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Any way to announce to HS speaker from Alexa?

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    Any way to announce to HS speaker from Alexa?

    I use to use an iOS app called Roger to capture my voice and then I used IFTTT to take that voice file and play it on my whole house pager (via a HS speaker) - it was a great way to make whole house announcements (for example, get the kids to come down for dinner, etc.). Roger went away so I really miss this functionality.

    I have Alexa devices and would love to be able to ask Alexa to announce what I say - for example, something like "Alexa, tell Homeseer to announce time for dinner" and that would announce time for dinner on a HS speaker client.

    That speaker client would be plugged into my page port on my Russound, and thus that would announce to the house.

    Anyone doing this? Is it possible?

    #2
    Put a speaker client on a tablet or PC and bluetooth to Echo. Works for me.

    Comment


      #3
      You can also use my Homeseer/Echo Skill helper for this: https://forums.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=184504

      You basically need a trigger word to use (say 'announce') and you can feed back what is said to any speaker client.

      For example you could say "Alexa, tell Homeseer to announce time for dinner"

      With the settings shown below (this shows a setup page for the package), the response to the speaker client would be 'time for dinner'

      There is a replace tag to remove the 'announce' in the sentence.
      Attached Files
      Jon

      Comment


        #4
        Jon - AWESOME! I wanted to use a speaker client that connects to my Russound page input to make a whole house announcement - this looks like it will do the trick!

        Thanks!

        Comment


          #5
          Why not use the built in "Drop in" functionality of the Alexa devices? It's like a two way intercom.
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            #6
            Originally posted by Rupp View Post
            Why not use the built in "Drop in" functionality of the Alexa devices? It's like a two way intercom.
            I thought that was just to one device and somebody has to respond? It is not whole house announcement?
            Jon

            Comment


              #7
              Hi Rupp,

              Is there a thread or docs on how that works? Not familiar with that feature...

              Comment


                #8
                Just to be clear - I would like to ask Alexa to announce <blah> -- that <blah> would be spoken through a speaker client. In my case, I have a speaker client as an input to a pager input to a Russound whole house receiver - thus, whatever is spoken to that client would speak to every room in the house because the Russound page input is a pager to all zones...

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by jon00 View Post
                  I thought that was just to one device and somebody has to respond? It is not whole house announcement?
                  It's only device-to-device not whole house announcement.
                  HS4Pro on a Raspberry Pi4
                  54 Z-Wave Nodes / 21 Zigbee Devices / 108 Events / 767 Devices
                  Plugins: Z-Wave / Zigbee Plus / EasyTrigger / AK Weather / OMNI

                  HSTouch Clients: 1 Android

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by rileydogmi View Post
                    Just to be clear - I would like to ask Alexa to announce <blah> -- that <blah> would be spoken through a speaker client. In my case, I have a speaker client as an input to a pager input to a Russound whole house receiver - thus, whatever is spoken to that client would speak to every room in the house because the Russound page input is a pager to all zones...
                    Yes, it's not whole house but more like room to room but it works great as an intercom. If I'm in the TV room and can drop into the kitchen and have a conversation with my wife rather than just an announcement. I do the same with my daughter. I drop into Megs room and tell her supper is ready. Etc. My Echos are loud enough that they can be heard from between rooms. Just throwing out an easy built in option.
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                      #11
                      Originally posted by jon00 View Post
                      I thought that was just to one device and somebody has to respond? It is not whole house announcement?
                      Yes, it's device to device and no one has to respond unless they want to. Drop in is more of an intercom with two way communication rather than the one way TTS announcement.
                      💁‍♂️ Support & Customer Service 🙋‍♂️ Sales Questions 🛒 Shop HomeSeer Products

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by jon00 View Post
                        You can also use my Homeseer/Echo Skill helper for this: https://forums.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=184504

                        You basically need a trigger word to use (say 'announce') and you can feed back what is said to any speaker client.

                        For example you could say "Alexa, tell Homeseer to announce time for dinner"

                        With the settings shown below (this shows a setup page for the package), the response to the speaker client would be 'time for dinner'

                        There is a replace tag to remove the 'announce' in the sentence.
                        Just had a play with this and it works great. I got perfect accuracy by changing the trigger word to 'say' i.e. 'Ask Homeseer to say kids its time for dinner'

                        Alexa responds with 'Kids its time for dinner'
                        Attached Files
                        Jon

                        Comment


                          #13
                          This is so cool - I am going to work on this next. Thanks again,

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Hi Jon,

                            Been trying this using your helper, and Alexa keeps saying "that device was not found"

                            The Hs log entry says "Heard: say time for bed" - so, Alexa is communication OK.

                            What seems strange is my trigger setup page is different from your screen shot - I don't have an entry for "Skill" - see attached screen shot.

                            Thanks!
                            Attached Files

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Don't worry about the extra field, that is used with the experimental options as defined at the end of the documentation. In the HS log, do any of the entries show against "Jon00_Alexa" when you ask/tell Homeseer.........
                              Jon

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