Arbitration-based voice recognition

A non-transitory computer-readable medium, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable medium is provisioned with program instructions that are executable by at least one processor such that a first network microphone device (NMD) is configured to:

• receive, from a second NMD via a network interface of the first NMD, a first arbitration message comprising (i) a first measure of confidence associated with a voice input as detected by the second NMD and (ii) the voice input as detected by the second NMD;
• receive, from a third NMD via the network interface, a second arbitration message comprising (i) a second measure of confidence associated with the voice input as detected by the third NMD and (ii) the voice input as detected by the third NMD;
• determine that the second measure of confidence is greater than the first measure of confidence;
• based on the determination, perform voice recognition based on the voice input as detected by the third NMD, wherein the voice input as detected by the third NMD comprises a command to control playback of audio content by at least one of the first NMD, the second NMD, or the third NMD;
• and
• after performing voice recognition based on the voice input as detected by the third NMD, execute the command to control the playback of the audio content by at least one of the first NMD, the second NMD, or the third NMD.

A system comprising:

• a first network microphone device (NMD) communicatively coupled to a second NMD and a third NMD via a network interface of the first NMD, wherein the first NMD is configured to:
• receive, from the second NMD via the network interface, a first arbitration message comprising (i) a first measure of confidence associated with a voice input as detected by the second NMD and (ii) the voice input as detected by the second NMD;
• receive, from the third NMD via the network interface, a second arbitration message comprising (i) a second measure of confidence associated with the voice input as detected by the third NMD and (ii) the voice input as detected by the third NMD;
• determine that the second measure of confidence is greater than the first measure of confidence;
• based on the determination, perform voice recognition based on the voice input as detected by the third NMD, wherein the voice input as detected by the third NMD comprises a command to control playback of audio content by at least one of the first NMD, the second NMD, or the third NMD;
• and
• after performing voice recognition based on the voice input as detected by the third NMD, execute the command to control the playback of the audio content by at least one of the first NMD, the second NMD, and or third NMD.