Allows you to easily add voice recognition and synthesis to any web app with minimal code.

Warning This library is still has a few rough edges and may yet see breaking changes.

This library is primarily intended for use in browsers. Check out watson-developer-cloud to use Watson services (speech and others) from Node.js.

However, a server-side component is required to generate auth tokens. The examples/ folder includes example Node.js and Python servers, and SDKs are available for Node.js, Java, Python, and there is also a REST API.

Pre-compiled bundles are available from on GitHub Releases - just download the file and drop it into your website: https://github.com/watson-developer-cloud/speech-javascript-sdk/releases

This library is built with browserify and easy to use in browserify-based projects :

npm install --save watson-speech

The format of objects emitted in objectMode has changed from {alternatives: [...], index: 1} to {results: [{alternatives: [...]}], result_index: 1}. This was done to enable the new speaker_labels feature. There is a new ResultExtractor class and recognizeMicrophone() and recognizeFile() both accept a new extract_results option to restore the old behavior.

The format now exactly matches what the Watson Speech to Text service returns and shouldn't change again unless the Watson service changes.

The basic API is outlined below, see complete API docs at http://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/speech-javascript-sdk/master/

See several examples at https://github.com/watson-developer-cloud/speech-javascript-sdk/tree/master/examples/static/

All API methods require an auth token that must be generated server-side. (See https://github.com/watson-developer-cloud/speech-javascript-sdk/tree/master/examples/ for a couple of basic examples in Node.js and Python.)

Speaks the supplied text through an automatically-created <audio> element. Currently limited to text that can fit within a GET URL (this is particularly an issue on Internet Explorer before Windows 10 where the max length is around 1000 characters after the token is accounted for.)

Options:

• text - the text to transcribe // todo: list supported languages
• voice - the desired playback voice's name - see .getVoices(). Note that the voices are language-specific.
• autoPlay - set to false to prevent the audio from automatically playing

Options:

• keepMic: if true, preserves the MicrophoneStream for subsequent calls, preventing additional permissions requests in Firefox
• Other options passed to RecognizeStream
• Other options passed to WritableElementStream if options.outputElement is set

Requires the getUserMedia API, so limited browser compatibility (see http://caniuse.com/#search=getusermedia) Also note that Chrome requires https (with a few exceptions for localhost and such) - see https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/prefer-secure-origins-for-powerful-new-features

Pipes results through a FormatStream by default, set options.format=false to disable.

Known issue: Firefox continues to display a microphone icon in the address bar after recording has ceased. This is a browser bug.

Can recognize and optionally attempt to play a File or Blob (such as from an <input type="file"/> or from an ajax request.)

Options:

• data: a Blob or File instance.
• play: (optional, default=false) Attempt to also play the file locally while uploading it for transcription
• Other options passed to RecognizeStream
• Other options passed to WritableElementStream if options.outputElement is set

playrequires that the browser support the format; most browsers support wav and ogg/opus, but not flac.) Will emit a playback-error on the RecognizeStream if playback fails. Playback will automatically stop when .stop() is called on the RecognizeStream.

Pipes results through a TimingStream by if options.play=true, set options.realtime=false to disable.

Pipes results through a FormatStream by default, set options.format=false to disable.

There have been a few breaking changes in recent releases:

• Removed SpeechToText.recognizeElement() due to quality issues
• renamed recognizeBlob to recognizeFile to make the primary usage more apparent
• Changed playFile option of recognizeBlob() to just play, corrected default
• Changed format of objects emitted in objectMode to exactly match what service sends. Added ResultExtractor class and extract_results option to enable older behavior.

See CHANGELOG.md for a complete list of changes.

• Further solidify API
• break components into standalone npm modules where it makes sense
• run integration tests on travis (fall back to offline server for pull requests)
• add even more tests
• better cross-browser testing (IE, Safari, mobile browsers - maybe saucelabs?)
• update node-sdk to use current version of this lib's RecognizeStream (and also provide the FormatStream + anything else that might be handy)
• move result and results events to node wrapper (along with the deprecation notice)
• improve docs
• consider a wrapper to match https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/speech-api/raw-file/tip/speechapi.html
• support a "hard" stop that prevents any further data events, even for already uploaded audio, ensure timing stream also implements this.
• look for bug where single-word final results may omit word confidence (possibly due to FormatStream?)
• fix bug where TimingStream shows words slightly before they're spoken