Hey Host! | Devpost

Library
Clips
Q&A

Inspiration

-- https://www.loom.com/share/918b799f052a4dd3a075bd4221af496a We all like listening to podcasts, as it is an easy form of entertainment and topics vary widely. However, it is easy to lose yourself in the podcast, so we found a way to not only make podcasts more engaging but also more educational.

What it does

Our web app actively listens while the user listens to their podcast, awaiting the cue "Hey Host!" to begin the conversation. In the conversation the user can ask any question, and they will receive an audio response similar to that of their favorite podcaster. Their Q&A's are stored by conversation for later rereference. Additionally, the user can save clips of special sections of their podcasts and relisten to those sections later. With voice commands like "forward," "rewind," and "save that," users can manipulate podcasts with their voices in a novel way.

How we built it

Our UI is React/Next.js with a Python/Flask backend. We scraped transcripts with Python and BeautifulSoup, compiled the audio files with RSS, utilized faster-whisper/porcupine to handle speech-to-text keywords, and made custom AI voice models with ElevenLabs that worked in conjunction with the LLM to produce and speak aloud the responses.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge we ran into was trying to get our | speech-to-text > AI > text-to-speech | pipeline refined. Trying to get it to stop and go properly while minimizing wait time that's within our control and making sure responses were relevant to topics and the podcaster were some of the main issues. Additionally, we ran into roadblocks with the clipping system, trying to make the clips correct and comprehensive.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our proudest areas are our UI and voice-native UX. Feature-wise, the clipping feature is our favorite and most interactive feature.

What we learned

We tried our hands at multiple new applications at this event and definitely solidified our persistent collaboration skills throughout the night.

What's next for Hey Host!

Next, Hey Host! is going to become available to users with sign-in, allowing them to listen to their favorite podcasters and save their Q&As and clips easily. Ideally we can scale this to hundreds of podcasters so they can build even closer connections with their fans.