Z-Wave controlled in-ceiling white noise!

Just wanted to share a great concept that I was able to put into practice recently! I’m going to link to everything I used so that it’s easier to reproduce it if you’re wanting to, but none of these are affiliate links or anything, not trying to sell anything, just wanted to share something that’s working great for me :slight_smile:

Background: I had a google home “routine” that when you said “Okay Google, White Noise” or “nap time” to our google home it would turn off all the lights in our bedroom and start streaming a 12-hour long white noise track to our ceiling speakers via a chromecast audio (playing from google play music). However, Google recently killed google play music, effectively killing that routine. So here’s how I fixed it:

Solution: I took a z-wave plug module and hooked it up to a white noise machine that had a headphone jack out. That white noise machine (via the headphone out) I then hooked into our amp that powers our ceiling speakers in our bedroom. I had to make sure to get a white noise machine that was turned on by turning up the speaker dial so that it would immediately go to “on” when the power was restored to it (rather than needing to turn it “on” every time).

I then created a scene in ST that when triggered turns off all the lights in the bedroom and then turns on the white noise plug - which starts the white noise playing from our ceiling speakers!

Now, I still wanted to be able to have our chromecast audio hooked up to this amp as well so that we could stream music to it when wanted, so I used this beautiful little automatic audio switcher that automatically switches the input to the white noise if it’s on and then back to the chromecast audio if it’s not.

Side note: We occasionally have a problem where one of us is trying to take a nap but our kids playing the basement will “broadcast” (like an intercom) to all the google homes and wake her up. So I also created a little side automation in ST that turns off the google home mini (via a smart plug) when the white noise is turned on (via webcore so I could do a 10 second delay before turning off to ensure that the google home had time to process the request first) and then turns it back on after the white noise is turned off.

I’m planning on putting these types of systems in each of my kids bedrooms as well as I’m sick of them destroying the white noise machines that are left on the ground and always forgetting to turn them off (though I have solved that mostly by putting them on z-wave plugs.

Feel free to ask me any questions if I didn’t explain something clearly!

P.S - Yes, this was extremely overkill and can be a bit pricey if coming from having none of the equipment. Personally I already had everything I mentioned in this post, so this cost me only $25 for another white noise machine :slight_smile: That being said, I’d still recommend doing this from the ground up even if you don’t have anything currently, as it’s also for the awesome music speakers in the ceiling and not just the white noise.

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I use a pressure mat in the crib to trigger the sound machine and lightning automations. Or a manually turning off the light switch.

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The white noise machines in my kids’ bedrooms are synced to a virtual switch / contact sensor. I’ve set up Alexa routines to turn on “do not disturb” on their Dots when that switch turns on, and turns it back off when they’re off. Not sure if Google Home has an equivalent feature but this approach is working great for me.

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I do the manually turning off the light switch in the kids rooms as well (during certain hours), but I’ve always wanted to try a pressure mat! That’s awesome.

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Unfortunately I don’t think google homes can do that :frowning: That does sound like a perfect solution though, so hopefully someday.

BTW, you can now have an Alexa routine start a skill, and there are a number of white noise skills, so this is yet another way to do it.

The following blog has a detailed description of how to do this in an Alexa routine (not a SmartThings routine).

You can trigger it from a voice command, a time schedule, a sensor, or even a virtual sensor which then let’s you automate it from smartthings. :sunglasses:

FAQ: Can I trigger an Echo Action without Speaking to It?

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