CalTalk

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Inspiration

Voice assistants are capable of transforming user experiences by contextualizing what is around them. However, their power is lost as users aren't able to take advantage of their capabilities at all times. Voice assistants should be able to create conversation with users throughout their day, to provide relevant information at the right time.

What it does

CalTalk accesses the user's calendar and sparks conversation with the user when they should leave for the event (based on traffic conditions). The assistant invokes itself and begins the conversation with the user and allows them to ask follow up questions to determine travel conditions and the destination's weather. The assistant runs on top of Google Assistant and we integrated it into our own voice assistant device.

How we built it

Google Assistant SDK, Actions on Google, Python, Node.js

Challenges we ran into

Authenticating the user to login to their Google Calendar via Google's OAuth 2.0 and communicating between the front and backend.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Creating an MVP based on a single use case of the wide variety of potential that voice assistants have to communicate with the user.

What we learned

The challenges with creating an efficient system that allows a voice assistant to keep track of the user and interact with them when appropriate.

What's next for CalTalk

Continue building features that allow voice assistants to interact with the user on its own during the appropriate time. We see analyzing the user's calendar and contextualizing the events as the best approach. We also want to establish the correct balance between prompting the user and not doing so.

Built With

• firebase
• google-assistant
• node.js
• python