TTS Demo

AHL said:
Hi, I've just posted a quick (1 minute) TTS voice demo video.

TTS Voice Demo

For more info, please vist Acentient Software
Click to expand...

Nice demo but the volume was low for me for some reason. I like the the way you can switch voices from sentence to sentence. As someone who uses HA voice events very extensively (I would say it is the most important HA feature that I depend on) I am happy to see more attention being given to advanced TTS features.
 
Just as an FYI, for those that are using Home Seer, it is quite easy in the scripts to change the voices. Here is an example I just put together to demonstrate (VBSCRIPT):

Code: 
sub main()

HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=Microsoft Mike'>My name is Sam.  I am a default Microsoft voice.  "
HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=VW Kate'>Hello, my name is Kate.  I am one of the best voices for your computer.   "
HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=VW Paul'>My name is paul, and You do sound good Kate, but I think I sound pretty good as well. "
HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=Microsoft Mike'>Wow! After listening to you two, I think I need to keep my mouth shut! "
HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=ScanSoft Daniel_Full_22kHz'>Hello, I am daniel. Kate, you and Paul sound really good, but all of you have funny accents. "
HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=ScanSoft Lee_Full_22kHz'>I say old chapp.  It's funny you brought that up Daniel.  I was thinking quite the same thing. "

end sub
 

Attachments

  • TTSDemo.mp3
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Not to derail, but this is also possible in PowerHome using the ph_ttssetvoice() function. :eek:
 
Detailed Voice features should definitely be included in any master comparison spreadsheet of Home Automation platforms. Key areas of voice capabilities to be compared might include:

Can output voice notifications (TTS or stored vocabulary)
Number of words in vocabulary (if applicable)
Maximum words per announcement (if limited)
Can speak system variable values
Can speak special variables such as month, day, year. day-of-week, thermostat settings, etc.
Can support multiple voices
Can change voices within a single announcement
Can deliver voice out via speaker
Can deliver voice out via line out to amplifier
Can deliver voice out via phone interface
Can dial a phone number or paging code and deliver a voice message
Can support zoned messages
Can speak different messages in different zones simultaneously

And there is probably more that could be added to the list. It would be great to see Adaptive Home Logic, VCrib, Homeseer, PowerHome, etc. all charted out for easy comparison.
 
JohnWPB said:
Just as an FYI, for those that are using Home Seer, it is quite easy in the scripts to change the voices. Here is an example I just put together to demonstrate (VBSCRIPT):

Code: 
sub main()

HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=Microsoft Mike'>My name is Sam.  I am a default Microsoft voice.  "
HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=VW Kate'>Hello, my name is Kate.  I am one of the best voices for your computer.   "
HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=VW Paul'>My name is paul, and You do sound good Kate, but I think I sound pretty good as well. "
HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=Microsoft Mike'>Wow! After listening to you two, I think I need to keep my mouth shut! "
HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=ScanSoft Daniel_Full_22kHz'>Hello, I am daniel. Kate, you and Paul sound really good, but all of you have funny accents. "
HS.speak "<Voice Required='Name=ScanSoft Lee_Full_22kHz'>I say old chapp.  It's funny you brought that up Daniel.  I was thinking quite the same thing. "

end sub
Click to expand...
:) Very funny!

:(

It'd be great for Elk M1 Gold to tell a program, such as HomeSeer, to have the speech synthesizer speak out, instead of using very-limited 500-word vocabulary built into Elk M1 Gold. For a guest that arrived at the front door and pressed the doorbell button, I'd have to choose words carefully and the best way I can come up is "a guest is at front door." But with a computer's software speech synthesizer, I can have them say "a guest has arrived." There's no "arrived," in Elk M1 Gold's list of voice vocabulary words.

So anyway, software speech synthesizer is very handy for me! :)
 
Grayson Peddie said:
It'd be great for Elk M1 Gold to tell a program, such as HomeSeer, to have the speech synthesizer speak out, instead of using very-limited 500-word vocabulary built into Elk M1 Gold. For a guest that arrived at the front door and pressed the doorbell button, I'd have to choose words carefully and the best way I can come up is "a guest is at front door." But with a computer's software speech synthesizer, I can have them say "a guest has arrived." There's no "arrived," in Elk M1 Gold's list of voice vocabulary words.

So anyway, software speech synthesizer is very handy for me! :)
Click to expand...
You can if you use one of the Elk plugins with HomeSeer. There is no limit to the text that HomeSeer can speak. It will speak what you type as long as you type.
 
my.Elk actually supported directly interacting with the HS/TTS engine, without having to setup any events on the software side. I did this so I would have the nice voice, but if the PC was down for some reason (heartbeat input would tell the M1 if HS was down or not), it would use the onboard Elk M1 TTS engine to announce critical stuff until the PC came back up. Worked great!
 
Grayson Peddie said:
It'd be great for Elk M1 Gold to tell a program, such as HomeSeer, to have the speech synthesizer speak out, instead of using very-limited 500-word vocabulary built into Elk M1 Gold. For a guest that arrived at the front door and pressed the doorbell button, I'd have to choose words carefully and the best way I can come up is "a guest is at front door." But with a computer's software speech synthesizer, I can have them say "a guest has arrived." There's no "arrived," in Elk M1 Gold's list of voice vocabulary words.

So anyway, software speech synthesizer is very handy for me! :)
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that while the 500 word built in single voice vocabulary may sound boring and limiting, it is light years ahead of the panels with no voice at all. A large percentage of Elks customers do not use pc's or other software programs so the built in voice is awesome for them. Absolutely agree if you are little more hi-tech and have a software solution that full TTS will work better than Elk's built in.
 
Okay, cool!

As an alternatie to HomeSeer (since I don't have one and don't plan to buy one), I'll be programming my own application to receive text from Elk and process it through Microsoft Text-To-Speech.

Thanks!
 
Rupp said:
Grayson Peddie said:
Okay, cool!

As an alternatie to HomeSeer (since I don't have one and don't plan to buy one), I'll be programming my own application to receive text from Elk and process it through Microsoft Text-To-Speech.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
HomeSeer is not a "one" but is a software package that runs on a PC. http://www.homeseer.com
Click to expand...

Okay, I know what it is, but "context clue!"

As an alternatie to HomeSeer (since I don't have one and don't plan to buy one), I'll be programming my own application to receive text from Elk and process it through Microsoft Text-To-Speech.
Click to expand...

"One" can be replaced as:

As an alternatie to HomeSeer (since I don't have "HomeSeer" and don't plan to buy one), I'll be programming my own application to receive text from Elk and process it through Microsoft Text-To-Speech.
Click to expand...

I might use "it" instead of "one," if that makes sense to you.
 
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