Selecting user profiles with Roku Voice

Apps with a profile selection screen can audibly and visually prompt the viewer to select a user profile and then handle a voice request with the name or position of the selected profile.

roku815px - profile-selector

Updating the manifest

To identify that your app supports a hands-free voice profile selection screen, add the following flag to the manifest: voice_action_launch_screen=1.

Implementing profile selector APIs

To implement voice support for a profile selection screen, integrate the following APIs:

  • Voice request trigger. Upon launch, apps can call the roAppManager.StartVoiceActionSelectionRequest() function to trigger a voice request for the viewer to select a user profile on devices that are paired with a hands-free Roku Voice remote control, such as the Roku Voice Remote Pro.

    Before calling the StartVoiceActionSelectionRequest() function, developers can call the roDeviceInfo.HasFeature("handsfree_voice") function to check whether a Roku device is paired with a hands-free Roku remote control.

      appMgr = CreateObject("roAppManager")
  deviceInfo = CreateObject("roDeviceInfo")
  ' channel is launched and profile selection screen is displayed
  if deviceInfo.HasFeature("handsfree_voice")
      appMgr.StartVoiceActionSelectionRequest()
  end if

  • Profile selection via registered/matched text strings. Apps can call the roAppManager.SetVoiceActionStrings() function to register a list of text strings, such as user profile names, that can be matched to voice requests.

      appMgr = CreateObject("roAppManager")
  profile1 = { text: "kids", link: "d46ge-i8Y5-192"}
  profile2 = { text: "Jane", link: "2a2Nu-u1D4-555"}
  profile3 = { text: "John", link: "6Nu70-N37x-901"}

  actions = [profile1, profile2, profile3]

  appMgr.SetVoiceActionStrings(actions)

    When the name uttered by the user matches the registered text string, the matched text string is provided to the app via the roInput voice command handler. Specifically, if the command received by the handler is "action", the associative array returned by the roInputEvent.GetInfo() method includes a text field that is set to the matched text string.

      function handleTransport(evt)
      cmd = evt.command
      ret = {status: "unhandled"}
      if cmd = "action"
          print "profile name uttered by user"
          print evt.text ' prints "kids", "Jane", or "John"
      end if
      return ret
  end function

  • Profile selection via ordinal numbers. The roInput voice command handler also supports profile selection via ordinal numbers. For example, when a user says "first", "number one", "pick the first", "select the first", "choose the first", and so on to select a user profile within a row, the app will receive a value of "1".

    Specifically, if the command received by the handler is "select", the associative array returned by the roInputEvent.GetInfo() method includes a ordinal field that is set to a numerical value corresponding to the ordinal number spoken by the user. Values may range between 1–6 (one-based indexing is used).

      function handleTransport(evt)
      cmd = evt.command
      ret = {status: "unhandled"}
      if cmd = "select"
          print "Voice ordinal event"
          print evt.ordinal ' prints 1
      end if
      return ret
  end function

Sample app

The custom UI voice control sample (Transport_Control_CustomUI) demonstrates how to add voice support to a profile selection screen.