HOUND Voice Search & Assistant

3,923

SoundHound Inc. Lifestyle

PEGI 3

HOUND Voice Search & Assistant- screenshot thumbnail

Hound is the best way to search using your voice.

Hound is different:
• Extremely fast responses
• You speak naturally, no need to learn special keyword phrases
• Follow-up to filter, sort, or add more information to your query so you can be specific
The fastest and easiest way to get the information, entertainment, and communication services you want, Hound is built for your busy life, allowing you to get what you need and move on.

You can use it hands-free by saying, "Ok Hound…”

Features include:

• Weather + Temperature
- “What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow at 6pm?
- “How about the temperature in Hawaii during August?”

• Local Search + Yelp Restaurants
- Ask for restaurants, fast food places, coffee shops, stores, and be as specific as you’d like
- You can even exclude places or grub that you don’t want, such as food types
- “Show Restaurants within 10 miles except for Chinese”

• Navigation (GPS) + Directions
- Ask for a destination and to navigate there seamlessly
- Get the best directions taking traffic into consideration
- “Show me directions to the nearest Starbucks”

• Hotel Search + Expedia booking
- Be specific on travel options
- “Show hotels in Seattle that are pet-friendly, have a gym, and cost less than $275”

• Uber
- Get fare estimates incl. surge pricing & journey time for your trip
- Speak your destination and book your Uber, all hands-free

• Make phone calls and send text messages - handsfree personal assistant

• Web search - say what you’re looking for instead of typing

• Calculator - easily make quick calculations through voice commands
“What is the square root of 16 minus the square root of 9?”

• Converter - instant access to unit conversion for temperature, metrics, mass, volume, etc.
“What is 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius?”

• And more: Video search, News search, Photo & Image search, Stock Prices, Flight status, Date and Time, Alarm and Timer, Music search including "SoundHound Now" feature - activate a music recognition search or a Sing or Hum search, Mortgage Calculator, Tip Calculator, Currency Converter, Unit Converter, Word and phrase translation, Wikipedia, Dictionary, Play interactive games…and more coming soon!

Compared with: Apple Siri, Cortana, Google Now, Alexa, Amazon Echo, Nuance Dragon Go, Dragon Mobile Assistant, Indigo, Vlingo, Evi, Voice Search, utter, EVA, and other virtual or personal assistant apps. Check out this video: Hound - The personal assistant trying to take on Siri - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G2QLWJZ_xc

Handsfree: Say "OK Hound" to start a voice search (similar to "Ok Google" or "Hey Siri" for Android and iOS phones)

Partners include: Accuweather, Bing Search, Expedia, Uber, Yelp & more

**** Praise for Hound ****
“Hound takes voice search to the next level.” - Wall Street Journal
“SoundHound Inc. just developed a crazy-powerful personal assistant.” - WIRED
“SoundHound Inc.’s new voice search app makes Siri and Cortana look slow.” - The Verge

End User Agreement
http://www.soundhound.com/hound-end-user-agreement
_______________________________
Explanation of Requested Permissions

CALENDAR
Add or access calendar events

CONTACTS
Find and access contact accounts

FINE (GPS) LOCATION, COARSE (NETWORK-BASED) LOCATION
Used to enhance location based search results

SMS
Access and send SMS messages to contacts

READ PHONE STATE AND IDENTITY
Access phone numbers and identity to make calls

MODIFY/DELETE STORAGE CONTENTS
Read, modify, or delete the contents of your USB storage to cache data

MICROPHONE/RECORD AUDIO
Used to record audio for music and voice search

BLUETOOTH
Enables pairing of devices through Bluetooth

WAKE LOCK
Keeps screen active while searching

VIEW WI-FI STATE
Used to allow usage through WI-FI

DEVICE ID & CALL INFORMATION
Read phone status and identity

CONTROL VIBRATION
Used to detect when internet access is available

READ SYNC SETTINGS
To toggle background data or auto-sync

Reviews

4.0

3,923 total

5 1,947

4 862

3 503

2 269

1 342

Alex B

Good complement to Google now Some things it does better than Google now, some things worse. But you can use both - totally hands-free - if your phone is the type that is always listening for "OK Google now". Just say "OK Google now, start Hound", and then after Hound starts, say "OK Hound..."

Davante Wilson

hog wash hound is nowhere near now.. and never will be... doesn't understand context or alot of thing's.. now smoke's this trash any day.. fanboys keep on putting near google now.. lol I needed a laugh. cortana even puts this mimic to shame

Steven Reynolds

So far the Best available. My microphone went out on my phone and I needed to figure out a easy fix. So I started looking for a easy fix when I started using my headset and Bluetooth as a work around. Quickly I found out that using your Bluetooth to control your phone for everything was like impossible, this being until I found HOUND. This application is excellent and recolonizes everything I say. I'm now using the experimental Bluetooth setting and will keep you all updated, but this is by far the best Bluetooth phome assistant.

Luveh Keraph

I have just tried the new release, and my comments still stand. Hound is not delivering, and with each new release it can be seen that this app is stuck. The latest: when replying, it speaks ridiculously fast. I do not think that's what the official marketing had in mind to support its claims of a fast response. In addition, its speech recognition capabilities remain very, very limited.: it is unable to understand something as simple as "Please call Jim', always interpreting "call" as "cold". Unlike Google Now, it seems to have no contextual understanding whatsoever. Also, while against Google Now I can speak almost at normal speed, Hound does not get anything much at that speed; I have to speak slowly, enunciating clearly, if Hound is going to have any hope of catching anything at all. Quite frankly, this app is miles behind Google Now. I keep trying with every new update, but it remains as far from Google Now as it has ever been. Not that Google Now is wonderful, but it is at least usable, and marginally useful. Hound is not usable; it seems to be stuck in what speech recognition state-of-the-art was at 10 or 15 years ago. And, as a corollary, it is all but useless.

Paul Segovich

Every update is a step in the right direction The problem with most voice recognition and speak-response software is that it is clunky and requires ultra-specific word tracks which never leaves me feeling enthusiastic about using the program. Although Hound has it's issues and it is far from perfect, it's easily the best at what it is trying to do, and that is worthy of 5 stars in my book. This is easily one of the first applications added to any device I get my hands on. I can't wait to see where this technology takes us.

Jon Chrestman

Almost Great start (still like) Finally an android assistant that might really be helpful and not a Siri knock off gimmick. I don't remember Siri being as useful.Has trouble launching certain apps, it opens window to search for for "open/launch app. "4/8/2016---Love it more every day.

User reviews

Alex B April 3, 2016

Davante Wilson April 8, 2016

Steven Reynolds April 5, 2016

Luveh Keraph April 3, 2016

Paul Segovich April 4, 2016

Jon Chrestman April 9, 2016

Jack S April 4, 2016

Comes In Really Handy Remembering to use this app instead of google now is the hardest part. Gives super specific answers instead of just opening up a web search. I dig it!

Colin Harter April 10, 2016

It's really good with things like restaurants hotels weather and other things you would need as a tourist for example. Its main weakness is it's not quite as good with general knowledge as say Google Now would be or Cortana. but other than that I really like it.

Peter Svendsen April 7, 2016

Super fast and accurate I love this app. Super fast and accurate voice recognition. Highly recommended!

Jeffrey Flower April 8, 2016

I tried Like I said this is going to be AWESOME! Hound needs more work, voice recognition to start. Opening up the application also. I am not a computer expert, just what I have seen from playing with the Hound. Thanks

Mr Android April 7, 2016

Super fast response Love being able to exclude things from a search, sort search results, and search more naturally. Super fast transcription and responses.

Paris Nicole Perez April 4, 2016

Absolutely love it It so futuristic. Your personal assistant in the palm of ur hands.

Bestech Guru April 9, 2016

Cannot skip tutorial :( Wow! Very fast app! Umm, rock paper scissors is just a pattern. Next, the app cannot be trained for personal responses. (hello, george) Also, voice activation needs improvement. Great start! I hope you can add ability to open apps!

Matt Amodeo April 2, 2016

I like it It's much better than google voice.

Moises Martinez April 2, 2016

Needs to work better Will not work with Samsung Galaxy tab S 8.4 incompatible is what the play store said. Please make it compatible with the samsung galaxy tab S 8.4

David LeFebvre April 3, 2016

Good, but more integration would be nice Hound won't be able to replace Google's "Ok, Google" voice search until I can launch Hound by saying "Ok, Hound" without tapping the screen to launch Hound first. Currently, Google's voice search is better at launching installed apps to compete tasks, also, at least in my experience.

Ken Vight April 8, 2016

Not fully hands free. Needs the option. To me, the reason for this type of application, is to be able to simply talk to your phone without having to pick it up to perform commands. Having to open the app, then press the "activate" button to perform the task is two too many steps to get the job done in my opinion.

Dominick Giunta April 4, 2016

Love it but.. I have to either place the hound it widget on my home screen and then click it, or I have to open the app before "ok hound" works. Might as well just press the hound it button. Can't deny the assistant's power once I'm in the app, blew Siri away. I just wish it had the same ease of access as Siri or Google now. Also, now that we're out of beta it seems that I can't ask multiple questions anymore. It used to answer each question, now it shows a Google result. Follow up questions seem to have lost a bit too.

Kelly Stillman April 3, 2016

Outstanding application This is a great app.. With every update they improve and fix any issues. With future development on a continual basis this is an excellent choice for an interactive assistant on your device.

Nic Finn April 2, 2016

Incredible VERY good app! I just wish it would work like Google Now (always-listening) and have a way to run on Android Wear (since its answers are so much better!)

Ann-Marie Foster April 4, 2016

Very fast but rarely hears command correctly It would do better with improved voice recognition commonly available on other apps.

David Amgad April 3, 2016

Very fast and accurate results However it doesn't have same features as its rivals yet, and it needs deeper integration with the OS.

ErnieBate Rising April 9, 2016

Absolutely love it Very accurate parsing, and i like the personal responses when you say "good morning, Hound," or "Thank you."

Herby Osbourne April 3, 2016

Question When will hound be offline

Timothy Santos April 9, 2016

Was expecting more Better than Google in some areas. But doesn't understand what I'm asking on others. One example of earlier: If I ask about a record in a sport, it will say it cant find the song

Richard Langendoerfer April 10, 2016

Hound So far so good!

Clayton Coffey April 2, 2016

Hound Voice recognition is phenomenal. You can speak very naturally to it too and it picks up every word and gives you a great contextual result.

Dave Buster April 6, 2016

Best siri alternative available

Bill Bisaha April 2, 2016

Only delays the window that tells me what to do

Forrest Sodergren April 8, 2016

Awesome app better than siri

amy 4living April 8, 2016

Love this!! Awesome app!!

Grayson Wolowicz April 4, 2016

It's *almost* perfect! I couldn't be happier with the search results mostly. it's fast and recognizes my voice very well. all we need now is a polished ui like Google now or siri, and we're set.

JT Jones March 13, 2016

SoundHound Works great, I'd say it's on par with Amazons Echo unit. I love that it can handle much more advanced queries and actually bring back usable results. It's not full of annoying ads either, don't know how they are able to produce this app for free.

Michael March 17, 2016

Enjoyed it better when it was in beta Tried to do some of the things that beta had but was in able. Such as asking it a historic question and a math problem in the same sentence. Mostly does Google searches. Will update if things change.

Robert Gallegos March 7, 2016

Hands free calling Only thing needed for a 5 star rating is to fix the hands free option with Bluetooth headsets. I use a Samsung Gear Circle and when I try to open up Hound to make a call it seems like the mic turns on for a second and then turns off without letting me say anything.

Michael White-Smith March 12, 2016

Omg! The best! Watch out Siri and Google Now, Hound was not only on your tale, he has passed you guys sitting still! If Hound is only in Beta, I can not imagine how fabulous this app will be in the future, and for the first time in a long time I'm actually impressed with an app...

Svet Slavov March 6, 2016

Best voice assistant ever! Hound blows Siri and OKGoogle out of the water when it comes to understanding complex question commands! While Siri does a better job at sports scores and OKGoogle is able to get the edge out in traffic information, Hound puts them both to shame when it comes to understanding multilayered questions. No joke, it's not even close!

Xingchen Hong March 7, 2016

Useless This thing can't get the words right in many many many scenarios. It is also very good at giving an opinion when it is merely a piece of tool (e.g. If I think it is useless, how dare it arguing that I should show respect? It is disrrspecting me in the first place for being so useless and yet calling itself amazing or something! Is next-gen equivalent to useless to it?). And it can't even tell me "what can you do that google now can't"!

Mathue Soyffer March 5, 2016

Love it but fix glitches It can't show weather. When I ask what the weather is it says cannot find location, even though my location is turned on. It also brings back wrong restaurant hours. It said the McDonald's by my house was closed, but it's a 24 hour one.. Unacceptable. If you fix these two issues it's easily the best voice assistant out there. So fix them please. And I will love it :)

Ed Navas March 13, 2016

Ok for general stuff. Google = better so far Quick for topline stuff, fell apart if I start to ask directions for specific restaurants, while Google handled same query without any issue. Shame, really wanted this to b awesome, but it's an all or nothing sum game, either it reconizes place of interest to me a good portion of the time, or its useless if I have to start doubling my efforts (typing / trying diff app for same query)