[Deprecated] Welcome Home

Thank you! I will have to go back and revisit Speaker Central. I have 7 sonos speakers and I am trying to have speech alerts on only some of them. Will Speaker Central resume what was playing before it spoke?

Honestly? I don't know? @cobra can answer that. I typically only use my Sonos speakers as TTS during overnight (emergency) announcements and my Alexa devices during the day. It's a holdover habit from my ST days when Sonos wouldn't resume properly with BigTalker.

I also only use my sonos for TTS
However; Speaker Central uses the 'playTextAndRestore' command for music players which should work with the sonos if it's implemented in the driver correctly

The in-built sonos driver does have this feature but I've never tested it.

The easiest way to test is to play some music on the sonos then enter some text on the device page under 'playTextAndRestore' and hit the button.
If it resumes after talking then it should work with Speaker Central

Andy

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Thank you for the clarification sir.

Is there a community driver? I never looked and I've always used the built-in driver.

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I have no idea :slight_smile:
I use the in-built one too

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So, as a test, I did as @Cobra suggested and used the playTextAndResume. It did play the text and then resumed, but it did so back to the beginning of my playlist. When I tested it again (with the same text), it played the TTS and then stopped. Then, as a third test, I changed the text completely and it reproduced the first results.

So, I'd venture to say that Sonos STILL has an issue when it comes to playTextAndRestore(). I don't think it's a driver issue so much as a Sonos issue. :-1:

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So, what you are saying is that it is probably better to use Alexa speakers for the announcements and that way it won't disrupt what is playing on Sonos? @bptworld one of the reasons that a Departure App based on your Welcome Home app would be beneficial is that if more than one person leaves (ie: Mom & Dad) but kids are still home, it would speak Mom and Dad have left the building, don't get into anything! :wink: Whereas, neither Presence Central or Message Central seem to have this ability.

How do we use Alexa devices in HE?

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I use Echo Speaks

Then I use this RM rule for departure announcements:
This sends a departure message to the selected Amazon Echo devices when ever someone leaves.

The full text of the 'Message to Send' is:

Goodbye %device%. %device% has left.;See you later %device%. %device% has left.;Bye %device%. %device% has left.;Live long and prosper %device%. %device% has left.;Farewell %device%. %device% has left.;Hope you have a great time %device%. %device% has left.;Take care %device%. %device% has left.;Smell you later %device%. %device% has left.;AhhDEEOhs %device%. %device% has left.;Chow %device%. %device% has left.;Oh revwahr %device%. %device% has left.;Sighenara %device%. %device% has left.;Ta Ta for now %device%. %device% has left.;Catch you later %device%. %device% has left.;To-da-loo %device%. %device% has left.;See you in the funny papers %device%. %device% has left.;Toodles %device%. %device% has left.;Godspeed %device%. %device% has left.;So long %device%. %device% has left.;Cheerio %device%. %device% has left.;AhrreevehDEHRtchee %device%. %device% has left.;See ya %device%. Wouldn't wanta be ya.

Make sure to turn on the 'Random message' toggle:

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For Alexa TTS, there's two "main" routes that I would suggest: @ogiewon's Alexa TTS app (which is what I use) and @tonesto7's Echo Speaks app. Echo speaks is much more full featured as it supports nearly everything Echos can do while the Alexa TTS app is strictly for TTS.

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Big Thanks to @Matthew and @corerootedxb! Very helpful! I had no idea RM did Random!

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The links seem to go to the ST code. Is there a HE ported code link?

For Echo Speaks, the code is built to run on both platforms. :slight_smile: @tonesto7 is awesome about that.

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Oh perfect! Maybe this should be added to the documentation.

@mike.maxwell I know quite a few updates ago there were supposed to be some additions to the Sonos driver for stuff like this (apparently it was implemented to the back end from the email I got?) but I don't think it ever got implemented fully. Is this still the case?

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we haven't been focused on Sonos of late.

Honestly, I don't think it's a HE issue as this has happened to me on nearly every home automation platform. That's why I think it's something in Sonos's firmware, but I have no way to confirm that, unfortunately.

Can you tell me how loud it will speak the messages on the echo devices? Is it just speaking it at the volume that the echos are set at at the time? How do I use the devicecommands?

@Matthew what happens if more than one person leaves at the same time with your Rule in RM?

If I remember correctly, there are some commands set the level and speak at a preset level and restore the prior level when done. There is a lot of documentation on the github for Echo Speaks and you can see the available commands in the drivers it create for each device. You may need to create RM Custom Commands to use these, that is what I did.

Multiple messages will be generated. It is not a smooth as the old webCore piston, but I don't let 'perfect' prevent 'good'. It also does not have the delay for motion or contact that the webCore piston and HE Welcome Home has. The RM implementation works well for me and does not require any large custom app just for the announcement, so that is what I choose to use.