A combined research team from Apple and Carnegie Mellon University showed stupid devices made smart. They created a demonstration video (below) to accompany an academic paper.
Rather than any device you have to be smart, the approach proposes that something like a HomePod be trained to solve what is happening in the house ...
The paper was co-authored by two researchers from each organization. TechCrunch explains the idea behind it.
The system, called Listen Learner, is based on recognizing acoustic activity to allow a smart device, such as a speaker equipped with a microphone, to interpret events that take place in its environment through a supervised learning process. manual labeling done through interactions with a single user - such as the speaker asking a person “what was that sound?” after hearing the noise long enough to classify in a cluster.
A general pre-trained model can also be connected to allow the system to get an initial idea of what an acoustic cluster can mean. So, the interaction with the user may be less open, the system may ask a question such as "was it a tap?" - requiring only a yes / no answer from the person in the room.
What does this bring you? A concept video shows the example of the smart speaker that recognizes the ping of a regular microwave oven and warns the user that their food is ready. This way, you don't have to replace existing devices with expensive smart ones, but rather let your HomePod or similar device solve what's going on to warn you.
Another proven example is the recognition of a knock on the door.
It's fun to think of other applications for this, and some of them happened to me quickly.
An example is running a bath. If HomePod can recognize the sound of the bathroom starting to work, then the tap is off, it can find out how long the bathroom should work and warn us if we forget to turn off the tap.
Another thing would be to recognize the members of the household in their footsteps, triggering personalized actions when they return home. You don't need a smart camera system with face recognition, just a HomePod that listens to their distinctive steps.
Watch the video below and please share your own ideas for their smart devices in the comments.
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