I have been having a play with the voice alerting on our test setup to see what it’s like and whether its something I can offer my customers.
Setting up was quite straight forward, we have 3CX phone system and I just made a new extension for Ignition, made a network path and connected. A couple of force starts but once I figured out that the username in Ignition must be the extension number in 3CX it was plain sailing. Using my local extension as the notification route meant that the alarm would come to my desk phone.
It’s very quick, trigger an alarm and my phone rings and the announcement begins. All this is good.
The problem I’m having is with the speech, this woman needs to take a breath now and again, it seems very un-natural, I’ve played around with spelling, commas, spaces and full stops. A comma helps but its still quite fast. What would be really helpful would be a method of inserting a single or multiple pause(s) of say 500ms in the text. Is there such a thing?
Any chance of the British voice “Amy” being added? Its more natural and easier to sell (for me).
Chris
Hi,
I’ll have to see what we can do about the rate. Just curious though, does the sample for the Salli voice on the ivona website sound the same to you as what you get over the phone, or does the phone sound faster?
As for other voices, yes, I need to try to get them built today, but the Amy voice will be available. I’ll try to post a module for you to try later today.
Regards,
Colby
I’ve finished for the day today, but I’ve noticed that the voice is clearer on my Mobile(Cell) than it is on my desk phone, I’m going to see if I can force codecs for better quality.
I’ll try the web based voice and see if there are any differences
I have a demo booked for a German bank third week of June, so a German voice would be nice.
I’m still on 7.6rc2 but I notice that if using the pin on voice, a wrong pin will receive the correct announcement but will then carry on and allow alarm acceptance.
Another thing I found, on 3CX you can implement an intercom call (prefix the extension number with *9) where the receiving phone will automatically turn on its speaker. This works with ignition. I have had great fun setting alarms and annoying people with alarm messages, but seriously if we could have an option to remove the “press any Key” it would be simple to add this function as a Tannoy feature (I’m not sure if “Tannoy” is universally known en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannoy ) Public address feature
Chris
Hi,
Thanks for the feedback. In regards to the codecs, there currently are only really two options: mu-law and a-law (you know, basic wav companding). We will likely try to implement something a tad better in the future, to try to make it work better over cell modems and the like.
The primary reason I ask is because the rate that data is sent can affect the rate of the audio, and if something strange was happening (such as the system clock being fast) it might make the audio sound faster. It’s more likely that you just don’t like american accents 
But really, check out the website and see if it sounds similar.
I could certainly make the non-pin challenge optional. With pure voip systems (and most hosted service) the answer detection is really good. Using asterisk, though, it’s sometimes a bit iffy, which is why we have that in the first place. Also, we’ll track down the pin issue before the next update.
We’ll have voices built today for: American, British, and Austrailian english, European and Latin spanish, french, italian, and german. Russian is coming soon. The should be up soon in the module store, but I can put them up and put links here before tomorrow.
Regards,
Hi,
Here are the british english and (one) german voices. The only trick to this is that due to a version change in the text to speech engine, you’ll need to update the main voice module as well. I’d recommend uninstalling the Salli voice module, then the “voice notification” module, and then install the new one, and then the new voices. For german, you’ll have to create a script before you’ll be able to use it (from “manage scripts”)
Let me know how it goes.
Voice Notification Module
British English - Amy
German - Hans
Sorry for the offtopic... I read ok?... a bank?
Colby
Thanks for the links, I’ll play with them today. We LOVE American accents, but at 3am when it’s really important to understand what is happening, something familiar is preferable. "Press the pound button” is particularly confusing in the UK, when you guys Twitter do you “poundtag”?
Pdibenedatto,
Yep a bank, I’m not talking about the local savings and loan, my customers are global trading entities, banks have massive world wide critical infrastructures that support their IT. Power, water, cooling, etc. it all needs control and monitoring. Historical data and accountabiltiy is everything to them. It pays my mortgage.
Chris
Thanks Chris
For one moment I think that someone was invented a closed loop controlling with an pid for interests rates 
If you have the mortage in the same bank you have an advantage… if late payments and threaten them with eviction, you can cut off the light 
Seriously … is a joke … I am Argentinian but do not practice.
The question is because I am curious about all the different forms and industries in what ignition is used.
Regards,
We like Amy, all installed without problems, much clearer for us, pin Id works with r4 as well.
Re the codecs, I was referring to my desk phone, I’ve changed the preferred codec now and things are much better, I’d still like to be able to insert pauses. I do think that the web site is a little slower than what we hear from our system but the difference is miniscule.
My Airtime modem has arrive today so more fun tomorrow.
Chris
Yes, I know... but you know, you can change this by editing the english script under "manage scripts", next to the notification profile.
In regards to pauses, I believe that each comma and each period carry some weight. So, you should be able to add multiple to get a bigger delay. The next step would probably be for us to expose the library's SSML support, which would let you mark up the phrases in a more robust manner.
Anyhow, glad you've got it up and running.
Regards,
Colby
[quote]Yes, I know… but you know, you can change this by editing the english script under “manage scripts”, next to the notification profile.[/quote] 
I know, she says “hash” now, but couldn’t help myself.
What I have now is certainly good enough for a client demo, so I’m very happy.
Chris
Hi Colby,
Sorry to dig out such an old post, but I’m looking for a way to not have to use a PIN or user validation with any key. The idea is to make a call to a speakerphone in Public Address mode.
This would be a useful development…
As of fairly recent Ignition versions, you can create a new notification profile connecting to your SIP device, then modify the scripts to remove all the acknowledgement/waiting actions - which will tell the system to skip over them entirely and proceed directly to the alarm notification.
@PGriffith,
I’m an idiot… I didn’t even try to set the messages to “empty”. It just works, thanks.
1 Like