Right now I’m using Alexa’s (echos) around my house to give some audio feedback for doors opening or closing… however it’s not quite good enough for my preference.
My problem with this technique comes down to a few things
- The latency to initiate the sound is too high.
- The synchronization between devices doesn’t work well at all.
- Stopping or interrupting something the echo was already doing… like playing music.
What I’d like to emulate is a independent hard wired security systems that beeps or verbally announce a door or window opening (“garage”, or “front door”, or just a “beep beep”) And of course other notifications too.
My question really comes down to, what would be the best option to play an audio file on designated devices nearly instantly, in near perfect synchronization throughout the house?
Example of what I’m doing now:
alias: Sliding Glass Door Closed
description: ""
trigger:
- type: not_opened
platform: device
device_id: -omitted-
entity_id: binary_sensor.lumi_lumi_sensor_magnet_aq2_on_off
domain: binary_sensor
condition: []
action:
- service: notify.alexa_media
data:
message: >-
<audio
src='https://mpndvguqlew9bav4iku1ta4rn9556xde.ui.nabu.casa/local/media/sounds/back-door-closed.mp3'/>
target:
- media_player.joe_s_2nd_echo_show
- media_player.bathroom_echo_show
- media_player.office_echo_show_5
data:
type: tts
mode: single
What happens now, is somewhere between 1 and 5 seconds, the 3 amazon echo’s start playing a sound effect, and they are sort of scattered over about 1-2 second in not really in sync.
My hope is to find a system I can use that will work to play short sounds or TTS announcements:
- Nearly instantly. Like a switch’s tactile feedback or as low latency as possible.
- Preferably wirelessly.
- Preferably multiple devices that I can define which ones to address depending on the automation
I don’t mind buying a handful of devices to scatter around my house, but they need to outperform having an amazon echo announce things a few seconds late.
Does anyone have any ideas?