how do you keep people from tuning out TTS announcements?

[zimmer62]

This is interesting..

We have problems with the cat liter as well..

Could you program something .. recurring that did:

Thursday night... 6:00 p.m.. Announce.. "I think it's time to change the litter."

If the Big Red Button hasn't been pushed yet..
Friday night... 6 and 7:PM announce " You really should change the liter."

If the big red button still hasnt' been pushed..
Friday night .. 10:00 p.m. ... "You really don't want me to wake you up at 8:00 in the morning for the cat litter do you?"

Saturday morning 8:00 A.M... "The cat is plotting your demise as we speak..."
Saturday and 10:00 a.m. and every 2 hours until button is pressed..
"I'm probably annoying you .. but you know it isn't much fun for me either.. change the litter."

I could have a virtual that is set "on" every thursday at 6:00 p.m... and is reset when the big red button is pressed..

But would i have a seperate event for each of the above reminders?.. or could it be scripted with some kind of ini file.. (to make it more flexible and universal.. (trash every hour on thursday night.... Check spa chemicals every saturday through sunday.. etc..)

What would be the best way to go about this?

That's pretty much exactly what I was doing, I'm not sure if I still have the script, but it was pretty complicated as it wasn't just doing the cat litter it was doing all of my reminders, and it had settings for how long between each big red button press, and if something could be snoozed, and how long it could be snoozed for etc. It was a few years back that I was doing that stuff, it also integrated with my audreys, displaying the message on the screen, with a button the screen to snooze it.

I'll have to dig, if not maybe it's time to rewrite it with little bit more customization for other people and other options. I like the idea of creating one event that reoccurs every hour or when motions is sensed or something like that, and then it checks to see if virtual devices are on... if any device is on it'll bug you, and if they are off it wont.

[sdanks]

Well the problem is (for all of us) we set these things up, and then nothing happens to the kids or to us if we choose to ignore the announcements. I try to do the announcements as reminders, not as commands. That helps me to remember, not make me irritated. I wanted to put some big red buttons throughout the house that would be an acknowledge button, but my wife said, no big red buttons. Not after we just remodeled the place. I wonder if I can sell her on doorbell push buttons? Humm. they would look good and glow at night....might think that one over. . .

[Rupp]

The ROC Randomizer plugin will help tremendously with this issue. It keeps the phrases from becoming mundane.

[tmcgowan]

The ROC Randomizer plugin will help tremendously with this issue. It keeps the phrases from becoming mundane.

I agree with you Rupp. The funny thing is that when a randomized announcement occurs that someone is approaching the front door (motion sensor), our Bishion (dog) goes to the front door and starts barking. She's evidently memorized each of the five sentences that describe the situation. I've even avoided using the same words just to see if it's one word she's keying off of. Sometimes she really amazes us as to how smart she is, or thinks she is!

However, back on the original topic, probably having too many announcements may have something to do with it. Here are the recurring events as well as event driven ones:

Recurring:
- Morning Greeting - "Today is Tuesday, August 25th have a nice day"
- Current weather (every two hours on the hour from 9am until 7 pm)
- Morning Words of wisdon - the random sayings that come with randomizer plugin
- Monday evening take out the trash announcement, unless the RFID tags are out of range, meaning that I already did it.
- Today's sunset and tomorrow's sunrise time announcment

Event Driven:
- Vehical enters or exists the driveway - Metalic road sensor
- Mailbox opened/closed
- Garage door opening/closing
- Garage door closed - announce last caller and vmx information
- Someone approaching the front door
- Someone pushing the doorbell
- Whos vehical just arrived home - RFID based
- Water alerts in the basement (so, far, this one hasn't been triggered by the real thing)
- Someone passing through the back yard (infra red fence sensor) to catch deer munching on our flowers and messing up our trees.
- Open garage door warnings at 10pm if one of them is left open.
- Unlocked kitchen door (Schlage lock) - the only problem here is that HS always sees the door as unlocked, unless you change the status manually on the web page.


So, I guess I've probably over done the voice thing a bit!