@Luppercut
VLCThing works in musicPlayer mode. You can use %mp3(url)% with that. It does seem to have issues with resume though.
That’s awesome! I’ll have to find that. I just now installed BigTalker and I want to have some star trek door sounds and other fun stuff play.
I don’t quite follow the musicPlayer mode. Is that something different that I need to do during the installation? I don’t see that option within the app.
It is an option only exposed when you install BigTalker. You can see which mode you chose by launching BigTalker and going to the Status page
Ah hah. I chose musicPlayer, but when I put in one of the example URLs from above, my VLC player speaks the address.
I installed the latest version of BigTalker2 this week and I really like it! THANKS!
Two questions:
1.Is there a way to have it play local pc stored mp3 files or must they be cloud hosted? If they must be cloud hosted are there services out there were I can post my mp3 files so I can use them with BigTalker2?
2.I would like to leverage both LANnouncer for text to speech to my Android devices and VLC Thing for MP3 audio playing via my Bluetooth speakers. I read above and in the documentation that I had to choose one or the other at time of install. In an attempt to get around this I’ve installed two instances of BigTalker2 (parent and child). I edited the first few lines of code where the parent and child app names are referenced so that one pair is called BigTalker2_Lncr and the other pair is BigTalker2_VLC. So far it seems to be working… fingers still crossed… Am I asking for trouble doing it this way? Or, might this work to allow for concurrent use of both LANnouncer and VLC Thing with BigTalker2?
They need to be hosted. They can be hosted with any provider / service that will let you play them in your browser by going to http://www.examplesite.com/yourfolder/yourfile.mp3 without a login requirement.
That’s fine. Just make sure that in the parent you change:
definition(
name: "BigTalker2",
....
def pageStart(){
state.childAppName = "BigTalker2-Child"
state.parentAppName = "BigTalker2"
and in the child you change:
definition(
name: "BigTalker2-Child",
I would also suggest that in the bottom you change the following to reflect that you are using a customized version based off of whichever version is modified (Px.x.x = parent; Cx.x.x = child). This is just cosmetics though:
def setAppVersion(){
state.appversion = "C2.0.6"
}
For example:
def setAppVersion(){
state.appversion = "C2.0.6-TomG1"
}
I hope to eventually enhance to support both modes at the same time.
1 Like
Does anyone know of a way to have BigTalker resend a voice notification if a contact remains open for a set period of time ie: The garage door is still open…
I don’t know about BigTalker but worse case you can use WebCore to do that
Tried with WebCoRE today… wasn’t necessarily simple… but it did work… I’ll be playing much more with WebCoRE now that I’ve started 
This is in the works for BigTalker.
Ideally it will announce when the door is open/closed, then repeat if the door remains open/closed for x minutes and then every x minutes after that.
4 Likes
I’m having trouble figuring out how to install BigTalker in both modes. Do I need to to installs from the Smartthings IDE of 2 installs from the Marketplace. When I try to do the 2nd install from the Marketplace, it automatically brings me to my current install. Thanks!
It’s possible, but not without code modification. It specifically is coded to be a single instance install to prevent confusion. Eventually plan to make the app support both modes.
The easiest (but most confusing with logging and troubleshooting) is to just change the code of the parent app from singleInstance: true, to singleInstance: false
The best method is to manually install the parent and child code again as a new SmartApp (keeping the original as well), but change the following (I’m using MP for musicPlayer mode, you could use SS for speechSynthesis):
in the parent app, change:
name: "BigTalker2", to name: "BigTalker2-MP",
...
def pageStart(){
state.childAppName = "BigTalker2-MP-Child"
state.parentAppName = "BigTalker2-MP"
Save and publish
in the child app, change:
name: "BigTalker2-Child", to name: "BigTalker2-MP-Child",
parent: "rayzurbock:BigTalker2", to parent: "rayzurbock:BigTalker2-MP",
Save
Go to the Marketplace in the ST App and install BigTalker2-MP
You’ll need to make these changes any time you update the BigTalker2 code.
I started doing that and had second thoughts about it and canceled out. I’ll give it a try with your instructions. Looks pretty simple actually. Thanks for the help!
I have had BigTalker installed and up and running for awhile now but just started running into problems today. When ever an announcement goes to play I get an error telling me that it could not play. I turned on debugging and receive the following messages.
709d9ea6-6c96-4583-9bea-90c56a0fb615 10:23:04 PM: trace BIGTALKER-DEV-PARENT(P2.0.6) || [PARENT] TALK(Test.switch)|mP| Resume is not desired
709d9ea6-6c96-4583-9bea-90c56a0fb615 10:23:04 PM: error BIGTALKER-DEV-PARENT(P2.0.6) || [PARENT] ERROR: TALK(Test.switch)|mP| ST Platform issue (textToSpeech)? I tried textToSpeech() twice, SmartThings wouldn't convert/process. I give up, Sorry..
709d9ea6-6c96-4583-9bea-90c56a0fb615 10:23:04 PM: trace BIGTALKER-DEV-PARENT(P2.0.6) || [PARENT] TALK(Test.switch)|mP| Trying textToSpeech function again...
709d9ea6-6c96-4583-9bea-90c56a0fb615 10:23:04 PM: debug BIGTALKER-DEV-PARENT(P2.0.6) || [PARENT] TALK(app=Test,customdevice=null,volume=20,resume=false,personality=true,myDelay=0,voice=Brian,evt=physicalgraph.app.EventWrapper@5186f410,phrase=Today Is %date%)
709d9ea6-6c96-4583-9bea-90c56a0fb615 10:23:04 PM: error BIGTALKER-DEV-PARENT(P2.0.6) || [PARENT] ERROR: TALK(Test.switch)|mP| ST Platform issue (textToSpeech)?
Not sure where to start trying to trouble shoot this
Please see this answer
I am using Big Talker 2, and VLC Thing on a raspberry Pi 3 using Stretch OS. If I use VLC with my Windows 7 PC (VLC Version 3.0.2 Vetinari) everything works, but when I try using my Raspberry Pi (VLC Version 2.2.6 Umbrella) I get an error in ST logs.
b36397a7-57c9-4ce1-8c22-916f697f6276 12:23:40 AM: warn No connection!
b36397a7-57c9-4ce1-8c22-916f697f6276 12:22:41 AM: error Server error: Not
Anyone have any Ideas?
i have been using the same setup, but with Jessie OS and found it really stable. I have seen the first error, but only when my PI is not running. Can you test VLC thing on its own to prove this piece is working with Stretch OS?
Siwilson, Thanks for the reply! … I will put Jessie OS on my pi and try VLC. What do you mean by “Can you test VLC thing on its own to prove this piece is working with Stretch OS?” Fresh stretch install with only VLC?