Why does Speech Recognition require an active Azure account?

Question

Hello:

We need Speech to Text on an offline device, but it seems that we need to have an active Azure account in order to use this feature. Why? If anyone can provide the reason for the need for an Azure account if we just want to do Speech to Text offline.

I have tried Windows.Media.SpeechRecognition namespace, but it lacks "Voice Training", and we need voice training to deal with different accents.
The voice training was supported in the old SAPI 5.3, and taken out in Windows.Media.SpeechRecognition namespace, and is in Microsoft.CognitiveServices.Speech namespace. But it requires an active Azure account.

Again, our product do not need Azure service, rather it is an offline configuration.

thanks for your helps,
Kiet

Answer 1

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out to us. You have mentioned two product:

1. Enables speech recognition for command and control within Windows Runtime app, which you are mentioning which lack of Voice Training.
   https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/windows.media.speechrecognition?view=winrt-20348

For Windows UWP questions, please refer to: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/support/

2. Speech Service in Azure Cognitive Service
   https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/speech-services/#features
   This is an service entirely in cloud and you need an active Azure account in almost any situation.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Yutong