Rule based volume control

[elcano]

I know that we have been shooting Spanky with a lot of requests lately. I have been in his position - managing and prioritizing several requests is not easy, but I'm sure that Elk will do it wisely.

Spanky, here is another for the list. I would like to control the volume of the voice messages in my M1 using rules. During the day there is a lot of noise around and we cannot understand many messages. During the night everything is silent and the messages are really annoying.

Is this in the list already? Can I wait for it?

If not, please let me know. While ugly, I might end building an attenuator with a few power resistors and relays.

 

[WayneW]

In a similar vein, I thought there was a way to use rules to control the volume of keypad beeps, but I cannot find it, so I would like to request that also. Or a way to simply turn on/off the keypad beeps of selectable keypads. How do you use the keypad in a master bedroom at night to arm in stay mode or disarm without waking others? Or trying to silently let the dog out at night?

 

[Spanky]

Good points. I will put them on the list. Not sure when they could happen however.

A quick solution to control voice volume is to put a power resistor in series with the output 1 speaker leads. Use about a 10 watt resistor and a resistance to suit you volume. Use a relay output contacts across the resistor. When the relay contact is open you will have low volume. When the relay contact is closed you will have high volume.

 

[Steve]

For the volume why not just use the line level audio and feed it into a cheap receiver or amplifier? You could then just change volume either manually or via IR (assuming of course you have an Ocelot or PC with IR emitter). If you had the IR then you could control the volume via rules.

 

[elcano]

I was considering using two relays+resistors to have 4 volume levels. This is the circuit that I had in mind:

         Relay1           Relay2
OUT1--+---|/|----------+----|/|----------+----SPEAKER---
       |          R1    |           R2    |
       +---| |---mmmm---+----| |---mmmm---+

I'll have to experiment with the resistance values to get the desired volume levels. In order to get 4 volume levels I'll need to make R1 and R2 of two different values.

 

[Spanky]

Hey, that will work!!

 

[CORT]

Is there any news on controlling the keypad beeps in Elk automation rules? I would like to be able to enable / disable a true silent mode for the house. Thanks.

 

[Spanky]

Is there any news on controlling the keypad beeps in Elk automation rules? I would like to be able to enable / disable a true silent mode for the house. Thanks.

The really quick answer is to control the beep speaker in the keypads through a relay or relays with a series resistor to limit the volume. A Rule could control the relays. This is your fast solution.

Directly controlling the beep volume with a Rule has not made it to the top of the list. Future systems should have that feature.

 

[AnotherOne]

Since were asking for wishes

It would be GREAT if you control everything settable on a keypad via rules and on a per keypad basis. So you could dim or turn off keypads at night, dim them all the way down when no ones around and undim them in bright light and turn the lights up when certain events occur. I'd have all my keypad lights off and use motion controllers to undim them for a set period of time, say 10 minutes. Same situation for beeps and tones.

 

[upstatemike]

Is there any way to know what all is on "the list" and what is near the top? Still looking to contol thermostat set points from keypads. (Not trigger a preset level but just normal control as you would if you were standing at the thermostat itself).