings.interimResults = false
    let failureSTT = {(error: Error) in print(error)}
    speechToText.recognizeMicrophone(settings: settings, failure: failureSTT) { results in
    print(results.bestTranscript)
    self.speechToTextLabel.text! = results.bestTranscript
    NSLog("stopping Mic")
    speechToText.stopRecognizeMicrophone()

    if (self.speechToTextLabel.text!.contains("forecast")){
    NSLog("found forecast")

    //fetch weather data from Weather Company Data
    let weather = WeatherData()
    weather.getCurrentWeather()
    //print the weather forecast
    print(weather.getGolf())
    sleep(1)// some time to get the result from Weather Company Data
    print(weather.getGolf())
    let textToSay = weather.getGolf()

    //TTS - say the data
    let username = "TTS user name from bluemix"
    let password = "TTS password from bluemix"
    let textToSpeech = TextToSpeech(username: username, password: password)
    let failureTTS = { (error: Error) in print(error) }
    textToSpeech.synthesize(textToSay, voice: SynthesisVoice.us_Michael.rawValue, failure: failureTTS) { data in
    var audioPlayer: AVAudioPlayer // see note below
    audioPlayer = try! AVAudioPlayer(data: data)
    audioPlayer.prepareToPlay()
    audioPlayer.play()
    sleep(4)
    NSLog("end of tts")
    }

    }
    NSLog("end STT")

    }

    }

Now, when you press the MIC button and ask for a forecast, you can get the weather forecast with the temperature and a recommendation about whether it’s good weather for playing golf. The Watson Speech to Text service listens for the word forecast.