[(OBSOLETE See 1.1.10 or later) 1.1.8 10/11/16] Big Talker - Talk when events occur

I am unable to reproduce the error that you show on Android or iOS in 1.1.8a4. When entering a token that no longer exists or never existed, BigTalker converts that token ie: %devicename3% to the verbally spoken “percent device name 3 percent”. Please make sure that you pulled your dev code from the development branch here (currently 1.1.8a4): https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rayzurbock/SmartThings-BigTalker/development/smartapps/rayzurbock/big-talker-dev.src/big-talker-dev.groovy

What version does your Big Talker main page show under the about section?

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That worked. Everything appears to be working properly. I have no idea what went wrong but my code was the same version as that which was posted. I re-copy-pasta’d it into the IDE and it works now.

I purchased a cheap Kindle Fire and mounted it to the wall, so the kids can set up the colors of lights in their room. I removed all the bloat, and set it up with SmartThings and Lannouncer. I’d like to use Lannouncer with it. Any idea how to get Lannouncer working as you stated here? [OBSOLETE 1.1.6 5/25/16] Big Talker - Talk when events occur

It doesn’t show up as an option in-app.

Please launch BigTalker and go to the Status page.
What does it show under “Speech Device Mode”?

For LanNouncer, it must say “speechSynthesis”. This mode is only selected during install of the app. If your app says “musicPlayer”, you can go back to the MarketPlace and install another instance of BigTalker and switch the option slider to the off position when asked for speechSynthesis or musicPlayer mode (off = speechSynthesis; on = musicPlayer). Unfortunately, this means that you will need to duplicate the events if you want LANnouncer to speak the same things as say a configured Sonos. Note voices will be different as musicPlayer’s voice is from the SmartThings text-to-speech (TTS) engine and speechSynthesis’s voice is from each independent device’s built-in TTS engine.

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Thanks. That makes total sense. I will apply that.

BTW. I just set up two more VLCThings with Raspis to work with Big Talker. I thought you might find this interesting. $65 Home Automation Announcer . I’m setting up zones so there is one master that says everything in my office. The rest announce nearby where the action occurred.

Any chance of a second zone for A/C? I have two units.

Hi @rayzurbock, today I noticed that Google’s Text-to-Speech was updated on my device and I also noticed that LanNouncer stopped converting. I can see where the commands show up from my configured events, but nothing is spoke. The connection is fine and other sounds work, so could Google’s latest update cause a problem?

Possibly. When using LANnouncer, text is sent to your android device via Big Talker and SmartThings and the speech processing is done within the devices text-to-speech engine itself. It’s possible you could try changing to a different TTS engine in the Android OS to see if another engine works (ie: is it just the Google TTS engine broken?). This is usually found under Settings > Accessibility (varies where under here depending on the device; mine is at Settings > Accessibility > Vision > Text-To-Speech > Preferred TTS engine).

Also, make sure that your android device hasn’t changed it’s IP address from the one you have configured in SmartThings for your LANdroid device (open LANdroid to see what it shows as your IP; in SmartThings go to My Home > Things, locate your LANdroid device and tap on it > tap the gear and check Android IP Address and Android Port ). If your IP differs, change the settings in SmartThings for your LANdroid device to match the IP and Google how to set a static IP address in your router for your LANdroid device.

If your IP is still correct and changing TTS engines doesn’t work, you might head over to the LANdroid page and ping @NWTony to see if he knows anything about the mentioned update breaking LANdroid. Android as a Speech/Alarm Device released! And Updated!

I hope this helps

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RELEASE 1.1.8 10/11/16

  • I believe that I have squashed a couple of bugs that may have missed playback or caused playback that wasn’t desired for musicPlayer devices (Sonos, etc).
  • There is a new %description% token that you can use for a description of the event which occurred via device-specific text. Ex: %description% becomes ‘Front door is closed’ (Thanks for the idea STCommunity: adamoutler).
  • The %devicename% token now does error control to find the next best device name rather than crashing the app if the expected call fails. The calls try in the following order: evt.displayName, evt.device.displayName, and finally evt.device.name - One of these will return something; the order is to try to make sure it’s the user defined name. (Thanks STCommunity: adamoutler).
  • Changes default volume applied if in musicPlayer mode and musicPlayer device volume is less than 50% and a desired volume is not configured then device will bump up to 50% to speak and should return to the user configured volume on resume (was originally set to 75% if device was at 50 or below).

I will wait a few days, maybe a week or so before I fly the X on the 1.1.7 version’s icon to notify users in-app that an update is available. Please report any observed issues (hopefully none) here so I can keep track of them and hopefully resolve them: https://github.com/rayzurbock/SmartThings-BigTalker/issues

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Hi Brian

First off, great work on the app.
Unfortunately I seem to not get it to work properly. I correctly installed everything, and started testing a few scenarios, but I am having the following issues:

My Samsung R6 speakers get triggered correctly, but with a delay of 20-30 seconds. The door is long closed after the “Door has been opened” announcement comes out.

After having set this first rule, I dont know how to remove it. When I select “configure”, the app looks like nothing has been configured in the first place (even tho the door rule above still runs), so effectively I find no way to remove it.

Thanks!
N

Ok, I figured out the 2nd part. I had to leave the marketplace and go to Automations-SmartApps to find the rules I created…

@rayzurbock - I just upgraded from my hacked 1.1.8a2 (to stop music resume bug) to 1.1.8 final but soon enough a door opening and closing right away caused music to start playing on my dedicated BigTalker Sonos. Is there anything I can provide you to figure out what is going on?

Can you enable debug logging in the app, then pull up live logging in the IDE and reproduce the issue then send me the Big Talker logs in a private message?

When instructed by BigTalker, SmartThings converts the text to audio in the cloud and generates a URL to the mp3 audio file, then it sends the url to your musicPlayer device, your musicPlayer device then loads the MP3 from the URL provided and plays it. The delay could lie anywhere along this process.

I am not familiar with the Samsung R6 (nor the SmartThings Device Handler for it). You could turn on Debug Logging within BigTalker, then launch the Live Logging page and see if you can spot the delay either within the BigTalker logs or those for your Samsung R6 device. I would also be curious if there are logs that you can access within the Samsung R6 itself and do those match up with the time it received the URL to play and did it introduce a delay while retrieving the audio file from SmartThings servers?

Hi Brian

I did check the ST logs but cannot really make sense of them:

http://pastebin.com/JLWxwBeB

I also had a quick look wether I could find logs on the R6 itself, but unfortunately to no avail.

These look like logs from your R6 device handler in SmartThings.
When looking in Live Logging, navigate into the menu pages of Big Talker (Automations > SmartApps > Big Talker) and it will appear on the list of logs, once that is done, try to open a door that is monitored by BigTalker, wait 10-15 seconds and then close it. Capture those logs and send to me in a private message if you would like for me to check on it and see if I can find the issue.

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Hello,
I’m struggling to get resume to work on Sonos. It looks like that isn’t an issue with anyone else from what I saw I’m the previous thread. I don’t see an option to turn resume on so I’m wondering if I’ve missed something?

BT works amazing. Is there a way to get BT to speak sooner after an event triggers? Right now it can take somewhere around five seconds to report an event.

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Unfortunately the delay is caused by the cloud architecture/processing of SmartThings.

Thats what I figured. In any event it works really well.

has anyone managed to get the weather tags to work in the UK? Our Hubs display 00000 for zip code as we dont use them.

EDIT: i entered my long lat which seems to be working with the tags.

(00000) can also be replaced by any supported location of the WeatherUnderground API such as (France/Paris), (latitude,longitude), (AirportCode), (State/City)

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