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sarcophage
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| Posted: August 06 2009 at 08:01 | IP Logged
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Hello all!
I have a question which sort of piggybacks on the HAI
whole house audio post.
I am looking for a solution which would allow me to place
distributed audio in a number of rooms in the house. The
audio is really just for PH alerts and information and
would not necessarily need to distribute music or
anything like that.
My house is quite old and running new wires is pretty
much out of the question, so wireless is a requirement.
I figured that I could get an intercom system and wire it
up to the main PH computer. Many intercoms now are
wireless and are simultaneously inexpensive.
So the real question is: how would i go about connecting
an intercom to PH and allow it to control broadcasts?
Would an I/O Linc work in this case?
alternative suggestions are certainly welcome!
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jpcurcio
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| Posted: August 06 2009 at 13:01 | IP Logged
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The audio quality of most intercom systems is quite poor.
What I use is the Apple Airport Express with iTunes; I have
two of them, and user my HA controlling PC to stream audio
to two different rooms. They are about $100 each, and the
latest ones support wireless-N.
The best thing is that there is a piece of software called
Airfoil by Rogue Amoeba that will allow it to work with any
program (not just iTunes)... I find that iTunes is a piece
of crap and prefer to use something else.
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sarcophage
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| Posted: August 06 2009 at 15:58 | IP Logged
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I hadn't thought of using the Airport Express... so how would I hook this up to PowerHome's Text-To-Speech feature? Is this what I would use Airfoil for? I like this idea quite a bit.
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grif091
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| Posted: August 06 2009 at 15:59 | IP Logged
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sarcophage - the question is more related to the capability of your intercom system than what can be done with PH. I have a NuTone intercom system which does have the capability to accept an alternate audio source which is assumed to be music but could be anything such as the PC. The question is whether your intercom system has the ability to force the alternate audio source to some or all of the individual stations. My stations have a specific button for selecting the alternate source of audio. There is no means that I have read about which would force that alternate source to some or all of the stations. Really a question of the intercom capability rather than Powerhome. If the intercom has the ability to force the alternate audio source with some circuit closure, or the like, then PH certainly can control an IO Linc relay to energize to control that intercom circuit.
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Lee G
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sarcophage
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| Posted: August 17 2009 at 04:17 | IP Logged
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Thanks Lee -
I am actually going the Airport Express route, it turns
out. Since I don't really use VR in the house, it seemed
silly to jump through hoops to install an intercom
system. (Although for the life of me i can't understand
why there is not a _wireless_ intercom system on the
market that can output to an external source. but I
digress)
Anyway, I found 3 Airport Express' on ebay for $50 each,
and I have almost completely solved my problem. My next
challenge is figuring out do I a) just install hidden
powered speakers to do _only_ home announcements, or b)
figure out a way to get the stereos in different parts of
the house to switch over to the appropriate channel, wait
for the announcement to finish, then switch back.
That's gonna be a tough one.
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BeachBum
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| Posted: August 17 2009 at 08:26 | IP Logged
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If your stereo has an IR remote and you have RG6 or hardwire between you PH and the stereo, you can use IR from PH to switch the channel or any other function.
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Pete - X10 Oldie
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jpcurcio
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| Posted: August 17 2009 at 14:10 | IP Logged
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sarcophage wrote:
Thanks Lee -
I am actually going the Airport Express route, it turns
out. Since I don't really use VR in the house, it seemed
silly to jump through hoops to install an intercom
system. (Although for the life of me i can't understand
why there is not a _wireless_ intercom system on the
market that can output to an external source. but I
digress)
Anyway, I found 3 Airport Express' on ebay for $50 each,
and I have almost completely solved my problem. My next
challenge is figuring out do I a) just install hidden
powered speakers to do _only_ home announcements, or b)
figure out a way to get the stereos in different parts of
the house to switch over to the appropriate channel, wait
for the announcement to finish, then switch back.
That's gonna be a tough one. |
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Sarcophage:
Check out Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba. It's a shareware,
about $20 IIRC, that will "hijack" any app that you want
and forward the audio through the Airport Express. I've
played with it a bit, but due to other priorities, I
haven't purchased it yet (the demo version superimposes
noise after 10 minutes).
You can likely run this on your HA server to hijack the
audio out from PH.
This won't help with the switching back and forth, but it
will at least get your PH audio to the APE.
Edited by jpcurcio - August 17 2009 at 14:12
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sarcophage
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| Posted: March 22 2010 at 13:55 | IP Logged
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Hey I just wanted to post back about this -
JPCurcio - your suggestion was FANTASTIC. Airfoil works
great on XP... I'm running on Windows 7 so it's a little
flaky sometimes, but the dev team sent me a beta build
and it is working out great.
Anyway sorry i've not replied in so long - we had a baby
in september, so I've been pretty busy!
I've been through a lot of troubleshooting with these
damn airport expresses and now things are working out
great! so just FYI for anybody trying to do whole house
audio or at least distribution of PH voice commands.
Have not figured out how to do VR easily (I'm not running
mic wires!) but not really a priority!
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Topic: Audio/alert distribution suggestions
