I've recently purchased the Grove Speech Recognizer from Arduino's online store. It is designed by SeeedStudio but I purchased it from Arduino's store.
The way it works is that it will wake up when you say the word 'Hicell' and after that you can say things like 'Turn on the lights', 'Turn off the lights', 'Up', 'Down', things like that.
I find that the false negative rate is incredibly high and it can barely detect me saying 'Hicell'.
What is going on?
Either you didn't train it properly, or you have the wrong accent for it to understand you.
Basic voice recognition modules need to be trained in the exact environment you're using them in.
That includes board position (including angle), speaker<>mic distance, user intonation, room reverb, etc.
Speaking louder when it doesn't work, doesn't work. Unless you have trained it for that.
A 1meter distance might work better than a 25cm distance.
Experiment with different activation commands. Hicell might not be that easy to 'understand'.
A three syllable word with distinct/different sounds might work better.
It took me several weeks of experimenting with an EasyVR module to get to an acceptable 90% success rate.
Leo..