[OBSOLETE 1.1.12 3/13/2017] Big Talker - Talk when events occur

@sneeomd @Jimxenus is correct. When using a musicPlayer device, the desired phrase is converted to an mp3 by Smartthings and sent to your device. There is no way to inject a chime using their API calls for this.
When using a device in speechSynthesis mode, the phrase is sent to the device which then processes the text and translates it to speech. This provides the device the opportunity to do things with the phrase. LANNouncer is one of those. You can send it special commands in the phrase and have it do things such as play a chime.

I believe you have chosen a mode during BigTalker install (speechSynthesis or musicPlayer) that you do not currently have a device installed for. Try removing the SmartApp, reinstalling and choosing the opposite mode than the one you have currently selected.

Big Talker is great! Just set it up with LANnouncer on my two Fire tablets and it is working awesome, thanks!

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After over a year in development, I am finally about to graduate BigTalker 2.0 from development to release.

If you would like to test it before that, head on over to the BigTalker 2.0 development discussion thread.

I would also welcome anyone that would like to help document BigTalker 2.0 installation, usage instructions, usage scenario’s,etc to post on the ThingsThatAreSmart Wiki. I am not good with Wiki’s at all! Currently, the information is just sprinkled throughout the 2.0 development thread.

With BigTalker 2.0, it is now a Parent/Child app structure to allow for more scheduling ability, grouping scenario’s (rooms) and much more, so you must install both the parent and the child. When saving the code, you publish the parent and save the child (don’t publish the child to prevent confusion when looking at available apps in the SmartThings Marketplace > My Apps).

2.0 will be a replacement (not an upgrade) for the BigTalker 1.x release branch.

Raw Code:
Parent App (P2.0b4) (link)

Child App (C2.0b5) (link)

GitHub Integration Settings:

  • Owner: rayzurbock
  • Name: SmartThings-BigTalker
  • Branch: development
    I highly recommend using Update from Repo twice. Once with just the parent app checked as well as publish. The second time with just the child app checked and publish NOT checked.
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Very new to SmartThings and to this app thing. Trying to get my Amazon Echo to alert me when motion is detected or a door is open which I can’t believe is not an option. Support told me to buy the ADT Keypad to get this to do this but it is expensive and I certainly do not want to incur a monthly fee to monitor it which is why I went with SmartThings. They also told me that I could not do this with the Echo. I am not a code writer so I really don’t understand all of this, bottom line, I want to try your app and have looked at all of your instructions, just want to make sure this works with the Echo as I have not seen many comments on this but more so with the Sonos.

The Amazon Echo itself won’t actually work (at least not yet) to get notifications. What you’ll need is either a speaker that has capabilities to work as a “music player” in SmartThings. My understanding is that this speaker has both Alexa and DNLA capabilities:

https://smile.amazon.com/FABRIQ-Portable-Bluetooth-Speaker-Amazon/dp/B01LYZAWRO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1512072149&sr=1-1&keywords=fabrique+speaker

I’m not too familiar with these but you can check out this thread:

If you have an Android device (OS 5.1 or better), you can use a Device Handler (LANnouncer) along with BigTalker for speech synthesis along with special chimes and alarms. I personally use this setup and I like it very much.

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Thanks, now I am starting to get what they are talking about with Amazon Alexa, as mentioned before I am so new to this stuff and am trying to find ways to maximize the things that I can do in SmartThings with the main one being able to get audible alerts while I am in the house since I do not keep my phone attached to me 24/7 while I am inside. Next on my wish list is to get audible alerts on my iPhone in addition to the text messages as sometimes I do not hear the beep that I have received a message.

I have lannouncer up and running on my android tablet and integrated into my account and when I press the alarm button my device sounds the alarm, but my issue is while trying to integrate lannouncer in big talker it is not showing up as a text to speech device. does anyone know where I may be going wrong or what i need to do to get it to show up as a text to speech device?

@hires06

See this post (link)

Smartapp Keypad_ExitDelay_Talker released

For anyone using a Centralite / Xfinity / Iris Keypad with Big Talker, that wants an announcement when the keypad is set into ExitDelay mode, I released a Smartapp, Keypad_ExitDelay_Talker that performs this function.

Other keypad related announcements are easily handled by Big Talker.

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Hello. I am new to this world but have a little bit of Google Foo in me, enough to get me in-trouble anyway. I currently have 3 contacts switches on doors and 2 kindle fires setup with LANnouncer configured and working. The kindles are connected to different Echo’s in the house via bluetooth and have no other use then for this integration (kids old units). I know LANdroid is working properly because in the device on ST I can play back the default sounds and hear them through the appropriate Echo’s. I believe BigTalker is setup properly because I see the appropriate commands come to LANnouncer app on the kindles but I have no audio. Any suggestions?

I did configure BigTalker with “speechSynthesis” mode and the defualt speech devices appeared correctly.

Guess I’m missing it in all these posts, but what is the talk now feature? It looks like you can create custom messages as you can elsewhere in smartapp, but how do you trigger them?

Talknow is designed for instant speech of phrases. It triggers when you change the Talk now phrase or change which speech device (s) to use. Its there for troubleshooting and fun.

So as soon as I hit done or save it should say something? Nice feature for testing actually!

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It is by far the best way to try out the different voices and pick which one is best for you.

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One thing I’ve noticed with my situation using a Fabriq speaker, and maybe it’s like this with all TTS speaker setups, is that if there’s more than one message to be played they won’t get queued. So like if the mode changes and SHM status changes and have alerts for both I’ll actually only end up hearing one. I haven’t figured a way to get around this yet with Big Talker, but am sure it’s possible with webCoRE. Am I missing something with big talker?

Can someone share a step by step to integrate Big Talker with Ask Alexa? I don’t see it in any app menu. Maybe its just me. I am running Big Talk v1.1.12 & Ask Alexa 2.3.6a

Alexa cannot speak unprovoked so messages are queued and played when you tell Ask Alexa to play your message queue “Alexa, Tell SmartThings to play messages”.

To add messages to your Ask Alexa queue, simply add %askalexa% in the phrase that you wish to queue/speak. If you have a speech device selected, the phrase will speak at those devices as well as go to the Ask Alexa message queue. If you do not select a speech device for that event (switch ON for example) but include %askalexa% in the event phrase, that message would be sent only to the Ask Alexa message queue.

Update 2/6/2018

  • BigTalker 1.1.12 code has moved to https://github.com/rayzurbock/BigTalker
  • GitHub Integration Settings have changed to:
    • Owner: rayzurbock Name: BigTalker Branch: master
      image
  • You are free to continue using this version, however it is no longer being maintained. BigTalker 2.0.0 is the latest release. Settings will not transfer from 1.1.12 to 2.0.0 as the app structure changes from single app to parent/child app allowing for expanded capabilities. You may want to screenshot your configuration before moving to 2.x.
  • For the latest information, please see the documentation posted at: thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=BigTalker

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Sorry if I missed it in the thread. Does this work with google home?

Thanks
Bill P