Can a ST hub facilitate audio such as for a PA and/or intercom
It can send announcements/alerts to speakers. Echo devices also have PA and intercom features.
What type of equipment would be required to make PA announcements in a warehouse type setting?
So does Google Home. “Broadcast [XYZ]”. However, it is not possible to use the Broadcast feature with ST without using a man-in-the-middle approach.
If you’re talking about a broadcast/loudspeaker system that is on a regular schedule (i.e. every day at 4:00 announce “It’s quitting time!”) then ST can do that through several different approaches depending on what hardware you want to get. If you’re talking about special broadcasts (ie. Dave you have a call on line 3) then ST is, IMHO, not the system you want to use. You’re going to spend more time trying to get any system set up and working than you would for a normal PA system with mic hookup. It’s just not designed to handle on-demand tasks like that with audio. Not in a way that would be useful for regular employees on a regular basis.
And intercom? Nope…no functionality like that with ST. There are devices that support announcements from ST and have independent intercom like functionality…like the Echo’s call feature and Google home phone feature. But that’s independent of ST.
What I would like to do is make PA announcements with my phone from offsite.
It’s not part of ST but if you use Google speakers, you can then open the assistant app on your phone and use the command broadcast and then say what you want to broadcast. And all Google speakers in your account will broadcast what you said. However, that’s $50 a speaker. There are PA systems that are cheaper.
When you say there are PA’s that are cheaper—what would be between my phone and the PA that would allow me to make remote announcements? I’m not real tech savvy.