Record meetings with Google Mini or Amazon Alexa?

Question

I've been asked to develop an action for either Google Mini or Amazon Alexa that allows the device to record the audio from a meeting (no time limit) and send that script to the meeting-participants.

Is it possible to record audio for extended periods of time with these devices?

I'm aware that both the Mini and Alexa are 'always recording' but it seems they just overwrite local storage. As an alternative to recording for an extended period, is it possible then to output these recordings to a web-service and concatenate them into one file on the back-end?

Thanks

Answer 1

First of all, the devices aren't "always recording". They are "always listening". Anything that is stored in memory is for a very short period of time - just long enough to see if it is the triggering hotword and/or to forward anything else said once triggered.

There is no authorized way for you to tap into this mic.

Similarly, neither device gives you access to the audio recorded through a server - they just send you text transcripts. Google does let you listen to what was recorded on their servers, but you can't access it as a third-party.

On the Alexa, there probably isn't much you can do. It won't forward text that doesn't match one of the Intents, and open-ended text is deprecated and discouraged.

With the Assistant, using the Action SDK, you can get most of the text spoken. But there are a few caveats. Although you'll get text, you won't get who spoke the text, nor the timing of things (was it spoken slowly? quickly? was there a long pause between a question and response?). The Assistant will also send things in batches, either when it thinks you've said "enough" or when it thinks you've finished what you're saying, and your server then needs to send back a response (which could be as simple as a very short audio file), but while it is "processing", you'll miss everything that was said.

In short - while possible, the current hardware and system software is unsuited to this sort of application.