[Solved!] Trying to set up TTS on same machine as HAOS

Not sure which category this should go in…

I started using HA about a year ago starting out with a Docker container and eventually moving to Home Assistant OS installed on a generic x86 (AtomicPi).
From Settings>About:
Home Assistant 2022.12.9
Supervisor 2022.12.1
Operating System 9.4
Frontend 20221213.1 - latest

Recently, I began playing around with voice assistance after installing Rhasspy Assistant and have set up a few simple voice commands to play through the USB speakers and mic connected to the AtomicPi. RH is working well so far. But, now I have a need to have a voice alert triggered from a sensor reading.

After spending many hours reading and watching videos I’m stumped as to how to make this work using the USB speakers already connected to the AtomicPi. Can this be done through Rhasspy, or do I need to set up a media player, or is there something else I’m missing? I have both google_translate and picotts in configuration.yaml. If actually do need to set up a media player, which one? I’ve added gstreamer to configuration.yaml, but the GStreamer docs under setup says to add a few additional packages, but how is that possible without having access to Apt? I’ve tried adding Clementine but that seems to be a dead end also.

Where do I go from here? Any help is greatly appreciated!

I tried adding the VLC integration (settings>devices) at one point with no luck. Just a few moments ago I was digging through the add-ons and noticed the VLC add-on. I’m not sure how I missed it earlier. I did notice it was labeled as experimental so maybe it wasn’t there until I upgraded Home Assistant a few hours ago?

But anyway, I installed the VLC add-on and then went into the integrations and finished the setup. I now have voice (TTS)! Once I have some more free time, I’ll add a few more media players around the house.

Matthias (@Moonbase59 ) wrote step by step instructions - How to notify using TTS — and much more.

The one using Developer tools to troubleshoot was particularly helpful for me.

Thanks! I’ve bookmarked it and will read through it when I have more time. Glancing through it looks like it will have some useful information.