Ivee or Ubi

I’ve got a beta invite for Ubi, but have also been considering Ivee as well. Since they would be about the same price (I may be able to get Ivee on a coupon at staples and save some $) I was wondering what the community’s thoughts were on the pros/cons of either device. I am leaning towards Ivee since I can use it as an alarm clock as well, but I haven’t made up my mind yet

Thanks for you help

I actually had a Ubi invite, forgot to use it… but I have been wondering the same…

Ivee still has some accuracy issues, but its development has been moving forward. (Accuracy and Features still far from what I would hope for by now). With Stables support, it is a strong candidate, and one I have been watching since it was on kickstarter.

I Know nothing about Ubi.

I don’t have direct experience with Ivee but I know that Ubi, since it is “always listening” there are some funny scenarios where it just pipes up in response to something that is said or even the TV sometimes. Like all voice activation stuff thus far there is still a fair bit of repeating yourself.

Also no experience with Ivee.

With Ubi:

Still in the infant stages… it works okay, but not perfectly. As Ben said, some weird popups now and where it thinks you’re trying to talk to it when you’re not… especially in a TV room.

Voice recognition is by no means perfect, but in ideal situations (ie: little background noise, 5-15 feet from the Ubi, facing the Ubi) I’d say I get correct recognition about 95+% of the time.

When other variables are introduced (more back noise, outside of that 5-15 feet range, not facing Ubi), recognition drops to 40%(ish).

Other points of interest:

  • Pretty decent integration with ST. ST devices (switches, outlets,
    motion sensors) can trigger Ubi to do things directly. Likewise
    simple custom behaviors can be setup to direct turn on/off ST
    devices.

  • With Advanced Custom Behaviors Ubi and make Http requests and
    received http requests as triggers. You can also pass variables for
    Ubi to say by embedding the phrase in the http request.

  • Ubi is now setup with IFTTT … still in Beta, but works well enough.
    They are adding people to the Beta group regularly.

  • Ubi can access a Google Calendar (also still in Beta) and will
    announce when events are coming up.

95% accuracy is far more than what I am hearing from IVEE.

Ubi has a better microphone setup, speaker, and more overall potential functionality than IVEE correct? Doesn’t it have more processing power as well?

I must admit, I have wanted a “Smart Clock” for a while. Much like “Kickstarter - Prizm” was going to be. I mean more in the sense of it being integrated, not acting as a hub by any means. Something that looked great, and was priced fairly well, so that I could put 2-3 in my house.

[quote=“darrylb, post:5, topic:4590, full:true”]
95% accuracy is far more than what I am hearing from IVEE.[/quote]
Well, to be fair this is just my experience. Others may have different results. And again, ideal circumstance… low background noise and close, direct line of sight to the Ubi.

I use both Ivee and UBI. Basically Ivee has a more robust vocabulary from what I can tell and it seems to understand voice anomaly better. For example my entire family can speak to ivee and it responds. I can’t say that Ubi understands what is said every time. I get some pretty weird responses to certain questions. However with Ivee I also have issues when I try to ask a question or request a command and do it with incorrect syntax or the order in which it is looking for. For example asking Ivee to change my nest thermostat to 68 degrees does not always result in a positive action but if I ask Ivee to reduce the thermostat temperature by 2 degrees it responds at nearly 100% accuracy. They both leave a lot to be desired from the voice automation front. I basically utilize Ivee to trigger events such as turning on a light or closing the garage. I allow UBI to announce actions as they occur so I am using both of them to complement each other.

I own an UBI, and I have found that depending on the room (One room is full of furniture another is more open therefore gets more echo’s with voice) that it averages for me around 80 percent. These products are all pretty much beta and all the companies are struggling to improve their respective devices.

I like the look of IVEE (and suspect that many of us do) but, I ultimately went with UBI due to the collaboration with ST.

I really wish people would start building these with WIT http://wit.ai

I suspect it could help a long way… then its just getting a quality mic in place. But that a bit off topic.

Lots of great info. I’m now leaning more towards the ubi mostly due to the number of users here with it vs the ivee. I like the idea as the ivee as a replacement for my alarm clock, but then when I’m in the living area of the apartment it won’t get much use. I can do most of my own voice commands using tasker, but that doesn’t help my wife.

You can always ask UBI what time it is, and it will let you know (SMILE)

That is the drawback for Ivee too. I have Ivee on a bedside table so it works great as an alarm clock replacement. Also it does not do Hello home actions currently. So I utilize UBI to do that functionality. I have multiple UBI’s throughout the house so I can voice opeate things without always having to have my phone on me. Again I agree both items are really beta in their current form. I suspect that over the next 12-18 months they will mature with much more functionality and be more usable. It would be really great if they could work togther to unify the voice so the same voice could be heard for all voice commands using ST regardless of the output speaker device.

I’ve ordered the ubi can’t wait to get it. Hopefully it takes less then 4 weeks

I’ve had an UBI for about a month now. (No experience with IVEE) I was very excited to get it and was desperately pulling for them to make a good product. Well…
The Beta is ROUGH. It does what you want about FIVE percent of the time if you’re lucky. I actually have the list of commands printed on a piece of paper so that I make sure they’re right and still nope.
I’m not saying that they won’t make huge improvements. I actually think they will. That’s why I’m keeping mine (in a closet). What I am saying is that it is not a solution to anything right now. Well, unless you want to get your spouse angry a lot and have your kids make fun of you.
Fight your early adopter fever on this one and wait for someone to make a product that actually works first.

I had the same problem initially. I moved it around to different locations around the room, found a location that allowed it to work pretty well and stuck with that.

What you have done to work with the UBI to resolve the issues?

I just bought a black Ubi. After reading up on ivee, I feel Ubi’s strategy is stronger, has better community support both at Ubi, and on our forums, the price is better, etc. I just feel Ivee isn’t coming along too well.

Well Ubi is having some growing pains this week just to let you know. But it it’s getting much better

Ubi is much better for commads close up. Use an extension cord or USB cable M/F adapter to get it up away from the floor.

They are in the process on a major update and the last 3-4 days the server has been spotty. It has worked fine for me up to this week.

They have some info on their forum

I’ve had the ubi since Wednesday. First couple days were bad, but by yesterday it was starting to work better. A few of my smartthings phrases don’t want to work so I need to change the command to something else. Looking forward to seeing what they can do in the future.

Waiting for ACB access. Found out they are holding off giving anyone else access until they do some upgrades to the portal.

One interesting oddity. In their examples they have play Britney Spears. Well my wife tried that and ended up with an expletive filled song that certainly wasn’t Britney. LOL.