Product test
Huawei Talkband B5: Does it have to be so ugly?
by Dominik Bärlocher
"Hey Celia": first conversations with Huawei's voice assistant
1.4.2020
Translation: machine translated
Huawei launches its own voice assistant. The Huawei P40 Pro responds to "Hey Celia" and can do the same things as the Google Assistant and Siri. But in doing so, Celia is getting on Apple's nerves.
"Hey Celia, what's the weather?", I have only to ask to receive a full weather report read out by a robotic voice with a slight British accent. Celia doesn't sound particularly friendly or human, but she tells me that the forecast was for slightly rainy weather, "but it looks like things have changed" and that it really is raining.
"Hey Celia, take as selfie," I have to say to get the Huawei P40 Pro to open the camera app. I won't say it, because I don't take selfies, but Celia can. Celia is supposed to be able to do everything Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri and Google's assistant are capable of.
An early test, however, shows that Celia can do a lot, but still has a lot to learn.
Shopping in Germany with Celia
In the video presentation, everything runs smoothly. Celia can make calls, set the alarm clock, count calories and much more.
As usual with new voice assistants, Celia is not available for Switzerland. That means she's never heard of Swiss online retailers like digitec, Galaxus, Brack or Microspot. So when I ask, "Hey Celia, where can I buy that", her answers are a bit confusing. I get offers from England, probably because I asked Celia to speak in British English and the phone also displays all texts in English (UK). Even when I set up the Huawei Ai Lens app with Switzerland as the Shopping Region, the results aren't particularly better. Celia offers me deals from Amazon - well known in Switzerland for the phrase "This item cannot be delivered to the address indicated" - or Otto-Versand. No, no, not the one you're thinking of, but Otto, the grandfather of German mail order.
In short, Huawei has absolutely no idea how online business works in Switzerland.
On the other hand, the function itself is good and quite fast, depending on the internet connection. Unfortunately, it's not really part of Celia. "Hey Celia, where can I buy this" is actually nothing more than the start-up command for the Huawei AI Lens app. The app recognises the book and quickly gives results, but there's an error in the programming logic: Huawei AI Lens gives priority to the image over the text.
The human brain is trained to give priority to text from the moment you learn to read. An example:
This is a book. But before you thought "book," you read "1984" in big red letters.
Then perhaps you've seen John Hurt, who played Winston Smith in the 1984 film adaptation. And around the same time, you noticed it was a book.
But Huawei Al Lens does things differently. The app first recognises images, colours and shapes, then somehow associates the shape of the product with the recognised elements and suggests results. It finds a book by George Lois: "George Lois on His Creation of the Big Idea". Then the poster for the film "Fireworks Simulator", the DVD and more.
But one thing is missing.... George Orwell's book.
If Celia read the text and gave it more importance than the image, AI Lens would be much better. As it stands, it doesn't react enough like a human being, but too much like a machine. It doesn't matter how good the AI and image recognition is, if the results aren't what you expect.
Celia and weather, music and standards
When you ask her "Hey Celia, what's the weather", she's sure to give you a weather report. The only catch is that not all assistants agree on the weather. When it's sunny outside, Celia tells me the temperature is 7°C, but Siri says it's 13°C. Both, however, say that the weather is sunny.
No matter where or when I set up a duel between Siri and Celia to find out the weather, as a rule both agree. When it comes to details like the temperature, however, both assistants open hostilities. If only they could talk to each other. When the difference isn't more than one or two degrees, I don't care. But six degrees in March... I don't know whether I should put on a good jacket or a sweatshirt.
Where does the difference come from?
- Siri gets her weather data from weather.com, an IBM company.
- Celia gets its weather data from Huafeng Accuweather. Accuweather broadcasts the weather report from the China Meteorological Administration.
Celia understands and can answer detailed questions about the weather. To the question "Will it rain today?", Celia answers no, then provides info on leads Celia to deny the question, then provides more information on precipitation. All in all, not bad with a few showers.
Ah and one last thing. Dear members of the Chinese meteorological administration, your weather forecasts are pretty reliable. But your geographical knowledge is appalling. Vaduz isn't in Switzerland, it's the capital of a completely different country. Vaduz is the residence of Crown Prince Regent Alois von und zu Liechtenstein, Count of Rietberg, in office since 2004, representing his father Johannes Adam Ferdinand Alois Josef Maria Marco d'Aviano Pius Prince von und zu Liechtenstein, Duke of Troppau and Jägerndorf, Count of Rietberg, Governor of the House of Liechtenstein.
And the funniest part is when you ask Celia for music. Sure, you can install Spotify easily enough, but you can't register the app as your default music player. So the command 'Celia, play a song' launches Huawei's music application. And the latter always plays the same track: Dream it possible by Delacey.
The song just happens to be the track Huawei has been using since 2016. You'd almost suspect Huawei deliberately chose this song as the first track played by Huawei Music. Huawei tends to spare no expense when it comes to its image. Especially as the brand has just released a new song representing it in China. For "Kunpeng", Huawei praises itself with lyrics like "Transcend time" and "Surpass the limits of life".
When Celia meets Siri
One last quick note: if you have Celia and Siri in the same room, you can activate both at the same time with the following commands:
- Hey Siri
- Hey Celia
There, I'll let you judge for yourself.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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