ICT - Instead of having to go to the switch to turn on or off the light as it is now, you just need to give orders: Turn on/off the light. Right after the order is issued, the lights will be automatically turned on/off thanks to a smart on-off device.

This is a product of a group of fourth-year students of Banking - Finance and Business Administration, Quy Nhon University. It has just won many awards such as: the third prize of Creative Ideas - Start-up of Southern Central Coastal Region; the first prize of the 2018 Binh Dinh Start-up Idea Contest; the first prize in the University-level Student Start-up Ideas competition; the first prize in the Department-level Light up Talent Contest.

Many overwhelming advantages

Vo Nguyen Duc Tri’s family trades in electrical household goods. Thanks to his desire to learn, Tri is quite knowledgeable about electricity, advantages and disadvantages of each product. When he was in Grade 12, Tri spent a lot of time learning about programming and writing code. With the thought of wanting to make a product that can help the elderly and disabled people easily turn on/off the power in the fastest, most convenient and safest way, with his considerable knowledge of electricity and programming, Tri came up with this "strange" invention.
In 2017, as soon as Quy Nhon University launched the movement of dealing with topics for students' start-up ideas, Vo Nguyen Duc Tri invited two of his classmates, Vo Thanh Nhan and Nguyen Thi Diem Phu, to form a group named Sound Idea. The group set a goal of successfully implementing this idea.

Sound Idea Group’s smart on-off device won the first prize in the 2018 Binh Dinh Start-up Idea Contest

Tri said, “At present, there are many on/off devices such as: using infrared induction-operated devices, clapping-operated infrared sensors, voice-controlled devices via Web-enabled or Blutooth phones. However, the Sound Idea group’s product has many overwhelming advantages”.
According to Vo Thanh Nhan, The uniqueness of the "Smart on-off device" is an sound-processing algorithm. This algorithm helps eliminate parasitic noise that unintentionally turns on/off the device and helps the device "recognize" the master’s voice.
“When you talk, your utterances may contain words related to phrases such as “turn on/off”, the device will not turn on/off automatically. Only when you issue an order will the device "obeys" your order. This helps users avoid a lot of trouble,” Nhan said.

From left to right, Nhan, Phuc and Tri receiving the third prize in the Creative Idea - Start-up Contest of Southern Central Coastal Region

The biggest difficulty facing the Sound Idea Group when it created this product was writing algorithms and recording samples of voices. "In order to get the complete algorithm, I spent nearly 1 year learning domestic and foreign documents and made wrong calculation countless times. Each time I made a incorrect calculation, I had to "stretch my eyes" to go over each line of code. Recording voice samples was not easy. The group spent more than 100 hours recording samples of all Northern, Central, and Southern voices and then bringing them to the Noron Network for speech recognition. Currently, all voice commands in the Northern, Central and Southern voices are well recognized by the device. However, at first, the device can only recognize the voice command slowly, but later on, the familiar voice recognition is much faster, “Tri said.

The practical application is very high

The "Smart on-off device" developed by the Sound Idea group is made up of 3 modules, including: Relay, processing circuit and recording circuit. The algorithms used include: a on-off device, a device of recognizing voice and processing parasitic noise.

According to the group members, this product is designed to be small, compact and can be installed right in the "trough" of neon bulbs, the whole device can be easily purchased in the market with a relatively cheap price.

"If sold to businesses and an average household, a product costs only 20,000 VND (about 90 cent), and 50,000 - 70,000 VND (US$2 - US$2.5) respectively. With this affordable price, middle-income customers can buy this extremely useful product,”Diem Phuc said.

Sound Idea group with its smart on-off device

Currently, the group is continuing to do research to apply this voice command to fans and power sockets, to turn on/off the fan or give an order to change the fan speed at will, or can close/disconnect the current via voice command.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Hien, Vice-Rector of Quy Nhon University expressed his joy and highly appreciated the start-up idea of the Sound Idea group. He said: “This is a completely unique idea, has many overwhelming advantages and wide applicability. In the coming time, the University will continue to promote, support and honor creative ideas and start-ups among students. At the same time, it is expected that domestic and foreign enterprises, together with the University, connect and support creative start-up ideas and put ideas into practice”.

Tùy Phong