Speaker Companion ???

[Guest]

I hope someone can help me understand what this is, and what it does.

When I installed HS4 Pro - I noticed that it placed an Icon on my desktop "HS3 Speaker" and another called "Homeseer Speaker"

The launch, and looks like some kind of audio display is presented - takes about 20 seconds and the CONNECTED light turns Green. The LISTENING light never does.

What is this thing for? I have enabled VOICE CONTROL in my app on devices I want to control with ALEXA - and that is working. Not sure what this one does.


On a side note - I have a SAMSUNG Wireless Speaker in nearly every room of my house, and I can use the app on my phone to send Audio to that speaker from my TV or other sources. Any way to get these into HOMESEER, and use them?

Curtis

[jmaddox]

The speaker client will play voice announcements from homeseer on the machine that has the speaker client running assuming it has speakers attached. You can run the client on multiple devices, ie HS touch installations. The HS speaker client has nothing to do with alexa. When homeseer starts there is actually a 'welcome to homeseer' that will play on that machine if it has speakers to do so. Announcements through the speaker client are either made using scripts or with events. As for the listening light; Homeseer can also respond to voice commands but you need to have a microphone to do so and set up the speaker client to use it.

I'm not familiar with the Samsung wireless speakers, if there is a way to provide a physical source as input then yes. It's as simple as plugging a cable into the HS machine's speaker jack and then into the samsung speaker source input.

[Guest]

The speaker client will play voice announcements from homeseer on the machine that has the speaker client running assuming it has speakers attached. You can run the client on multiple devices, ie HS touch installations. The HS speaker client has nothing to do with alexa. When homeseer starts there is actually a 'welcome to homeseer' that will play on that machine if it has speakers to do so. Announcements through the speaker client are either made using scripts or with events. As for the listening light; Homeseer can also respond to voice commands but you need to have a microphone to do so and set up the speaker client to use it.

I'm not familiar with the Samsung wireless speakers, if there is a way to provide a physical source as input then yes. It's as simple as plugging a cable into the HS machine's speaker jack and then into the samsung speaker source input.

jmaddox,

Thanks for the reply. I am still confused. Why would I have 2 icons on my desktop?

I have never heard HS4 make any noise when starting it up. I have configured the laptop - which does have a MIC and SPEAKERS enabled, to auto-launch HS4 when it is booted - and that is working like a charm. But even if I am sitting right next to the laptop - I get the Windows Startup sound, then nothing. I see the HS4 application launcher window where I can see STARTUP LOG or launch the WEBPAGE (which is coming up automatically) - still no other sounds.

Really confused by your HSTouch installation mention - as I am currently working on making screens - which I hope to mount a tablet to the wall and have those screens display said screens and be able to control HS4 from them. The tablets of course have speakers, mic and camera.

The SAMSUNG Wireless speakers do have an AUX input where you can plug in an audio cable (like connecting them to a stereo amp or other source - but not something I am planning to do. When I was on SMARTTHINGS - and had them properly imported there - you could create a routine to say WELCOME HOME CURTIS when a specific door was opened. I stopped using this feature a year or more ago - as while it was cute for a while - it became annoying. :-)

What I would like to be able to do is say "Alexa, Play {some album name} to Living Room" and it start playing music on them. Even with SMARTTHINGS - I was never able to get this to work.

Sorry for being so dense -- 😃

Curtis

[macromark]

Our speaker client was developed many years ago before smart speakers from Amazon or Google were invented. It's designed to work with the voice recognition technology (with a connected external mic) that was built into our software and it can be used to play audio or text to speech through any speakers attached directly to the HomeSeer system PC or hub. It has NOTHING to do with Alexa or Google smart speaker integration, not does it have anything to do with HSTouch. Those integration work independently. At this point, most folks use smart speakers for voice commands and some folks use HSTouch clients (like Fire tablets) for TTS announcements.

[Guest]

Our speaker client was developed many years ago before smart speakers from Amazon or Google were invented. It's designed to work with the voice recognition technology (with a connected external mic) that was built into our software and it can be used to play audio or text to speech through any speakers attached directly to the HomeSeer system PC or hub. It has NOTHING to do with Alexa or Google smart speaker integration, not does it have anything to do with HSTouch. Those integration work independently. At this point, most folks use smart speakers for voice commands and some folks use HSTouch clients (like Fire tablets) for TTS announcements.

Mark,

So what I am reading in your message. I do not need it???

Just curious as to why it installed with HS4, or I was not given an option to NOT INSTALL it.

Should I just uninstall it - if I am wanting to use the ALEXA devices I have in 4 of my rooms?

Do you know, or it is possible to (once I get the up and running) the MIC and/or CAMERA on the tablets along with HSTouch?


Many Thanks,
Curtis

[macromark]

Mark,

So what I am reading in your message. I do not need it???

Just curious as to why it installed with HS4, or I was not given an option to NOT INSTALL it.

Should I just uninstall it - if I am wanting to use the ALEXA devices I have in 4 of my rooms?

Do you know, or it is possible to (once I get the up and running) the MIC and/or CAMERA on the tablets along with HSTouch?


Many Thanks,
Curtis

Go into HS4 setup and (on the General page) un-check the option to "Launch speaker client on startup". That will fix that.

No, you do not need the speaker client for Alexa.

If you want to use the built-in voice recognition of HS4... and you're on an Android tablet, you can use the microphone of the tablet (or phone) in an HSTouch project to do voice commands.

Bear in mind that Amazon and Google have spent millions perfecting voice technologies so... your results with our much older voice tech is not going to measure up.