rockinarmadillo said:
I originally planned to us my Russound system for things like home automation announcements and doorbell, etc. I abandoned that approach when I figured out how much energy it would consume and how much heat it would generate to keep the Russound on hot standby 24/7. I now only turn the Russound on when I listen to music. I have a dedicated doorbell that plays mp3's and a small amp on my home auto system. I could potentially miss a message from my home auto system when I have the music loud, but I always know that I have a message-- even if I cannot understand what it said. I have my system programmed so that I can see my message on a keypad if I did not understand it.
Class D amps do not consume that much power when they are not actually playing anything so not too concerned about that. I am more concerned about how many different amps and how many redundant speakers i would need in each room (plus separate wiring). I am open to any thinking on this but here are some of the factors that concern me (many unique to my situation).
-I do not need to control music via HA but if I already have music speakers in a lot of locations it makes sense to utilize them for other things as well. Even if I put multiple sets of speakers in a room i need to be able to mute or duck music on the music speakers whenever urgent announcements or alarms are coming through the other speakers. I also already mute music when the phone in that room rings or goes off-hook so it makes sense to extend that existing logic to other triggers.
-Besides alarms, doorbells, and urgent alerts my system talks a lot with various status messages. I have an elderly mother living with me and i have alerts triggered by activation of light switches or motion sensors to keep track of where she is so I can check on her if she is moving around. I have Stargate track lights in remote areas and alert me when they get stuck on even though my ISY thinks they were successfully turned off. I have lots of nag reminders about doors and windows left open, lights left on in guest bedrooms, dishwasher needs unloading, etc. to help manage things when guests disrupt my routine or when my advancing senility would cause me to forget. I also get regular status updates on water usage and furnace run times so to help make me aware when things are not operating within expected parameters. This much chatter is useful to me but requires some strategy for prioritization.
-I have a lot of different inputs to coordinate: Elk, Stargate, Homeseer, PBX paging output, Echo Dot, Sonos Connect, etc. Also looking to add some sort of weather radio feed for storm warnings. While source switching works for music sources I find mixing works better for HA because it is too hard to make every system aware of when other ones are speaking and wait their turn. This is why the priority logic needs to be in the audio system rather than the source and it needs to be based on signal presence because not all sources can provide a voltage or dry contact indication for when they are speaking/playing.
-Source priority also varies from zone to zone. In entertainment areas like the Living Room, Dining Room, and Library I would not want the party music interrupted by anything except a doorbell alert or fire alarm. In my office I want the background music at the lowest priority and have it ducked or muted when i am on the phone or whenever there is any page or status announcement from one of the HA systems.
-Do Not Disturb is also tricky because it should prevent low priority announcements or paging but still allow fire alarms and "nurse call" help request alerts to punch through.
Maybe getting all of this in a single audio solution is not possible but it is worth exploring since the alternative is separate wiring and speakers for HA, Fire Sounders, Music, Paging, Intercom, etc. There is certainly a practical limit to how many speakers you can place in a single room!
