Quick way to add Calendar events by voice

[JemmyDucks]

Hope this hasn't been done to death. On my BlackBerry I used to use ReQall to set calendar events by ReQall's voice recognition. It worked pretty well and understood words and phrases like "tomorrow," "Wednesday," or "next Saturday"; but it could take an hour or more to sync with the Google calendar (and the syncing costs about $30 per year).

ReQall for Android is still fairly primitive, so I was looking about for an app that would recognize an event in the form "dinner next Tuesday with Jen at 6 pm." The Market did not have any promising candidates.

Then it dawned on me that such functionality is built into Google itself. By sending an SMS to GVENT (set this up on your Google account) you can use SMS together with the phone's voice recognition to add such events by voice. Having set GVENT as a "favorite," it takes only 4 quick taps (and no screen scrolling) to add an event on my calendar, and the synchronization is nearly instantaneous. Much better than ReQall, IMO.

This is, for me, much easier than manually setting the date and time settings in the phone's calendar app. Hope others might find this useful.

 

[copr165]

Hope this hasn't been done to death. On my BlackBerry I used to use ReQall to set calendar events by ReQall's voice recognition. It worked pretty well and understood words and phrases like "tomorrow," "Wednesday," or "next Saturday"; but it could take an hour or more to sync with the Google calendar (and the syncing costs about $30 per year).

ReQall for Android is still fairly primitive, so I was looking about for an app that would recognize an event in the form "dinner next Tuesday with Jen at 6 pm." The Market did not have any promising candidates.

Then it dawned on me that such functionality is built into Google itself. By sending an SMS to GVENT (set this up on your Google account) you can use SMS together with the phone's voice recognition to add such events by voice. Having set GVENT as a "favorite," it takes only 4 quick taps (and no screen scrolling) to add an event on my calendar, and the synchronization is nearly instantaneous. Much better than ReQall, IMO.

This is, for me, much easier than manually setting the date and time settings in the phone's calendar app. Hope others might find this useful.

Don't mean to sound dumb but could you give some step by step instructions for this. Thanks in advance.

 

[JemmyDucks]

Don't mean to sound dumb but could you give some step by step instructions for this. Thanks in advance.

First, make sure you have your phone attached to your Google account (this might be done for us already since we're using Android phones). Under Google calendar settings select "Mobile Setup" and enter your phone number. Google will then text a "verification code" to your phone to confirm. Once confirmed, you can create new calendar events by texting the event info to 48368 (i.e., GVENT). And since you can speak a text message on Android phones just by tapping the microphone button, you can easily add such events by voice.

On my phone I have a contact widget set for texting GVENT. To enter an event I tap that widget, tap the microphone button, speak the new event info, tap send. Seconds later, Google responds with a text that shows how my appt was entered into the calendar.

 

[2horses]

Nice! Don't know that I have use for that, but it's cool to know how it can be done.

 

[Steven58]

sounds like a lot of steps!

 

[john0821]

Qwiklist Voice is a good app to add to your calendar with voice recognition.

 

[edgeman4]

The little voice button is just amazing for all the things you can do...which is basically anything that good old desktop google can do.

I use it now and then for a calculator, unit conversion, dictionary, and translation, all by voice. Great tip, thanks!

 

[JemmyDucks]

sounds like a lot of steps!

Guess that depends on how we define "a lot." Using a contacts widget to SMS GVENT, it's two taps, speak, tap to send. It's actually fewer taps than using ReQall.

 

[Travisimo]

This sounds like something I might be interested in. Where do I learn what types of things I can say to create an event using this method? I am not familiar with GVENT or adding events via text. Right now, I'm using the Beautiful Calendar widget to add events and it works okay, but this sounds intriguing.

 

[JemmyDucks]

This sounds like something I might be interested in. Where do I learn what types of things I can say to create an event using this method? I am not familiar with GVENT or adding events via text. Right now, I'm using the Beautiful Calendar widget to add events and it works okay, but this sounds intriguing.

Anything you can type into Google calendar to create an event can also be spoken (or typed, of course) to create an event by texting to GVENT. For example, you could say, "movies with Tom and Diane next Thursday at eight fifteen pm"; Google would create an event on Thursday 12 Aug (since today is Tues 3 Aug) at 8:15 pm that reads "movies with tom and diane". Google also understands words like "today" and "tomorrow." Check Google's help pages for all the things the calendar understands (or just type some stuff in the "quick add" box and see what happens). About the 'Quick Add' feature - Google Calendar Help About the 'Quick Add' feature - Google Calendar Help

 

[Travisimo]

Anything you can type into Google calendar to create an event can also be spoken (or typed, of course) to create an event by texting to GVENT. For example, you could say, "movies with Tom and Diane next Thursday at eight fifteen pm"; Google would create an event on Thursday 12 Aug (since today is Tues 3 Aug) at 8:15 pm that reads "movies with tom and diane". Google also understands words like "today" and "tomorrow." Check Google's help pages for all the things the calendar understands (or just type some stuff in the "quick add" box and see what happens). About the 'Quick Add' feature - Google Calendar Help About the 'Quick Add' feature - Google Calendar Help

Do you know if you can set a reminder for events added this way?

 

[novemberwhiskey]

Do you know if you can set a reminder for events added this way?

It's in the account settings page. When you set up your mobile device, it will take you to that page automatically.

 

[JemmyDucks]

Do you know if you can set a reminder for events added this way?

Default reminders that you have specified in google cal will be applied to the new event.

 

[FireChief]

I like this option.. however, I just recently changed to Swift Key keyboard, and it doesn't show the little microphone key.. darn...

anyone see a work around that?

 

[powderkegg]

This is great! I did not know you could do this! I am still using my LG vx9100 until my X comes in and it works great! I can't wait to get my X.

 

[Apache]

Which widget are you using to accomplish this? The Motorola Widget>Contact Quick tasks widget requires 2 clicks -- one to open the widget, then a click on the envelope icon to text. Not to mention this is a big widget.

Any way to get a small icon to go straight to text?

BTW thanks for this, this is a money feature.

 

[JemmyDucks]

Which widget are you using to accomplish this? The Motorola Widget>Contact Quick tasks widget requires 2 clicks -- one to open the widget, then a click on the envelope icon to text. Not to mention this is a big widget.

Any way to get a small icon to go straight to text?

BTW thanks for this, this is a money feature.

If the only action specified for the Moto contact widget is texting, then a single tap does the trick. I'm using "contact widget" from the Market, however, because the Moto widgets don't play well with Launcher Pro.

 

[Apache]

If the only action specified for the Moto contact widget is texting, then a single tap does the trick. I'm using "contact widget" from the Market, however, because the Moto widgets don't play well with Launcher Pro.

Contact widget is exactly what I was looking for. Many thanks

 

[tdse]

Excellent tip, thanks very much.

 

[cryptosporidia]

This was an excellent tip. Works great and like you said is almost instantaneous. The speech to text feature on this phone is awesome. I set up gvent as a contact and just hit text message > gvent > tell it what to add and presto. Thanks so much for the tip.

 

[Napalm]

I like this option.. however, I just recently changed to Swift Key keyboard, and it doesn't show the little microphone key.. darn...

anyone see a work around that?

I think you can set double tap home key to voice, instead of voice command.

Also to the OP, thanks for the info. I didn't know gvent existed.

 

[scotthanna]

great tip.

thanks

 

[tksuther]

This is a great tip but for some reason the event does not sync to my phone. The calendar syncs fine when I type an entry. Any help is appreciated!

 

[foo]

aw, very nice. thanks for the tip on this

 

[JemmyDucks]

This is a great tip but for some reason the event does not sync to my phone. The calendar syncs fine when I type an entry. Any help is appreciated!

Make sure you have set this up in your Google calendar (under Settings:Mobile Setup). You should be receiving a confirmation text from Google showing what was received on Google's side.