[OBSOLETE 1.1.6 5/25/16] Big Talker - Talk when events occur

This doesn’t help those with Sonos but another alternative TTS is one that does all the TTS processing on an Android device running 5.0. It does a great job paired with Big Talker.

Hi @ule

Here’s the answer to your questions:

1 - Yes
2 - Samsung M5 (x2)
3 - Checked this and command is sent to the speaker and volume update in shown in IDE logs
4 - No zip code as I’m in the UK.

Hi @deano12 , I have update the Sonos Weather Forecast External TTS , verify it and feedback.

Hi @ule… Just to update - I’ve applied all the updates now and no weather reports are being stated.

The only thing I’ve managed to get announce over the entire systems using a range of SmartApps is the caches custom messages. Thats it.

Hello everyone!
I installed Big Talker v 1.1.13 last night along with the smartapp LANdroid. My experiment consisted of an Android based Samsung Note 4 with the latest version OS.
I had the phone connected to a regular Bluetooth speaker via the headphone jack on the phone and the input connection on the speaker. I have not tried the Bluetooth connection between the phone and speaker with this yet.

I am pleased to say that it was an overwhelming success!

Pros:

  • Ability to use custom speech phrases

  • I can have different speakers in different rooms with different Android devices to send custom speech. Ex: speaker in my son’s rooms that connects via Bluetooth to their phones and when they are in their room they will receive the notifications, but not when they are gone. (This is more to do with LANdroid, but it is seamless with BT

  • it’s just awesome! !

Cons

  • only able to have 3 of each device type
  • unable to rename each instance of BT in the app

Note
I initially installed Big Talker v1.1.3 last night and it worked great. I then saw the v1.1.4 beta and upgraded to it so I could get the weather. Once the update was complete the app no longer worked. I started getting a push notice saying “ST platform issue? textToSpeech() failed”. Along with “Big Talker couldn’t announce: phrase…”

I have been reading a lot about the text to speech issues with ST since the last update. The Sonos app along with a couple of others are now gone.

I have no idea why v1.1.13 works and v1.1.14 does not. I’m not a programmer, just a user.
@rayzurbock, I’m sure you already know what’s going on, if not I hope I was able to help.

I’ve gone back to v1.1.13 and I’m enjoying it. Thank you for a great app!

@CAL7 thanks for reminding me. I’m also using the lannouncer along with Big Talker and LANdroid.

quote=“CAL7, post:169, topic:8076, full:true”]
@rayzurbock First, thanks for a great app. I’m using it with @NWTony LANnouncer and the combo is fantastic.

Weather is appealing. Do you, assuming no obvious issues such as @bamarayne is seeing, recommend the 1.1.4 Beta7 release?
[/quote]

@rayzurbock First, thanks for a great app. I’m using it with @NWTony LANnouncer and the combo is fantastic.

Weather is appealing. Do you, assuming no obvious issues such as @bamarayne is seeing, recommend the 1.1.4 Beta7 release?

@rayzurbock The Big Talker configuration screen mentions Ubi, Sonos and VLCThing. Any chance of putting LANnouncer on there, so people know it falls into Speech Synthesis?

[quote=“bamarayne, post:168, topic:8076”]
I initially installed Big Talker v1.1.3 last night and it worked great. I then saw the v1.1.4 beta and upgraded to it so I could get the weather. Once the update was complete the app no longer worked. I started getting a push notice saying “ST platform issue? textToSpeech() failed”. Along with “Big Talker couldn’t announce: phrase…”
[/quote] and @CAL7

I’ve been seeing this reported since LanDroid came out. I’m not certain yet what the difference is between 1.1.3 and 1.1.4-Beta versions that broke the ability for BigTalker to speak to LanDroid. I’ll be looking into this and if it’s on my end which is sounds like it is, I’ll be fixing it soon.

Thanks for your feedback, I’ll take it into consideration with future releases.

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I’ll see how I can work that in. I also plan to look into the issues with using 1.1.4-Beta and LanDroid soon. That and the TextToSpeech() function issues have me halted on actually releasing it from Beta.

Hi:
I am using 1.1.3 with LANnouncer, just installed both today. As I was testing things around I set up “Talk Now” to say a sentence (Hello world, actually) on two LANnouncer devices. Now when I enter the “Talk Now” page I get this error: “You are not authorized to perform the requested operation”, and the screen is blank. Also, only one of the devices talks. Any idea how to fix this?

Other than the mentioned problem, I am absolutely loving them!

Hey,

I’m suddenly seeing custom TTS working. specifically a weather report generated though Big Talker. This has never worked before, but I had left it set up. Today it worked! Perhaps ST has TTS worked out now?
@rayzurbock

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I cannot get Big Talker to speak when the mode changes - Mode, Change (Home, Away, etc) Everything else seems to work (speak) except mode changes

I have it setup as:

I believe there is a bug in the BigTalker 1.1.3 version which has been fixed in the beta 1.1.4 version. See here:

They announced on a developer call that it’s fixed now.

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Here is what I received yesterday when I asked support if it was really fixed-

Ryan (SmartThings)

Jan 13, 2:17 PM

Hey Dawn,

Yes. Sort of. The function itself is operational but we need to do some further testing on our “default” TTS SmartApps before exposing them again. But as is, any custom SmartApp using TTS should work.

We were planning on following up with folks once the original TTS SmartApps were made available again.

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Ray, this is great. Thanks for putting it together.

I’m loving the number of different events I can trigger on, however, my wife doesn’t love the text-to-speech. Is there a way to just have it make a quick “beepbeep” when an event is tripped?

Thanks again!

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Fantastic news! I’ve noticed the TTS voice has changed as well.
Folks, I am fired up that this is finally fixed. It’s had me holding off on a lot of development and releases.

I’ll be working on BigTalker and posting a new beta up this weekend. ( One specific fix will be for better Lannouncer compatibility @NWTony )

Thanks SmartThings team! @slagle @jody.albritton and everyone else involved!

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I was so excited when Morgan Freeman told me to Vacate the Premises this morning!

I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to use my Sonos with ST anymore.

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I was wondering if anyone knows of a way to get a sonos to announce the current temperature?

I would like my sonos to announce the temperature as i just get into the house.

I have many temperature sensors, and just want a way for a selected device to be read out loud!

@NHENRY There use to be a ST default weather app. I believe ST is doing some more testing before they bring it back out. However Talking Alarm Clock @MichaelS does have a great weather section. May want to give that a shot :smile: