Wireless Speakers

[compuguru]

With HAL in the basement, it occured to me that we could use some wireless speakers so HAL can give us announcements. Does anyone have recommendations on a certrian model?

 

[GadgetNut]

My 2 cents...

If you can get wires to them at all, you should go with wires. All of the affordable wireless speakers have drawbacks of one sort or another. Usually pops & crackles when they should be silent. The 900Mhz ones have the best range, but poor noise immunity. The 2.4GHz ones fight with WiFi wireless networks, and the 5GHz ones have poor range.

There are 2.4GHz recievers that with with a WiFi wireless network, but I put them in the not reasonably affordable range.

 

[jrfuda]

I tried the 900mhz models before. They're good for music, but not TTS annouincement. The transmiter on the one I have stays in "standby" until it detects an audio signal. This results in the first 1-2 seconds of your announcements being cut off. You also have to leave the receiver/speakers on all the time, which means they can pickup inteference. I had mine on appliance modules, which were switched on before a TTS announcement. However, this did not work well. Between the transmitter power-on delay and the X10 delay, I always lost 1-5 seconds of TTS, which usually meant there was no announcement at all. I later ran wires and used an AB8SS instead, which worked flawlessly. If HAL gets something like HS, with the ability to use remote speaker clients, then you would not have to worry about it. I'm actually getting ready to sell my AB8SS becuase I now use the speaker clients to distribute TTS.

If you don't want to run wires, you can use wires you already have. Use the unused pair on your phoneline (if you're not using them) or the TWO unused pairs (brown and blue) on some CAT5 that you already have run. I transmit power over my brown and blue CAT5 pairs and it does not intefere with operation of my network at all.

 

[GLT]

I use this with two ceiling speakers:

http://www.x10.com/promotions/goldmine_vk59a_2.html

Wireless included RF remote is cool, can adjust tone/volume/mute etc. from anywhere.

It is 2.4 ghz with associated problems (microwave etc.).

Been in my uninsulated Florida attic for years now.

GLT

 

[damage]

i'd be curious to see how these work and if they interfere w/ x10 (since they call it "HomePlug" i assume it wouldn't interfere):

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...oductId=2049805
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...oductId=2049804
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...oductId=2104193

 

[TonyNo]

Damage,

I bought and returned a set of those. Even for the low price, it didn't work well in my home. I believe my amp and speakers were on different phases. Either way, the sound cut in and out often as if being heard through a spinning fan. YMMV

 

[damage]

good to know. thanks Tony.

 

[compuguru]

If you don't want to run wires, you can use wires you already have. Use the unused pair on your phoneline (if you're not using them) or the TWO unused pairs (brown and blue) on some CAT5 that you already have run. I transmit power over my brown and blue CAT5 pairs and it does not intefere with operation of my network at all.

Could you explain more how you did that? I would like to run wires, but I don't have the time to do it right now.