Inexpensive voice notifications

I'll give that a try.

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Can anyone comment on using the DLNA feature for TTS? I currently don't have any TTS devices and am trying to figure out the simplest most reliable way to go. I see a lot of talk about the google home devices... can I use a chromcast audio as a TTS device you think?

Spotify was running a promo a couple months ago.. Free Google Home Mini if you sign up for Spotify Family. I have several Echo's and so I thought the GH Mini would end up being a christmas or birthday gift. But right at that moment, Hubitat released Chromecast and I broke the seal on the GH Mini and tried it. Worked exactly as I'd have wished. So I kept it and now, with Mic Off, it's my announcement device.

It's too late, but here's the thread on the "free" spotify promo:

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When I was looking for a way to do announcements / TTS, I thought about using my HiFi / DLNA but then realised I’d also need to send commands to power up the receiver etc.
There was a special on Google Home Mini which I grabbed and I’ve been happy using it ever since.

Has anyone used the Anker Zolo Mojo speaker (has Google Assistant and Chromecast) and seems pretty cheap at £26.99. I'm tempted to get one to play with.

... okay, I've ordered one, should be here on Monday :slight_smile:

The Zolo Mojo arrived. Works great for voice notifications.

Thanks for this follow up!!

Another low-cost option: the Eufy Genie speaker.

I've been using these for TTS for a couple of weeks. They are Alexa enabled, but you can use them as DLNA speakers without associating them with an Amazon account. (You do need the Eufy app to connect them to wi-fi, but can delete the app after that.)

The sound quality is adequate for TTS. At $15 to $17 apiece, they are the cheapest option I've come across for DLNA speakers.

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Hi SMR06, is there device drive in HE for Eufy Genie?

I don't think Hubitat has built-in drivers for DLNA speakers, only for Sonos.

I used the Hubitat port of the DLNA Player driver and Media Renderer app from SmartThings. You can find them at this GitHub repo. The Networked Speaker Driver thread has extensive discussions about them.

The Media Renderer is only used for initial discovery. I disabled the app after assigning fixed IPs for the speakers.

Many thanks for replying with details. Regards, Tito

smr06 let me see if I got it well:

  • Using a Eufy Genie speaker connected to my private network with a fixed IP (with my DHCP server I can deal with that) and the [MediaRenderer Player] you are confirming we can send TTS to the speaker or load a track (placed on a http server) WHILE WE ARE OFFLINE and that functions works well?

  • Please confirm as well if you can change that track easily, another collegue on this forum mentioned to me this device doesn't like to change the loaded file so easily.

It would be interesting that option for that price, but I have to be sure because to buy that device is not easy as it is for you (there is no online store here in my country :wink: ), I will need to use the help of some friend who travel here every some months....

Raspberry Pi (~$35 USD)

Powered speaker ($5 at local charity shop -- $1K for audiophile, or anything in between)

Squeezebox/squeezelite software to play local music/internet streaming ($0)

HE squeezbox integration to play voice messages ($0) [Release - Updated 03/06/2019] Squeezebox Integration (Logitech Media Server)

The one part I haven't begun to look at is how to have HE override music that's currently playing (the rule would probably be something like: pause music, pause .25sec, play text announcement, pause .25sec resume music), with optional alert tones before the text, depending on the severity of the message (ie., water leak vs. lights left on).

Oh yeah, almost forgot...the squeezbox clients synchronize very well over wifi, and there's no required cloud (big brother) interaction -- you can play your local music collection, or stream stuff from Google, etc. if desired.

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Hi, any result yet with "override music that's currently playing"?

You're asking if I've made progress in the 2 hrs since I posted? Um, nope.

How is the Raspberry Pi used?

The RPI is a wifi-enabled music player. The squeezebox allows you to synchronize players or play different tracks on each. Think Sonos for ~$200 for a whole house.

The Pi has mini (3.5mm) headphone or HDMI output, can add on higher quality digital-to-audio converters.

See Max2Play for an example of a nicely configured software distro, with optional hardware.

Thanks. It is interesting. I took a quick look but will take a more thorough look later.

Thank you for your kind response...
Here in my screen there is a text saying "It’s been a while since we’ve seen 5fe94872fdbd2dbd06a8 — their last post was Apr 6."

So I guess you posted in April.. but thanks anyway dude.

I last posted in any thread here in April.

My first, and most recent post in this thread was about 2hrs before you asked if I had made any progress. :slight_smile:

Maybe the forum software could be enhanced to make that distinction.