Controlling Zones Via Voice Commands

[Aayush Arya]

We have a Chromecast and an Echo Input connected to a Rolls mixer, feeding audio to the audio in port on the EA-3. We have it set up so that if we play something through either device, the EA-3 automatically starts playing it through the living room speakers via audio sensing. We can then say “Alexa, turn on music in the passage” or “Alexa, play music everywhere” to add other zones to this session. This is all working pretty smoothly.

This is very rigidly programmed however, and the voice commands to add or remove audio zones work specifically with music playing via the audio in port on the EA-3. Is it possible to program the system such that if we have Spotify playing on the passage speakers and we say “Alexa, turn on music in the living room”, it selects that audio source in the living room dynamically (i.e. if a single audio source is playing, whatever it may be, the other zones are added to it)?

[South Africa C4 user]

4 hours ago, Aayush Arya said:

We have a Chromecast and an Echo Input connected to a Rolls mixer, feeding audio to the audio in port on the EA-3. We have it set up so that if we play something through either device, the EA-3 automatically starts playing it through the living room speakers via audio sensing. We can then say “Alexa, turn on music in the passage” or “Alexa, play music everywhere” to add other zones to this session. This is all working pretty smoothly.

This is very rigidly programmed however, and the voice commands to add or remove audio zones work specifically with music playing via the audio in port on the EA-3. Is it possible to program the system such that if we have Spotify playing on the passage speakers and we say “Alexa, turn on music in the living room”, it selects that audio source in the living room dynamically (i.e. if a single audio source is playing, whatever it may be, the other zones are added to it)?

Yes it is, but requires quite a bit of programming and you need to create the logic (e.g. if multiple zones are playing, which session do you have the living room join in to?

[Aayush Arya]

That's what I was trying to figure out. It would always be a hit or miss with multiple streams of audio. But if we have an EA-1, for instance, where we're assured of only ever having a single stream of audio at any one time, could it be done?

I don't see any way in Composer to programmatically add the passage speakers to an ongoing Spotify session in the living room. 

[c4toys]

create media zones and then program logic off of active or not active

[Aayush Arya]

Just an update: I was able to do this after all. This is how the system is programmed:

When there is no media playing in the living room, if I were to say, “play music in the living room”, it will check to see if the audio input on my EA-3 can sense audio from the Chromecast connected to it. If yes, it will start playing that music in the living room. If not, it will check to see if any of the other rooms are playing music, and join one of those ongoing sessions if one is active. Lastly, if none of those conditions are true, it will just play a preprogrammed Spotify preset.

This works for all zones, so “play music in the master bedroom” will do the same there, and “play music in the kitchen” or “play music everywhere” also work. The reverse “turn off music everywhere” or “stop playing music in the living room” all work.

So, in essence, I am now able to do 99% of multi-zone music control via intuitive voice commands and it all works reliably. The only thing I need the Control4 app for is if I need to something specific like join the living room to a kitchen Spotify session while something is already playing via Chromecast in the master bedroom.

[JAJUTI]

Hi,

If I understand you correctly, you can expand music that is currently playing in once zone to other zones via voice commands?

How did you do that, can you show use the actual prog.sentences? 

 

Next step would be to hook up one Alexa to EA and start music through it (and expand it)

 

 

[Aayush Arya]

We've done that too. I'll post screenshots later today.


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[burowyako]

On 12/21/2019 at 7:17 PM, Aayush Arya said:

We've done that too. I'll post screenshots later today.


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Any chance that you can post some screenshots?

Also, are you using a specific driver for this, or just the standard voice scenes?

Thank you!