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

SmartApps & Automations Community Created SmartApps
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Hey Guys,

I made a tutorial hopefully some people will find helpful. It’s showing how VLC Thing and Big Talker are installed and set up to make your house talk. There’s also a bit of demo too. Oh, and make sure you subscribe :wink:

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Awesome! Thanks

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Note: This is not a general release announcement. This is a call for alpha/beta testers.

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Hi @Drew650,

That looks great.

Check out my project for VLC and CHIP or Pi.

https://community.smartthings.com/t/chip-pi-zero-w-vlc-thing-big-talker-sonos-killer/35899?u=lmosenko

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Can I play MP3 files, I have MP3 save on my tablet.

I want play BasementMotion.mp3 when motion sensor was active.

I am using Big Talker + LANnouncer.

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I have ask Alexa installed and configured. She responds to my status commands but for the life of me I cannot get this app to do anything for me. I’m dying to get it working! What can I provide to help troubleshoot?

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What specifically are you having trouble with?

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The Amazon Echo/Alexa doesn’t currently allow any interaction without a voice command initiating it. The BigTalker and AskAlexa integration allows you to send messages from BigTalker to the AskAlexa apps queue. When you then use AskAlexa (Alexa, tell SmartThings …) it will complete your command and then follow up telling you that you have x number of messages in your queue and you can then play them (Alexa, tell SmartThings to play my message queue). It’s not real-time with the Echo at this moment. The AskAlexa author @MichaelS hopes that Amazon will allow realtime feedback without having voice interaction first in the future. You might be able to send output realtime with a connected external speaker, I’m not sure, I’ve never tried it.

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BigTalker (when in musicPlayer mode) currently only sends desired text phrases to SmartThings to be converted to audio. The result is a URL to an mp3 of the phrase you wish to speak that is then sent to your musicPlayer device and played. There is not currently an option for playing a custom hosted or local mp3. It’s an option that I have thought about in the past but not implemented.

When BigTalker is in speechSynthesis mode, the text phrase is sent to your speechSynthesis device and it converts it locally to spoken audio. You might be able to accomplish what you are wanting if your device is an Android and if you install and configure LANNouncer.

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Joshua,

I am the author of Ask Alexa. If you are able to get this to give you a status from Ask Alexa (i.e. Alexa, Ask SmartThings about the front patio) you have the app set up correctly. Please PM me and we can work together to get the other things working. You seem to be very close…

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Hi Can I do this?

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Does anyone know if it’s possible to get different alerts for smoke and co2? Can BigTalker not differentiate between the two? Thanks!

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Sweet! I hope I can figure this out.

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Thanks so much for your hard work, @rayzurbock. I installed this last night as a combo with VLC Thing and it works great! The only three things I am left wondering about are:
(1) Can I set a delay for the text-to-speech so I give myself enough time to get from my car, open the garage, and get into the door?
(2) Can I pair multiple events (Presence Activated, Garage Door Open, AND Garage Door Open) or is it something that I should just do in WebCore?
(3) I couldn’t figure out where to tell it to play particular music files. I am using TTS so that might have something to do with it. Is there a way to specify either text to speak or a specific music file to play?

Again, appreciate all the work! There are so many possibilities with this.

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Hey Brian - just wanted to say Congrads on the shout out in this article.
I am heavily into BigTalker and love that you have created such a powerful app that makes my house “talk to me”. To go above and beyond your collaboration with @MichaelS to integrate BigTalker with AskAlexa is setting a new standard and bar as to the possibilities shown to users when developers work together.

Keep up the great work~ much appreciation.

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Great work @rayzurbock…glad we are all working together and that work is recognized by others!

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I have noticed that it will resume the correct track/song that was playing with Sonos speakers, but it restarts from the beginning, which is very annoying. Is there a way to have it pick up in the song where it left off?

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  1. Introduction of custom delays is not currently possible in BigTalker.
  2. Pairing of events would need to be done in another SmartApp. Core/WebCore can issue speak commands as well. If you want BigTalker to do that, you’ll need to setup a simulated switch that is switched on/off on a delay using another SmartApp and then configure BigTalker to watch the simulated switch and speak on it’s events (which would be delayed as desired by the other smartapp (webcore/core).
  3. To do item for musicPlayer mode…
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Awesome. Thanks for letting me know. I am glad that you are enjoying the SmartApp.

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Sorry, I do not have any control over that. All I can do is have BigTalker’s logic choose to call one of two functions in the Device Handler, playTextAndResume or playTextAndRestore. The former of which calls to resume playing audio. What the Device Handler / Device does with that is beyond BigTalker’s control.