So I used to have an Ubi that functioned as an internet-connected speaker which allowed me to push IFTTT notifications via voice (like sports scores when the game ended). My Ubi died this weekend and IFTTT has no alternatives. I just wondered if anyone had a way to get IFTTT notifications brought into the ST environment so I could take advantage of all the TTS options within ST. If not, I’ll just wait for the Alexa API to support notifications and hope it’s available to IFTTT. Thanks all.
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LANnouncer might do it. It works with any android device. 
There may also be a way to do it with Tasker, @joshua_lyon might know.
You can also check the quick browse list in the community – created wiki for voice and TTS smartapps, there may be something else there as well.
I had one of the first ones shipped. I used it for a similar thing - notifications. That was the only thing it was any good at. What a Piece of Junk. My wife did “something” with it and it’s gone. I still remember my daugther (3 years old at the time) shouting “Ubi - you a piece of junk” at it.
If I could only get my Alexa to do announcements she would be perfect.
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It’s not easy, but you can get echo to do announcements in one of two ways.
First, you can take advantage of the fact that the echo is also a Bluetooth speaker and use an android device like with LANnouncer mentioned above, and you can get your notifications to play on your Alexa devices.
( as you’ll see in the following thread, when this was first suggested I didn’t think it would be possible , but I turned out to be dead wrong – – the guys got it to work. )
Or, you can set up askAlexa. That one requires that you sign up for an Amazon developers account and again require some technical expertise to set up, but you can do a lot of magic stuff with that. 
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa
Personally, I am waiting for Amazon to add an official TTS feature, but if you’re willing to do some work you can have it now. 
You might want to follow this thread as well. If you’re interested in the TTS aspects of ST and Alexa, you’re going to love this app.
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Thank you for pointing out LANnouncer for me! I live in an Apple house, so I don’t think about android devices. I’ll definitely look into this!
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OK, so I have Ask Alexa installed and “working”. I’m fiddling with it now to get the talking to happen. I printed off that Wiki page with instructions. FIFTY SEVEN PAGES!
This might take a while. I’ll check back with you when I (hopefully) get it working.
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I was using the ST text-to-speech app to send commands to Samsung Shape speakers (M5s and M3s) via LAN/WiFi. I was only sending commands to individual/specific speakers (not pairs, nor “all” speakers, concurrently.) e.g. it I tried to send a “Welcome home” to two different speakers at the same time, they wouldn’t necessarily speak at the same time (due to network latency and such – they would be out-of-sync.) I bought one of the Samsung “hubs” for these speakers, but never went through the extra effort to configure them to the hub. MAYBE I could then send the “Welcome home” message to the hub, and it would ensure that the speakers indeed talk in tandem/concurrently?.. (TBD.)
But, I was happy enough with the single-speaker experience.
You can also have ST hub send it MP3 sound files and such, too.
It also supports a few “built-in” features like weather conditions.
Between the TTS and the MP3 options, you can get it to say or play almost anything. (e.g. just-in-time creation of MP3 files, then play those files.)
Sample: First motion in the living room every morning from a ST motion sensor --> downloads textual weather information for your city, and converts it to an MP3 file (with whichever computer voice your desire.) Once that files is created/written, trigger ST to indeed play that file to the M5 Shape speaker that’s in the living room.