Toshiba Shows Off Voice Controlled TV

When I first walked by the new Toshiba Voice Controlled TV I thought it was a stupid idea, after all there is nothing wrong with the remote control, it offers ease of use and you don’t really need to look at it once you’ve owned your TV for a little while. However, I soon realized that the use of such technology could aid individuals with arthritis or anyone who loses their remote.

The technology is straight forward, start by clapping your hands to prepare a voice command, then simply tell the TV you want to change the channel up, down or to a specific channel and then choose to push the volume up or down the the TV follows your voice commands. It’s too bad you can’t signal the TV for a command in other ways, it could benefit individuals with no use of their upper body if they could use a different method, however the technology won’t be available for a while so there is still room for improvement.

A quick note, at this time a Skype webcam is also required to use the system.

The TV worked great with the Toshiba employees voice, however foreign users with their broken accents were having issues getting the TV to recognize their voices. Of course the TV will be regionally programmed for voice commands, so the language barrier really isn’t something we have to worry about.

There’s not a lot left to say about the system, it works when you clearly tell it what to do and the basic commands it current offers makes ease of use an added bonus.

Check out more of our CES 2011 Coverage.