Text to Speech

[MarkJames]

Just curious if anyone is using voice prompting at all with their ISY.

 

I come from JDS Stargate so I've become dependent on voice outputs and phone commands. I really miss those. Being informed through a speaker that 'the garage door is open' is far superior, imho, to having a light flash or some other indicator.

 

To accomplish this with ISY I've been using it parallel to PowerHome 2. The PowerHome software supports TTS (text to speech). I have an old PC that I've installed Powerhome on with a second PLM to integrate it into my home system. I haven't added any of my insteon devices to the second PLM - it's just there as an interface between the insteon powerline messaging and the PC.

 

When something turns on - like the garage door I have a program like this

If

Status 'Garage Door Sensor' is not Off

 

Then

Send X10 'E3/On (3)'

Set Scene 'Garage Door Open Alert LED' On

 

Else

Set Scene 'Garage Door Open Alert LED' Off

 

The Powerhome software sees the E3 On via the PLM and that triggers a TTS event that speaks the words 'Garage Door Open' through an amplifier connected to speakers in the house. It checks the time of day first, of course, so it doesn't go yelling stuff in the middle of the night.

 

This works - sort of. Powerhome is a bit prone to crashing so I have to restart it every couple of days. It would be great to have an interface of some sort that would allow TTS based on Insteon messages/status. Is anyone aware of such a creature?

 

mark

[upstatemike]

I am using Homeseer which gives me both TTS and voice control. If I want to speak a phrase whenever an Insteon button or switch is pressed it will do that. I can also tell it "Media room lights 50 percent" and it will do that too.

[MarkJames]

Are you using the pc based version or the controller based? If it's the pc based do you find it stable?

 

mark

[upstatemike]

Not sure I understand the question... Homeseer is software so it is always PC based. I use the Hometroller which is a fanless PC preconfigured to run the Homeseer software. I am running HSPro with the ISY plugin. I also use HSPhone which lets me use any of my 21 speakerphones to control my lights via voice command. I use a PA amp to distribute TTS announcenements to various places.

 

Not as stable as my Stargate (which is also connected to Homeseer) but Stargate really only does Thermostats and and caller ID snd hardwired monitoring of some remote lights in the attic and basement, and logging furnace run times. Key point about Stargate is response time since it polls the status of every input at least 3 times per second. Allows things like real-time voice confirmation of any change in thermostat settings whether manual or system based (not possible with Insteon based thermostats) etc.

 

I eventually might be able to phase out the Stargate by moving the serial themostats and hardwired monitoring to my Elk M1 and letting Homeseer do caller ID and furnace run-time logging. It is just so much easier to do these things with Stargate that I have been slow to migrate.

[MarkJames]

Not sure I understand the question... Homeseer is software so it is always PC based.

My bad - I assumed the hometroller was some kind of flash-based device that ran only homeseer.

 

I also use HSPhone which lets me use any of my 21 speakerphones to control my lights via voice command.

Does that work well? I've considered it but rejected the idea thinking that noise and such would make it clunky

 

I use a PA amp to distribute TTS announcenements to various places.

Are you using stargate relay outs to direct your PA announcements or are you targetting them some other way/not at all?

 

Not as stable as my Stargate

Stargate is truly a stable workhorse. It's hard to make it crash without dumping tons of data into the serial ports.

 

(which is also connected to Homeseer)

Is this just to integrate everything? Schedules still have to be written in winevm, I would think.

 

I've wanted to use communicating thermostats but my home is a mix of hotwater baseboard heat, electric radiant, and electric baseboard. The electric baseboard requires 220V thermostats. There was once a co mmunicating stat made by ouelette - x10 based - but it's no longer available and you couldn't query it. If I can't do all of it it seems pointless to do part of it.

 

You must have built your home around your HA. Sounds like you've got serial communication wire running all over - that's hard to retrofit, though possible if you're determined enough.

[upstatemike]

it works well because i am going through the phone system instead of open air microphones.

 

yes I'm using stargate relays to direct the announcements but may change that to Elk relays or some other strategy.

 

The stargate integration let's me read or populate Stargate variables from Homeseer. Example: the WinEVM event that announces the thermostat settings and furnace runtimes for the day also speaks the outside temp and humidity. These values come from my weather station and are populated into Stargate variables by Homeseer.

 

House pre-dates electricity so it was not built around the wiring. Some things just require the reliability of hardwiring ie thermostats, network music players, smoke sensors, etc.