Adding a simple switch as the button to activate the “bell” (the other advantage is for the outside temperature ) , this will trigger a scene or device from the vera3 in my house.
BUT, I am looking for something which can activate a simple MP3 player, to play the sound I want. I read somewhere you can use the sonos audio gear, but that will be a very expensive doorbell :-(. Is there a device or simple MP3 player which can be remotely activated ? I am also thinking about a fibaro relay operating an MP3 player. I think with arduino this would be not a big deal, but I cannot programm C++.
It would be nice to be able to activate different sounds, a scene when I am at home and another scene when the security is activated.
There are a number of options, most depend on the ‘other’ items you have, as you mentioned the Sonos is one, or an old squeeze box should work too plus people have used PC with a media player on that accepts http request (the name escapes me)
You could also look at doing something a little more simple, for example if you have z-wave power socket you could create a scene that turns on a radio or media player (one that plays once turned on) the scene can then turn it off after 1 minute.
I personally use the sonos but i also use a silent alarm, another plugin (Prowl) that sends a notification to my phone, which alerts me too. (Very helpful if I am out, I know that someone pressed the bell.)
Just have been reading some info and done some brainstorming:
*The everspring doorbell, I think that would work together with the Fibaro Universal Door & Window Sensor. The downside would be I could only have 1 wav sound, I don’t think I would be able to have different sounds activated via the vera3.
a siren: Everspring SE812 , That can also be activated by the Fibaro Universal Door & Window Sensor, but is there a way to change the sound/ hack it? offcourse also here the issue of having one sound available, but I think the volume will go louder!
This option would be much better I think, did some googling and one of the hits was this:
[url=http://www.bcsideas.com/yourbell.php]http://www.bcsideas.com/yourbell.php[/url] I think I have to look into a solution like this. A device like this can be activated by a fibaro relais, you can upload your own sounds, you can add extra speakers. I am just looking for a device which can play different sounds, for example 1 presson a button is sound a , 2 quick presses will be sound B, This would be awesome :o
Anyone can share some light?
edit: @ Parkerc: hmm, squeezebox , I have heard about that thingy, Can I activate and controll the squeezebox with the vera 3? can the vera 3 play different sounds via the squeezebox?
I do have a computer which is on 24/7 and runs some security in my house and is also my media-centre, but the issue is with the audio when I am playing music or watching a movie.
The notification on my cellphone; I was thinking of that as well, an email when the doorbell is pushed, that will be nice.
I must eleborate a little bit, I not only want a “doorbell” sound"when the bell is pressed, when I am away from home I want another sound to be played… I am thinking of barking dogs/machine guns ;D… hence the different sounds/scenes
I will google a bit on the squeezebox, if anyone has allready some more info on the squeezebox in association with the vera3, that would help. I allready found out they are not for sale anymore , but with a little bit of luck I should be able to buy a second hand.
I solved your problem by buying a wireless doorbell with multiple buttons. The speaker runs on battery or mains and has a usb port to upload sound files. These sound files can be assigned to the different (remote) buttons. I used a fibaro FGS 221 switch with two channels to connect to the two buttons. Depending on witch channel you trigger you get a different sound. It is also possible to use multiple wireless speakers.
I don’t know where you live but the doorbell system is made by a german firm and at least sold in Germany, Holland and Belgium by Conrad. I don’t find these things on other websites. The brand is m-e GmbH (modern electronics) and the product series is called ‘Bell’. The buttons are designed to be opened and wired to buttons and switches, so for me it was as close to perfect as possible. The only thing better would be z-wave build in.
If you need any more info I’ll check back in after Christmas. And I’ll post a rather difficult problem myself…
Sounds like a perfect solution; if you have time , can you go into detail for me please before I hit the "buy"button. I have the following questions:
I want when some press the “button”, in my case it will be a trigger by a remote controll , for example the Fibaro Universal Door & Window Sensor. This trigger will activate the fibaro relais hardwired to this device, (if possible the 2x1.5kw relais). Depending which scene is active I would like to activate or a doorbell sound or the barking dogs.
You can setup more speakers ( and amplifiers)? , can you also set different volumes for the the different sounds?
For the sounds you could use Vera Alerts. The author has said that he will be adding support for playing sound files soon. I’m not sure what soon is but he has said that there will be an update very soon. You could also use Vera Alerts for all kinds of other things.
@ S-F: that would be the best option!! I have just been reading through the thread about this app on the forum, it has a lot of potential!
I am thinking of buying an android based tablett, hang it on a wall, I can controll my house with it and as an adition hook up some speakers for “vera alerts”
This would be the absolute best option… looking forward to that update
[quote=“Cor, post:7, topic:173715”]This would be the absolute best option… looking forward to that update
Cor[/quote]
Aren’t we all.
I’m currently using an el cheapo android phone which is sitting on the shelf next to my router, switch, file server, Vera, Voip gear and so on. It’s plugged into speakers throughout the house. I currently have two sets of powered PC speakers. The Vera Alerts TTS signal is mono so I just put one speaker in each room for a total coverage ATM of 4 rooms. I control which rooms get alerts by giving or killing power to the speakers through Z-Wave outlets.
Once your operation is up and running please make a thread about it in the Vera alerts forum or just update this one. I’m really interested in what people are going with Vera Alerts. The possibilities are far reaching.
It certainly worth thinking bigger and broader thanks just a bell, you can go with something simple, but if you look at what others have done the investment you make could be leveraged in other areas too.
For me the integration of the Sonos has given me so much more, it’s linked to a door bell and plays a command, but it is also linked to the ping sensor which allows Sonos to notify me when family members mobile phones come into range (TTS or different audio track )
The TTS element is also a great feature too, announcing events when they occur if you want or giving me a welcome and a status report… And who needs a siren who you can play a barking dog.mp3 or the sound of machine guns raining down in multi-room sounds!! Ohh and all of this is before i’ve mentioned their general audio performance is pretty good as well
Anyway I’m not on commission from Sonos (wish I was) but i wanted to make the point , that if you can get what you need from a broader investment, then obviously that’s better in the long run…
While there is a plugin somewhere on mios, I believe squeezebox is now discontinued by Logitech now.
@ Parkerc; I am planing to buy a sonos next week ( the play3 with a bridge) but just for in my bedroom to be able to stream music from my media-centre.
I will play arround with the possibilities in combination with the vera 3, but to buy 2 more sonos devices basically only for the “doorbell”… :-s
A bit offtopic but I don’t know what the sonos gear will do extra for me in my house (except the one I will buy for my bedroom).
For the moment I have a TV which is connected to a computer
The computer is on 24/7 and is my mediacentre and runs 6 ipwebcams (webserver and recorder)
In the near future I expect to buy a 5.1 audio set (high quality) where does the sonos come in for the audio and the homeautomation?
[quote=“parkerc, post:9, topic:173715”]@cor
For me the integration of the Sonos has given me so much more, it’s linked to a door bell and plays a command, but it is also linked to the ping sensor which allows Sonos to notify me when family members mobile phones come into range (TTS or different audio track )[/quote]
How’re you detecting proximity?
This might help. After reading this tread, I put this together.
I created a simple Windows program that contains a media player and a html server. You can place it on your media player computer and call the sounds from your vera from within a scene using Luup code.
I have tested it while streaming netflix and it does not interrupt the movie, it just adds the sound. The program returns a webpage with just the word “Doorbell” at this time. I tested it on a windows 7 and windows 8 computer, and it should work on older windows computers as well.
Feel free to download: http://dataweb.no-ip.com/SoundIt.zip
To install, you have to place all the wav files in your C directory. C:/Doorbell.wav
The soundit program can go anywhere you want. I created a directory called C:/Program Files/SoundIt , and put it there. You might have to allow it access through your firewall, it is a server on port 8087. You would also need to have it start when you computer starts or manually start he program. You can minimalize it once it is started.
The Sound6-9 wav files are Holloween sounds. You can replace the sound files with whatever you want, just use the same names, and they need to be wav files.
The program was slapped together in a couple of hours. Use it as is, or not. If people get it working and like it, I will consider making improvements. For now it is just a fun project I am sharing.
[quote=“syyid, post:12, topic:173715”][quote=“parkerc, post:9, topic:173715”]@cor
For me the integration of the Sonos has given me so much more, it’s linked to a door bell and plays a command, but it is also linked to the ping sensor which allows Sonos to notify me when family members mobile phones come into range (TTS or different audio track )[/quote]
How’re you detecting proximity?[/quote]
The ‘Ping Sensor’ plugin looks for specific IP addresses so if you’ve assigned fixed IPs to various family members phones, then the sensor will trip when the sensor sees their phone is in range of your wifi network. You can have multiple plugin devices for each phone.
It’s not a perfect model as the phone has to be in a certain state to (re)connect to the home network.
I’m trying to build a plugin myself that would poll (or check the last updated time of) any battery z-wave device as I thought that would be more reliable . (If your bored, You can find my work in progress in the plugin development section, sadly my programming is very poor so it might take some time to get there)
[quote=“winkoppp, post:13, topic:173715”]I created a simple Windows program that contains a media player and a html server. You can place it on your media player computer and call the sounds from your vera from within a scene using Luup code.
The program was slapped together in a couple of hours. Use it as is, or not. If people get it working and like it, I will consider making improvements. For now it is just a fun project I am sharing.[/quote]
Sounds interesting, You might be surprised how interested people are, maybe you should consider creating a dedicated post in the forum for your work and see if you raise and interest.
Sounds like a perfect solution; if you have time , can you go into detail for me please before I hit the "buy"button. I have the following questions:
I want when some press the “button”, in my case it will be a trigger by a remote controll , for example the Fibaro Universal Door & Window Sensor. This trigger will activate the fibaro relais hardwired to this device, (if possible the 2x1.5kw relais). Depending which scene is active I would like to activate or a doorbell sound or the barking dogs.
You can setup more speakers ( and amplifiers)? , can you also set different volumes for the the different sounds?[/quote]
Yes that is the series of products I was referring to, I have the 210 RX-USB. I don’t have a computer running in my home all day (other than the vera) so I want to have something very simple. The setup you suggested would definitely work. Any event in the vera can trigger one of the two sounds from the bell. You can setup more speakers, just buy more doorbells. You can couple more units to one set of doorbell buttons and more doorbell buttons to one unit, so it is flexible. I don’t think that the volume can be set for each sound directly, but if you make the wave file louder or more silent on your PC before you upload than yes, you can set the volume.
I think this audio feedback is something many people are interested in! So I’m very interested in the other solutions as well.
My main problem with many audio feedback solutions is that it requires me to run an amplifier with speaker all day. Doesn’t that take a lot of power? I guess that is not a problem to everyone. How about playing sounds when you are using the sonos for music or television? Do you need to switch channel before an announcement can be made? The most elegant solution would be to slightly decrease the volume of the played music and mix in the announcement…
I’m using the Schlage RS100HC Door/Window sensor this way. It has two screw terminals for a dry contact switch, and sends the Z-Wave tripped notification Right Away.
@ Winnkop: although I will not use your programm it sounds very good, I seperate thread will be a good one I think. For me, the downside would be that since I use different speakersets on my mediacentre , also the volume would be different. When the audioset is off , it would only be for example the build in computerspeaker, which would not be loud enough…
@ APT: I would almost have bought this device, second best think I would say. A friend of mine didn’t know it existed and bought one immideately.
@ PArkerc: This afternoon I ordered the play3 with a bridge from sonos, I am curious what this device can do for me
@ S-F : that programm is insane! so cool, exactly what I wanted. My cellphone is now barking like a dog when a sensor is tripped
I think I will look for a tablet, install it in my house and run imperihome + veraalert + webcams on it.
) , this will trigger a scene or device from the vera3 in my house.