Day sleeper: Temporarily bypass chime/voice announcement

Hi all,
 
I've searched, but to no avail. I've found a lot of threads on using relays to control audio speakers for music, and I think I could get there based on that. But thought I'd ask in case I'm overlooking an easy solution as I'm still pretty new to the Elk world. Due do a day sleeper in the house, but on varying days, I'd like to be able to have a mechanism that I can flip a mechanical switch (or something) discreetly hidden in the garage and interior that will disable door chimes and "non-alarm voice" announcements when switched 'on'. When switched 'off', chimes and "non-alarm voice"'s become re-enabled. 
 
Thus, I can go in and out of the house "126 times while [they] are trying to sleep" without keeping them awake.
 
Any ideas on the simplest way to achieve this? I'm open to mechanical switches, buttons, rules, whatever. Just whatever makes sense to accomplish the task, ya know?
 
I did find the following hints:

• Work2Play's post here in an old thread: {edit: oops, can't post links yet... topic number 19894 on this forum} "And with a relay on the speaker in the master bedroom, the wife can quiet everything while she's sleeping during the day so nobody bothers her." which sounds like it has a lot of potential too.
• {edit: oops, can't post links yet...} on the elkproducts website, the disable_voice page.

 
Thanks!

We do get a lot of use out of the F4 "Quiet Mode" button - that keeps things much quieter for the wife.  Now things are even worse - not only is she a day sleeper, but I work from home - and some days the kids are home too (needing the extra alerts).  The next step for me will be adding in a TWA with the separate channels that can be programmatically muted.  In addition, at some point I'd like to tie in whole house audio as well - hopefully DND on a particular zone may help.  Also, just playing with HomeSeer a bit - it has TTS and can have output directed to specific "speaker" clients - which can be little touchscreen devices or otherwise scattered around the house.

We use the F4 technique too.

We call it "Quiet House."

I sorta brute-forced it when starting out: set a variable and then had speaking rules check the state of the variable.

I think there is a more elegant way involving a "non-alert audio" setting, but I'm on the road this week and won't be checking the Elk programming. ( in beautiful seattle, sunny and warm. weird! )

Definitely interested to hear about how others are handing this as well.
 
I think I'll implement something like the "Quiet Mode" with a F-key soon, but also like the idea of using a TWA to do some more advanced work with it.

So I think I'm close... I followed and setup the three rules here:
 
http://www.elkproducts.com/disable_voice.html
 
 

WHENEVER F4 KEY ON ANY KEYPAD ACTIVATES

            THEN TOGGLE OUTPUT 100

WHENEVER OUTPUT 100 IS ON

            THEN DISABLE NON-ALARM VOICE MESSAGES

WHENEVER OUTPUT 100 IS OFF

            THEN ENABLE NON-ALARM VOICE MESSAGES

 
But I'm having a bit of trouble on how to setup the F4 key on the keypads as the instructions are kind of vague. I currently have:
 

 
Key: F4
Activates Event: 31 = Mute Audibles
Ilumination Event: 7100 = OUTPUT 100 STATE
Invert Light: checked
Name: F4 = Quiet Mode
 
 
But on the keypad, it still says: F4 = Not Defined
 
And when I hit that key, it gives a very depressing low-pitch failure-like buzz. Ha ha! Any hints?

If you're using the touchscreen M1KPNAV you need to synchronise it.  On the keypad itself go Menu -> Next Page -> Synchronise.

Also this has to be configured on every keypad - it's not inherited.
 
I know my rules are a hair different but my NAS is offline (failed drive - keeping it off until I replace the drive) so I can't fire up RP.  Also for me, it's not inverted - I have the light on if quiet mode is on, and I have the "Quiet Mode" turn off after 4 hours automatically.
 
I activate this pretty often from my phone as well.  That said, it could even be triggered by a UPB keypad in the garage if I really wanted - the M1 would see the event and can trigger a rule from that as well.

lathiat: ah, thanks! I'm closer. Now at least the keypad (indeed, a M1KPNAV) states: F4 = Quiet Mode
 
I still get the very depressing low-pitch failure-like buzz when I push it though. 
 
Work2Play: gotcha. It'd be awesome to get your rules and Keypad configuration for this task when you get RP back online. Turning back on after 4 hours is an awesome thought.
 
I kind of took a stab in the dark on the Keypad settings. Does anything there look wrong to you? That link above doesn't give guidance, so I just guessed. I can't help but think that is the part that is slowing me down:
 
Key: F4
Activates Event: 31 = Mute Audibles
Ilumination Event: 7100 = OUTPUT 100 STATE
Invert Light: checked
Name: F4 = Quiet Mode