Elk M1 & Ocelot: Got it working!!!

I looked briefly at the MV480 and not sure how that would work with the M1 but it sounds like a great idea. Can you explain in a little more depth for dummies like me how you would do this? Thanks!

Steve-

Fortunately all the details are spelled out HERE.
 
Fortunately all the details are spelled out HERE.
Wow Mike - that was a quick and thorough write up - good job! ;)
Just when I thought I saw everything on the Elk site - this hobby apparently drains my brain cells as fast as my wallet! :lol:
 
This looks very interesting. Can you also stack multiple modules together to get more than 8 minutes of recording time?

According to the specs you can have 31 MV480s on the same RS485 bus. Not only more talk time but also the potential to be saying different things in different places simultaneously. If you want to use a lot to feed the same speakers, I would suggest something more than capacitor coupling. Maybe a small mixer or PA amp.

Steve-

I can't do much but I can point. ;)
 
Now that I've read through the document (and E, don't want to be hijacking this thread so let us know if you want to pull this stuff out into a new one) this looks promising if not a bit complicated. It would be nice (ideal) to have a little better integration into the M1, or a different way of extending the M1 vocabulary.

The pluses I see are:
ability to add up to 248 minutes of voice/.wav's

Some negatives are:
Complexity of interfacing with M1. Ideally, you would want the new words/phrases to be accessible by the M1 like the other words are, not just as ascii string triggered by rules.

Cost - at least 1 XSP in addition to the 480 AND the 485 and 129. What if you needed more than 1 480 - can multiple 480s tie into a single XSP? If not, you are going to run into a limit real fast with XSPs.

Some questions/ideas?

The M1 has the ability to record up to 60 seconds (10 x 6) of additional voice. The way I understand it you have only the 10 slots of 6 seconds (whether you use it or not) and the only interface to get the voice in is the local phone. Since a lot of I (and I assume several) people would want to do is add several individual words like family member names, maybe reminder info words, etc, then 60 seconds is really a A LOT of space. An average word is <= 1 second, right? Sooo - would it be beneficial if the slots on the M1 could be broken down to 60 x 1 and linkable? That way, we could add up to 60 individual words direct into the M1 (assuming of course 1 second per word), also have them linkable like the time slots on the 480.

Then, how about a way to interface a pc output to the M1 to transfer the words, instead of a phoneline interface. Ideally, I guess I would want the same digital voice as built in saying the custom words. Maybe this would be sufficent and keeps everything right in the M1?

Does this make sense or am I all wet? Otherwise, it may just be simpler to skip the M1 voice all together and ship all TTS out to a SW or other HW engine but then you lose the built in integration which is nice???
 
I'm not sure how practical it is to record single words to be used with the built-in vocabulary. It is easier to record the entire message in a single voice even if it contains some words that are available internally.

The complexity of the ASCII message is not really an issue because it just links a rule to a particular memory location. Once the rule is written you can change the message by recording something new to that location without any requirement to edit the rule.

It appears that one XSP should be able to handle all of your MV480s on a single RS485 run.

If the M1 has the ability to kick off a wav file (either directly or by running a batch file that calls a utility like Playwav.exe) you can use a PC connected to an XSP. Of course this goes against your goal of not depending on a PC.
 
Anyone wanting to play with voices, I will be happy to give them what information I can. The M1 will cache upto 50 voice words or phrases to be said and say them in order received. A star "*" key kills the cache and stops the talking.
 
Get a PC. Get Homeseer working on it. Get an M1 plugin loaded and working. Do some scripting in homeseer. Probably still need some associated rules in the M1... not sure of your definition of easier.
 
Yeah Ray, with Electron's script it is. However it seems a lot of people are trying to find a way to eliminate the PC part of the home automation puzzle......
 
fine you need a pc but you never going to get a "close to human" voice from M1,I try diferent variation assembly a frase but still sound like old science fiction movie
 
If you create wav files from AT&T voices and record them into the M1 you have the same voice as HS except you have more opportunity to tweak the pronunciation.

Sometimes with straight "on the fly" TTS you have certain words that are hard to understand because the TTS engine is using fairly general rules about timing and pauses. When you convert a TTS message into a WAV file you have the opportunity to tweak it till it sounds good. You can do some tweaking with straight TTS by inserting extra pauses but you have more options when using a TTS converter like TextAloud.

*edit*

I should also note that for me it is not the PC hardware that is the issue. It is maintaining all the patches and updates on the Operating System and all the updates to homeseer and any updates to the plugins etc. etc. Hardware controllers require occasional firmware updates but generally require MUCH less maintenance than PC based systems. I know Dean is working to make CQC into a PC based controller that is as reliable and easy to maintain as a hardware controller, but I don't think HS can be thought of as "Low Maintenance" at this point in time.
 
David,

What I think would be really nice is some sort of add-on module that would expend the vocabulary. Perhaps a 5,000 word module????
 
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