[OBSOLETE] Sonos Talking Alarm Clock

SmartApps & Automations Community Created SmartApps
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All,

I am looking to the community for advice. I took the plunge and purchased a Sonos speaker. This is a very solid feeling and sounding speaker, and I was intrigued with the possibility of having voice associated with actions that I already have in SmartThings. I am not much into music any more, so I struggled with justifying the $200 price tag for just a speaker…considering there are VLC and other options for voice.

But, the device is in my home so I thought I would justify it’s existence by some code to utilize it.

My first project is a 4 selection talking alarm clock. Basically, you set the time in 4 different alarms that are both day of the week and mode filtered (i.e. M-F, but not Saturday or Sunday, and only in Asleep mode). Also included is the ability to turn on switches, dimmers, and set a thermostat upon awakening. Taking a cue from some of the ST Sonos apps, you can awake to a custom greeting (using a few variables like in BigTalker), along with a weather report. On the main screen there is an option to set all 4 alarms and then quickly enable/disable them (i.e. Sleep in on Monday, don’t set the alarm).

What I am looking for in the community is advise what else should it do? I was going to have it shout out the status of various items around the house, but with the weather report you could get from 30 to 60 seconds of voice that might get hard to track what is on, off, open, close etc.

A typical alarm clock has music or radio stations, so I am thinking of adding that functionality (similar to the ST Sonos app)

Is anyone interested in something like this? What would your dream talking alarm clock have? I am focusing on the Sonos first, but could add other voice systems later…so please suggest just functionality.

Thanks…I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

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Great purchase Michael!!

From watching one of the latest Blog videos on the Apple watch integration you can hear an updated Sonos integration in the background which may help to do close to what you are looking for. Maybe in July we will have this updated Sonos integration…?

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Sounds awesome! Do you plan on releasing this SmartApp to us?

Any chance you can set it up so that you can select what individual days you want it to go off for us poor folks who don’t have Saturday/Sunday off?

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How about now:
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Talking_Alarm_Clock

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@MichaelS oh I love this idea​:grinning:. Perhaps you can also add slowly turning on Phillips hue lights, and who doesn’t love waking up to the smell of fresh coffee :grinning: just my thoughts. Can’t wait to install this one.

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I don’t have any hue lamps to test this, but have a dimmer setting so you can start off low. I put in the hello home phrase change ability so I could trigger the gentle wake up app which gently lights up dimmers.

The coffee piece is easy and already included…connect a coffee pot to an ST outlet and then activate upon wake up.

Hope that helps. I appreciate the suggestions!

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@MichaelS this sounds great. I am installing this morning. Can’t wait to give it a try. Thanks for all of your hard work.

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Installed and tested this app this morning. It works great. Thank you so much for all of your hard work :grinning:
Sincerely
Dawn

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Thanks…let me know is something doesn’t work as expected…I personally have had it NOT say anything when it should, even though other triggers (like lights) come on. To set expectations, you should ALWAYS have a backup way of waking up…the Sonos voice seems to have to travel between the SmartThings cloud, Amazon (which appears to actually generate the voice MP3), then back to you…so there are lot of hops.

Glad you are enjoying it.

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@MichaelS Thanks I really like your app it is working good. Thanks

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All,

I made a further revision to the app…There is a small bug in setting the thermostat that I fixed, but the big addition is the ability to play a song after the voice greeting…

Since this fixes a bug, I recommend everyone uninstall their old version (as I changed some variable names), and re-install the 1.1 version. The link above in this thread will take you the latest version.

Enjoy!

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I found some more bugs and added a few more tweaks to the interface, including a standard ‘About Screen’ I will put in all of my apps going forward. I have used this the last couple days and really enjoy it. I am also working on a ‘Good Night’ app that is similar, but more event driven (i.e. press a button on a controller, or switch gives tomorrow’s forecast and says good night).

I really enjoy my Sonos!

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@MichaelS I have been using the app since I installed it Sunday. I love it. Can’t wait to see what you come up with next :smile:

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Thanks! I appreciate the kind words!

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I updated the application once more to 1.3.1. This includes the following:

  1. A revised license agreement on the About page
  2. Code optimization/bug fixes
  3. The ability to get a summary of the alarm status from the main icon page. If enabled, pressing this will give you a verbal summary of each alarm…the name, the time set, and whether it is enabled or not. This keeps you from having to enter the app just to get the status or the 4 alarms. Am interested if to know if anyone would need to even be more verbose with additional information (i.e. the days of the week it is active). I named one of my alarms “week days” so the verbal announcement of the name works for me.

It is on the original GitHub link above…enjoy!

Edit-be sure you have 1.3.1…squashed one more bug just a few minutes ago

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@MichaelS I installed the new ver. yesterday… This just gets better and better… so far it has worked flawlessly.Thank you again for all of your hard work :smile:

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Glad you enjoy it…It has worked flawlessly for me as well…

I do have a version 1.4 coming up that will include mode changes in addition to hello, home phrases, along with a more dynamic interface and the ability to fine tune the weather reporting (i.e include or not include the temperature reading, include a report of the local humidity (using your devices), and the sun rise, sun set times…all optional. Also possibilities of including interior reporting of temperature if people want it.

Should be out within the next couple weeks or so…Checking with the SmartThings team on some low level Sonos questions right now.

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Looking forward to seeing it.

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Hey Michael, cannot wait to install the new version. I checked out the current one, looks very promising. I know you’ve put a lot of time into it! Actually, I was just about to propose adding more weather features. It sounds like you’ve been working on that already. What I was looking for, is more like a talking weather station, based on the SmartWeather tile, especially for severe weather alerts. Anyhow, thanks for writing this app…

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Thanks!..I will see how others have implemented this feature. Are you referring to an alarm going off based on a severe weather? Of just include more information in the morning wake up?