I don't see text messages/calling in the skills/features list, or using any other messaging apps. Are there any particular plans to build skills for these sorts of applications?
Also, doe sit use whichever speech engine you have installed for tts? I'm interested in using this primarily because I only use FOSS and up until now I've been going without a voice assistant, but I do use flite tts.
Looks like it's welcoming of external contributors, a PR is in for telephone functionality. You could very likely get the functionality that you need included.
I think it uses Vosk for speech to text, the docs say it uses "android text to speech", I'm curious if it uses Google's TTS hardcoded or if it uses API calls to use whichever TTS engine is default in your system.
Dicio uses the default text-to-speech engine on your Android device. Most Android devices are sold preloaded with Google's TTS engine.[1] A FOSS alternative that works offline is RHVoice.[2]
To set your default TTS provider on Android, go to Settings > Accessibility > Text-to-speech output > Preferred engine.
Yeah I'm currently using the light weight Flite TTS which is also available in f-droid, so that was my concern.
However after downloading the Vosk model in Dicio I am still unable to use voice input. I'm insure if it is having trouble downloading the model or what.
I'm going to keep my eye on this project, I've been waiting for something like this for a while and looking but unable to find anything that works.
Edit: I tried redownloading the Vosk model and the app works. I wonder if it is possible to use the Vosk model for general speech input (such as from my keyboard) in other apps or if I need to use something different.
> I wonder if it is possible to use the Vosk model for general speech input (such as from my keyboard) in other apps or if I need to use something different.
On that note is there a way to download google TTS voices without play services? For some reason it requires play services to downloading anything but the default voice.
And if not is there any (open source) voice engine that has proper support for both english and east asian languages like chinese and japanese?
Speech Services by Google can download TTS voices with microG instead of Play Services. That might be the only alternative.
eSpeak NG[1] is another FOSS TTS engine for Android, but the Android version is currently broken.[2] It should support Chinese, Japanese, and over 100 languages in total, when it gets fixed.
It doesn't work on my device. Maybe an older version of TTS does it, but the most recent version of Google Speech Services checks signatures or something(I would have to check my logs on what exactly happens). I think it might work if signature spoofing is enabled in the ROM.
For some reason I thought eSpeak is abandoned.
EDIT: No you don't need signature spoofing. That's a feature that was added later. Plenty of things work without signature spoofing and it wasn't part of the initial feature set to begin with. This is more google trying to make sure you can't circumvent their stuff
microG only works when signature spoofing is enabled for it, so if you have microG working, then that prerequisite should be met. (Edit: wrong, correction below)
I haven't checked every Android distribution, but I can confirm that TTS voice downloads in Speech Services for Google works on LineageOS for microG.
The original eSpeak project[1] that eSpeak NG was forked from did get abandoned, and eSpeak also has an older Android implementation[2] that also got abandoned.
Edit: I'm surprised that microG works at all without signature spoofing, but based on your experience, I assume that Speech Services for Google needs either Play Services or microG (with signature spoofing enabled).
Also, doe sit use whichever speech engine you have installed for tts? I'm interested in using this primarily because I only use FOSS and up until now I've been going without a voice assistant, but I do use flite tts.