Am I supposed to say “Okay Nabu”, “Okey Nabu” or “OK Nabu”? Those have totally different pronunciations in Norwegian/by Norwegians.
Should it be said as English with Norwegian pronunciation or as Norwegian?
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Good question. We had a few floating variations but have now ensured that the phrase we ask for is “Okay Nabu” in English.
And besides the length: i find it also kind of “bumpy” to pronounce. Not sure what the correct linguistic (?) term for it is, but something like the “usual suspects” wake words have a better “flow”. At least for me as a German pronouncing it in English.
Happy to help. Some more suggestions for those who are willing to contribute more time might be beneficial:
- preferred recording device(s): If we have access to multiple devices that work with the web app (phone, tablet, laptop, iOS, Android, etc.) is there a preference for which to use? Do you want multiple recordings from the same person from different devices?
- alternate microphones: should Bluetooth hands free type devices be used to cover more microphone types?
- background noise: suggestions for what to include/avoid such as fans/AC/HVAC, music, background conversations (TV/Radio or live)
Thanks
Two things that could be done to improve the web app for mobile
- prevent the device from locking/going to sleep while recording in progress if possible (alternatively give instructions to be keep device awake, tap screen between recordings)
- make the recording ready indication easier to see or ideally hear from across the room
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I’d happily answer these for you.
Preferred recording device(s):
Any mobile device (all that you listed) using the built-in mic. Don’t use desktops or laptops (laptop mics can be really bad). Feel free to contribute from a range of devices you have in your home
Alternate microphones
I’d prefer if people kept to built-in mics. Bluetooth mics are usually designed for enhancing voice to sound clearer and closer to a device, we’re aiming for samples that come from various distances
Background noise
I spoke to Mike on our team about this. He said “Anything is fine as long as it’s not overwhelming the person speaking. Fans, etc. are fine, and work well for testing the robustness of the model.”
Hopefully this helps you (and others) a bit more
Great suggestions.
I have created 2 issues in the GitHub repo and will take a look at them when I get a moment.
The only problem I see with the latter one is that if we make an audible noise, we need to ensure it doesn’t get included in the recording via an echo in the room, for example. The first point however, is easily doable.
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I have found the Voice unable to recognise my Australian accent, and have given up tryuing to integrate it into HA. So anything that improves recognition is a good thing.
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If these samples are human-reviewed, I hope the reviewer enjoys hearing my toddler say “Okay Nabu” in a couple of them. 
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I’m using the latest Chrome, on an up to date windows 11, but I got this:
It first asks for permission to use the mike, but once I accept, I got the above error “There was an issue accessing your microphone. Please check your browser permissions and try again”
I found out that my mike access was turned off in Windows settings. I did not even know of this setting… See screenshot below. Once I turned it on, all worked as inspected.
Yes, the CC0 license doesn’t restrict the use of the data. I’m not worried about that personally, as I doubt many companies will find “okay nabu” samples to be commercially useful 
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Hey @gertst, I’d love to look into this for you.
If you are able, could you either:
- Raise an issue on GitHub: Issues · OHF-Voice/wake-word-collective · GitHub
- DM me on Discord. My username is mrdarrengriffin
Judging by some of the comments on “okay nabu” in this thread, I think this is a fair asassment.
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Yeah, I’d actually rather “Hey Bubu” so it seemed like a Flintstones reference
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When you get sick of tripping over things in the dark you may want “Jaysus turn on the lights”
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A simple “let there be light” does the job in my kitchen. Well established and still working 
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I agree with @tobol . I’d never choose to use “Okay Nabu”. I’d much rather use my own choice of wakeword(s).
MUCH better to ask for effort to improve the whole voice recognition environment across multiple words, languages and accents. That I’d happily support and contribute my time to. But “Okay Nabu” - no thanks.
I also agree with @Hedda that voice contributions, if being made public, should be truely anonymous.
Otherwise you’re going against the HA personal privacy principle in essence, even if you’ve asked and got permission.
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Appreciate all the hard work thats going into this. And I get it "Okay Nabu” is a distinct enough phrase for detection. But for the love of god, please lets drop this as the default intent. Especially with the rumored voice devices coming out. Its truly an awful choice, with all due respect 
And you guys just seem to be going down hard in the rabbit hole here to double down on this as the default choice.
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It feels strange to me that the first wakeword to be crowd-sourced is one that is associated with the for-profit entity, rather than the Open Home Foundation or Home Assistant. It feels like the priority is being placed in the wrong place and it sends the wrong message.
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would you rather have “Okay Open Home Foundation” instead?
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