Hi All,
I am at the point in my installation where I have seen that a simple ZWave voice alert capability is what I need - It should allow me to record my own voice messages, place them into a menu, which can then be interfaced with my VeraLite, so that when a given even is triggered, I would be able to hear, over speakers (perhaps bluetooth), what the event is.
I have spent the past week searching for this capability on the net and the selection is almost non-existent; but I finally found one device that appears to be ideal - it is made in India (so it might not be compatible with U.S. ZWave frequencies), but it really “fits-the-bill”. It is called a Voice Plug - and it’s made by IPlay - here is the YouTube Link
With the concern that this specific device may not be compatible with U.S. frequencies and the lack of any ability to purchase this (no prices or vendor information) I am looking for alternatives. I am even willing to build my own with Arduino and a Zwave Interface. Do any of you know if there is there anything with similar capability or has anyone setup this type of interface and if so how did you do it? -
What I do is I use Vera Alerts, it sends tts messages to my tablets which I have on my walls. I use these also to display security cameras, control my Vera by voice and touch. Maybe not exactly what you are looking for, but as tablets are fairly cheap (Android at least) it might be worth looking into. At least they can also do a lot more than just act as speakers. Volume could obviously be an issue, but for one tablet which I wanted to have a little louder I connected a amplified speaker (and external microphone) to the earphone output. Again, this was quite inexpensive.
You can also use a sonos system, but unless you have one already, that is quite a bit more expensive. Apart from that I am not aware of any solution which provides just what you wanted. Not sure about the Arduino route, I am just starting to learn about them.
I would do as @mikee123 suggests, but pair the tablet over with a small bluetooth speaker that you can locate where you need/want (within the limits of bluetooth) to hear the audio notification.
I did this but went the Sonos route, as I already had a Sonos Connect in my home theater setup and adding a Play 1 for an “always on” notification source, in addition to the added benefit of zoned audio, was a no-brainer.
I’ve also previously used Imperihome on an Android tablet. It has a ton of great features, one of which is a Vera plug-in that allows the tablet to be a TTS destination. It worked very well and it can even do some pretty advanced stuff like when a motion sensor trips, announce the TTS message and also launch and switch to an IP camera application (for example) that might show the area monitored by the tripped sensor.
As an alternative to the mike123’ simple solution , i plan to test a similar solution for my android wall tablet with the imperihome plugin which provide TTS to Vera+Imperihome
https://imperihome.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201397057-How-to-install-the-MIOS-Vera-Plugin-
Great Replies - I have just switched to ImperiHome since with UI7, Home Buddy, which I was using with UI5, no longer worked. I like the App very much - and that was before your posts - I did not realize that it had this capability. I will pursue this and see where it leads in the next few weeks - I’ll get back and let you know how it goes.
Thanks!
Maybe not exactly what you are looking for but, There was someone who created an app to run on Windows that vera could send text to speech
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=13068.0
Again - thank you - this also shows a lot of promise - now to put some dedicated time into working out each of these areas to see which is the most responsive and programmable.
