cordova-plugin-audioinput

This Cordova plugin enables audio capture from the device microphone, by in (near) real-time forwarding raw audio data to the web layer of your web application. A typical usage scenario for this plugin would be to use the captured microphone audio as an audio source for Web audio API based applications.

Since Navigator.getUserMedia() and Navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia() aren't supported by all browsers, this plugin provides similar functionality.

The plugin supports two different methods for microphone capture:

1. Let the plugin handle the encoding of raw data by using the audioinput object as an AudioNode, which can be connected to your Web audio API node chain.
2. Subscribing to audioinput events in order to receive chunks of raw audio data, which then can be processed by your app. Using this method doesn't require Web audio support on the device.

Supported Platforms

• Android
• iOS
• browser

Installation

From the Cordova Plugin Repository:

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-audioinput

or by using the GitHub project URL:

cordova plugin add https://github.com/edimuj/cordova-plugin-audioinput.git

I haven't tested the plugin with PhoneGap build and ionic build, so feel free to message me if you tried it with success there.

Events

When using the event based approach, the plugin emits the following window events:

• audioinput
• audioinputerror

Basic Usage Example - AudioNode

After the Cordova deviceready event has fired:

// Start with default values and let the plugin handle conversion of 
// raw data, and therefore will not send any audioinput events.
// If an audio context is not provided, the plugin will create one for you.``

function startCapture() {
	audioinput.start({
		streamToWebAudio: true
	});
	
	// Connect the audioinput to the device speakers in order to hear the captured sound.
	audioinput.connect(audioinput.getAudioContext().destination);
}

// First check whether we already have permission to access the microphone.
window.audioinput.checkMicrophonePermission(function(hasPermission) {
	if (hasPermission) {
		console.log("We already have permission to record.");
		startCapture();
	} 
	else {	        
		// Ask the user for permission to access the microphone
		window.audioinput.getMicrophonePermission(function(hasPermission, message) {
			if (hasPermission) {
				console.log("User granted us permission to record.");
				startCapture();
			} else {
				console.warn("User denied permission to record.");
			}
		});
	}
});

Advanced Usage Example - Events

Use the event based method if you need more control over the capture process.

Subscribe to audioinput events: The event will continuously be fired during capture, allowing the application to receive chunks of raw audio data.

You can also subscribe to audioinputerror error events as seen in the example below:

function onAudioInput( evt ) {
    // 'evt.data' is an integer array containing raw audio data
    //   
    console.log( "Audio data received: " + evt.data.length + " samples" );
    
    // ... do something with the evt.data array ...
}

// Listen to audioinput events
window.addEventListener( "audioinput", onAudioInput, false );

var onAudioInputError = function( error ) {
    alert( "onAudioInputError event recieved: " + JSON.stringify(error) );
};

// Listen to audioinputerror events
window.addEventListener( "audioinputerror", onAudioInputError, false );

After the Cordova deviceready event has fired (don't forget to first check/get microphone permissions as shown in the basic example above):

// Start capturing audio from the microphone
audioinput.start({
    // Here we've changed the bufferSize from the default to 8192 bytes.
    bufferSize: 8192 
});

// Stop capturing audio input
audioinput.stop()

Advanced Usage Example - Saving to files

Use fileUrl in the captureCfg if you want to save audio files directly to the file system.

This requires adding cordova-plugin-file to your project:

// Get access to the file system
window.requestFileSystem(window.TEMPORARY, 5*1024*1024, function(fs) {
    console.log("Got file system: " + fs.name);
    fileSystem = fs;

    // Now you can initialize audio, telling it about the file system you want to use.
    var captureCfg = {
		sampleRate: 16000,
		bufferSize: 8192,
		channels: 1,
		format: audioinput.FORMAT.PCM_16BIT,
		audioSourceType: audioinput.AUDIOSOURCE_TYPE.DEFAULT,
		fileUrl: cordova.file.cacheDirectory
    };
    
    // Initialize the audioinput plugin.
    window.audioinput.initialize(captureCfg, function() {	
		// Now check whether we already have permission to access the microphone.
		window.audioinput.checkMicrophonePermission(function(hasPermission) {
		    if (hasPermission) {
				console.log("Already have permission to record.");
		    } 
		    else {	        
			    // Ask the user for permission to access the microphone
				window.audioinput.getMicrophonePermission(function(hasPermission, message) {
				    if (hasPermission) {
						console.log("User granted permission to record.");
				    } else {
						console.warn("User denied permission to record.");
				    }
				});
		    }
		});
    });
}, function (e) {
	console.log("Couldn't access file system: " + e.message)
});

// Later, when we want to record to a file...
var captureCfg = {
    fileUrl : cordova.file.cacheDirectory + "temp.wav"
}

// Start the capture.
audioinput.start(captureCfg);

// ...and when we're ready to stop recording.
audioinput.stop(function(url) {
    // Now you have the URL (which might be different to the one passed in to audioinput.start())
    // You might, for example, read the data into a blob.
    window.resolveLocalFileSystemURL(url, function (tempFile) {
	tempFile.file(function (tempWav) {
		    var reader = new FileReader();	    
		    reader.onloadend = function(e) {
		        // Create the blob from the result.
				var blob = new Blob([new Uint8Array(this.result)], { type: "audio/wav" });
				// Delete the temporary file.
				tempFile.remove(function (e) { console.log("temporary WAV deleted"); }, fileError);			
				// Do something with the blob.
				doSomethingWithWAVData(blob);		
		    }
		    reader.readAsArrayBuffer(tempWav);
		});
    }, function(e) {
		console.log("Could not resolveLocalFileSystemURL: " + e.message);
    });
});

Demo app

app-audioinput-demo is a Cordova app project using this plugin based on the examples below.

Examples

The demo folder contains some usage examples.

Remember that unfiltered microphone output likely will create a nasty audio feedback loop, so lower the volume before trying out the demos!

• webaudio-demo - How to use the audioinput object as a Web Audio API AudioNode that can be connected to your own chain of AudioNodes.
• events-demo - How to subscribe to the audioinput events to get and handle chunks of raw audio data.
• wav-demo - How to encode recorded data to WAV format and use the resulting blob as a source for Audio elements.
• file-demo - How to encode recorded data to WAV format and save the resulting blob as a file. To run this demo cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-file is required.

Usage from Typescript

Typings are included in the package to facilitate usage from Typescript. The following typings are defined:

• AudioInput class exposing all plugin functions
• AudioInputConfiguration interface
• AudioInputSettings namespace which contains all available settings:
  • BUFFERSIZE
  • FORMAT
  • CHANNELS
  • SAMPLERATE
  • AUDIOSOURCE_TYPE

The following example shows how to use it:

import { AudioInput, AudioInputConfiguration }  from 'cordova-plugin-audioinput';

declare var audioinput: AudioInput;

let audioCfg: AudioInputConfiguration = {
	sampleRate: audioinput.SAMPLERATE.CD_AUDIO_44100Hz,
	channels: audioinput.CHANNELS.STEREO,
	bufferSize: 4096
}

...
audioinput.start(audioCfg);
...

API

Prepare for capturing audio from the microphone. Performs any required preparation for recording audio on the given platform.

audioinput.initialize( captureCfg, onInitialized );

Check whether the module already has permission to access the microphone. The callback function has a single boolean argument, which is true if access to the microphone has been granted, and false otherwise. The check is silent - the user is not asked for permission if they haven't already granted it.

audioinput.checkMicrophonePermission( onComplete );

Obtains permission to access the microphone from the user. This function will prompt the user for access to the microphone if they haven't already granted it. The callback function has two arguments:

• hasPermission - true if access to the microphone has been granted, and false otherwise.

audioinput.getMicrophonePermission( onComplete );

Start capturing audio from the microphone. Ensure that initialize and at least checkMicrophonePermission have been called before calling this. The captureCfg parameter can include more configuration than previously passed to initialize.

audioinput.start( captureCfg );

Where captureCfg can either be empty, null or contain/override any of the following parameters and their default values. Please note that not all audio configuration combinations are supported by all devices, the default settings seems to work on most devices though:

var captureCfg = {

    // The Sample Rate in Hz.
    // For convenience, use the audioinput.SAMPLERATE constants to set this parameter.
    sampleRate: audioinput.SAMPLERATE.CD_AUDIO_44100Hz,
    
    // Maximum size in bytes of the capture buffer. Should be a power of two and <= 16384.
    bufferSize: 16384,
    
    // The number of channels to use: Mono (1) or Stereo (2).
    // For convenience, use the audioinput.CHANNELS constants to set this parameter.
    channels: audioinput.CHANNELS.MONO,
    
    // The audio format. Currently PCM_16BIT and PCM_8BIT are supported.
    // For convenience, use the audioinput.FORMAT constant to access the possible 
    // formats that the plugin supports.
    format: audioinput.FORMAT.PCM_16BIT,
    
    // Specifies if the audio data should be normalized or not.
    normalize: true,
    
    // Specifies the factor to use if normalization is performed.
    normalizationFactor: 32767.0,
    
    // If set to true, the plugin will handle all conversion of the data to 
    // web audio. The plugin can then act as an AudioNode that can be connected 
    // to your web audio node chain.
    streamToWebAudio: false,
    
    // Used in conjunction with streamToWebAudio. If no audioContext is given, 
    // one (prefixed) will be created by the plugin.
    audioContext: null,
    
    // Defines how many chunks will be merged each time, a low value means lower latency
    // but requires more CPU resources.
    concatenateMaxChunks: 10,
    
    // Specifies the type of the type of source audio your app requires.
    // For convenience, use the audioinput.AUDIOSOURCE_TYPE constants to set this parameter:
    // -DEFAULT
    // -CAMCORDER - Microphone audio source with same orientation as camera if available.
    // -UNPROCESSED - Unprocessed sound if available.
    // -VOICE_COMMUNICATION - Tuned for voice communications such as VoIP.
    // -MIC - Microphone audio source. (Android only)
    // -VOICE_RECOGNITION - Tuned for voice recognition if available (Android only)
    audioSourceType: audioinput.AUDIOSOURCE_TYPE.DEFAULT,

	// If you have your own error handler, you can set a callback to your function 
	// using the onError parameter. The callback function will be called with a single string parameter
	// that contains the error message.
	onError: undefined,
	
    // Optionally specifies a file://... URL to which the audio should be saved.
    // If this is set, then no audioinput events will be raised during recording.
    // When stop is called, a single audioinputfinished event will be raised, with
    // a "file" argument that contains the URL to which the audio was written,
    // and the callback passed into stop() will be invoked.
    // Currently, only WAV format files are guaranteed to be supported on all platforms.
    // When called initialize(), this should be a URL to the directory in which files will
    // be saved when calling start(), so that initialize() can ensure access to the directory
    // is available.
    fileUrl: null
    
};

Stop capturing audio from the microphone: The callback function has a single string argument, which is the url where the file was saved, if a fileUrl was passed in to start as part of captureCfg. Note that the url passed out from stop is not guaranteed to be the same as the fileUrl passed in.

audioinput.stop( onStopped );

Check if the plugin is capturing, i.e. if it is started or not:

audioinput.isCapturing(); // Returns true if it is started

Get the current configuration from the plugin:

audioinput.getCfg();

When using the streamToWebAudio option, you can connect the plugin to your own Web audio node chain:

audioinput.connect( audioNode );

When using streamToWebAudio you can disconnect the previously connected plugin from your your own Web audio node chain:

audioinput.disconnect();

When using streamToWebAudio, and have not supplied the plugin with an Audio context, the following method is used to get the internally created Web Audio context:

audioinput.getAudioContext();

Todo list

Enhancements

Motivate us!

Do you use this plugin in an published app? Feel free to star the project and/or message me about it. It is always super-exciting to see real-world applications using this plugin, and it helps us to prioritize new features and bug fixes.

And if you find this plugin useful, ensure that it is kept alive by donating:

Contributing

This project is open-source, so contributions are welcome. Just ensure that your changes doesn't break backward compatibility!

1. Fork the project.
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature).
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature').
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature).
5. Create a new Pull Request.

Credits

• The plugin is created by Edin Mujkanovic.

Other contributors

License

MIT License