Multiple EventGhosts and MPs possible?

[mickelin]

Just started playing with VC, really cool! I'm hoping to be able to voice enable my whole home automation set-up. I have one server controlling all lighting, alarms, curtains, shades etc, one media server, a WHS server and a MediaPortal setup with a tv-server and four MediaPortal clients. All music is handled by iTunes on three different PCs. All machines run EventGhost. Everything is controlled by WiFi by the iRule app running on a bunch of iPads and iPhones.

After a first quick look, it seems VC would fit perfectly into my setup. My plan is to have one VC machine with multiple microphones around the house controlling everything. However, it seems VC can only communicate with one EG and one MP instance, is that correct? How would I be able to set up a multi-MP, multi-EG environment? One option would be to let VC send all commands to one EG machine and let that one route/relay to right machine depending on payload. But that would prevent me using the MP commands in VC. Is there another option?

For microphones, I have a professional boardroom video conference mike that I will put in the main theatre. I'll also give Pocket Audio a try even though I have read there are some issues.

Looking forward to a lot of fun with this and hopefully being able to contribute to the forum!

[Kalle]

Just started playing with VC, really cool! I'm hoping to be able to voice enable my whole home automation set-up. I have one server controlling all lighting, alarms, curtains, shades etc, one media server, a WHS server and a MediaPortal setup with a tv-server and four MediaPortal clients. All music is handled by iTunes on three different PCs. All machines run EventGhost. Everything is controlled by WiFi by the iRule app running on a bunch of iPads and iPhones.

After a first quick look, it seems VC would fit perfectly into my setup. My plan is to have one VC machine with multiple microphones around the house controlling everything. However, it seems VC can only communicate with one EG and one MP instance, is that correct? How would I be able to set up a multi-MP, multi-EG environment? One option would be to let VC send all commands to one EG machine and let that one route/relay to right machine depending on payload. But that would prevent me using the MP commands in VC. Is there another option?

For microphones, I have a professional boardroom video conference mike that I will put in the main theatre. I'll also give Pocket Audio a try even though I have read there are some issues.

Looking forward to a lot of fun with this and hopefully being able to contribute to the forum!

Hi mickelin, and welcome in VC-Forum. Wow, that are many devices and my english is not good enough to give you a answer for all your questions, but James (the programmer of VC) can do this.
I can tell you something about the mic's  
A boardroom mic could be work good, but don't forget, it pickup constandly all noises in the room (if you hear loud music or see a movie), then it is hard for VC to understand you or interpreted something from the movie as an command. So far no one has tried such a system here in the forum (it is very expensive), If you've tried it, we would be pleased if you here reported about the test results.
By the way, a really good mic option is the a amulet remote www.amuletdevices.com and here some info how it work with VC http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=324.0. If you buy VC, you can save up to 40$ for the amulet remote.  
For your "ipads and phones" is "mobiola headset" from appstore a good solution, it uses your device as an WiFi-Headset and it is very cheap.

Kalle

[mickelin]

Hi Kalle, thanks for your prompt reply!

My idea with the videoconf mike is to have unique "golden word" that will mute the sound over the speakers when I want to activate speech recognition. Worst case, I could let iRule send a mute command when I pick up my iPad. The mike is very directional, so if I place it just right, it should work fine. I'll let you know how it goes.

I really don't want to get an additional remote, since I have spent a lot of time designing my iRule user interface on the iPad/iPhone. Would much rather use the iPad/iPhone as portable mikes. Thanks for the tip of Mobiola. It seems to be very similar to Pocket Audio. I'll give it a try if Pocket Audio doesn't work well.

Cheers,
Michael

[Kalle]

Hi Kalle, thanks for your prompt reply!

My idea with the videoconf mike is to have unique "golden word" that will mute the sound over the speakers when I want to activate speech recognition. Worst case, I could let iRule send a mute command when I pick up my iPad. The mike is very directional, so if I place it just right, it should work fine. I'll let you know how it goes.

I really don't want to get an additional remote, since I have spent a lot of time designing my iRule user interface on the iPad/iPhone. Would much rather use the iPad/iPhone as portable mikes. Thanks for the tip of Mobiola. It seems to be very similar to Pocket Audio. I'll give it a try if Pocket Audio doesn't work well.

Cheers,
Michael

Audio pocket has a big delay time.
The solution for the "golden word" is in VC onboard, it is called "prefix-mode" and you found it in VC options.
You can named the VC machine eg. as "computer" or what ever you want, and if you say "computer" VC turned on and can partitial mute your audio to recognized  commands. After this VC goes in standby and unmute the audio automatically.

Kalle

[Dave]

Welcome to the forum!
I'm not shure if this would work, but you can run multiple instances of Voxcommando simultaniously on one computer.
Maybe each one could control a different instance of MP/EG...

[mickelin]

Thanks, that should do it!

Yeah, I noticed the disturbing lag in Pocket Audio, will try Mobiola instead.

I feel very optimistic about this project! Now if there is only a way to control several MP machines from one VC machine.... If that is not possible, I'll go with tje EG relay method I mentioned above. I'll then use the ShortCuter plugin in MP and the MP plugin in EG, that should cover most of the standard MP commands.

[Kalle]

Thanks, that should do it!

Yeah, I noticed the disturbing lag in Pocket Audio, will try Mobiola instead.

I feel very optimistic about this project! Now if there is only a way to control several MP machines from one VC machine.... If that is not possible, I'll go with tje EG relay method I mentioned above. I'll then use the ShortCuter plugin in MP and the MP plugin in EG, that should cover most of the standard MP commands.

Yes it is possible to run many instances of VC on one machine, each VC instances must have his own folder and you can run for each instance the MP-plugin with separates ip-adress for the different machines with MP, but I think this is tricky.
I would prefer not to speculate and wait what james says 

[jitterjames]

Hi Mickelin,  Welcome aboard.  It's nice to have some fresh blood.

You can already target multiple eventghosts simultaneously (since we use a broadcast by default) as long as they are all set to listen to the same port, and you can send individual commands using a different prefix in the event like this:

A.Volume.Up (to the turn volume up on system A)
B.Volume.Up (to turn the volume up on system B)

I'm happy to extend the command-set for eventGhost if you want to be able to target different ports, or IPs.  Just let me know what would help you the most.  The more details you can provide, the more likely that you'll get exactly what you want, though of course I always try to keep the "big picture" in mind, and make commands as flexible as possible for all users.

I can do something similar for MediaPortal.  In this case I could make commands to change the default IP to send commands to.  The simplest would be if all your MP machines used the same username and password so we only need to change the IP, but it is also possible to have a command that will change the ip/port/username and password.  Should not be too hard.  Again, just let me know what you have in mind.

For the record Mobiola is better than (edit: pocket audio).  Less delay, and more stable.  Still not perfect though.

I think your biggest challenge is going to be setting up multiple microphone inputs to VC.

[jitterjames]

Hi Kalle, thanks for your prompt reply!

My idea with the videoconf mike is to have unique "golden word" that will mute the sound over the speakers when I want to activate speech recognition. Worst case, I could let iRule send a mute command when I pick up my iPad. The mike is very directional, so if I place it just right, it should work fine. I'll let you know how it goes.

I really don't want to get an additional remote, since I have spent a lot of time designing my iRule user interface on the iPad/iPhone. Would much rather use the iPad/iPhone as portable mikes. Thanks for the tip of Mobiola. It seems to be very similar to Pocket Audio. I'll give it a try if Pocket Audio doesn't work well.

If the mic works well and is able to home in on sound from only one direction well, please post the results and the specs on the mic, model # etc.

If you have the budget for it the Amulet is worth it,even if you only use it for the microphone.  It is just the ideal microphone that we have found so far, with the benefit of "listening" only when you pick it up, and designed to pick up sounds that are close to the mic.  I don't think it would cover your whole house though since the range is about 30-50 feet, and less through obstacles.

[mickelin]

Thanks James, this sounds very promising indeed! You are incredibly supportive!

Clearly there are lots of different options, I will have to play around some more and come back with specifics. A couple of initial thoughts though:

- iRule also uses the Broadcaster plugin to communicate with EG. I have set it up such that each EG machine listens to a separate port. Since the Broadcaster plugin doesn't support multiple loading, it would be ideal if VC could send to those same ports, just as you suggested. In fact, I could then also re-use the same UDP messages that iRule sends and not have to do any changes on the EG side, sweet!

- For MP, ability to specify IP address should suffice, I have the same login details on all the MP clients already. How would you envision implementing such support? Would there be a list of possible clients somewhere and a command to "activate" one at a time? I think that could work very well. I would say something like "Control Theatre" and all subsequent MP commands would be sent to the Theatre MP instance, "Control Bedroom" and it would switch to the bedroom MP instance as the active recipient. A query command to ask which one is currently active would be helpful in such a scenario.


I'll be back with more specifics, thanks for now!
/Michael

[jitterjames]

Maintaining multiple simultaneous open connections to MediaPortal is more work than I'd like to do right now.  I was thinking more along the lines of giving you a connect command where you supply an IP address.  It should be possible to keep track of which one is connected using variables in case you want to query later.  The main problem with this is that you will need to target a new machine first and wait for it to connect because it will need to get a new security key from MP.  If you don't enable security in WifiRemote settings this may not be an issue.  Unless you are forwarding WAN ports to your MP so that you can control it from outside the house I don't personally see why security is needed.

I'll do the same thing with EG, a command that lets you specify a new port to use.  This will be instant so you can immediately send an EG message in the next action of the same command.

by the way, I thought it was strange that broadcast could not be multi-loaded in eventGhost.  I took a look and it seems like someone made a small error in the python.

Try the attached in case a multi-loadable Broadcaster comes in handy for you.  Don't worry I will still add a port change command in VC.

[mickelin]

Excellent, thanks! I think we meant the same thing, I don't see any need for simultaneous open connections to several MPs. I'll give it a try with and without the security enabled and see if the connection time is an issue or not.

Thanks also for the Broadcaster fix, always good to have additional options!

Cheers,
Michael

[mickelin]

Quick update after last night´s test:

EG integration work perfectly, very easy to achieve and with your suggested port shifting command, I will be able to do everything I need.

MP was a bit more difficult to get to work. For some reason, MP won't start after I installed the WiFiRemote plugin, it hangs on "loading plugins". Didn't have time to fix it, will continue tonight. Based on the tests I did run, I would say however that your suggested IP shifting command should suffice. No need for different security settings or simultaneous connections. Even though the MP client doesn't start, VC does connect and seems pretty quick. You mentioned using variables to keep track of active connection. I have read most of the wiki and a bunch of threads but not really come across anything on that subject. Could you point me in the right direction? Can I define and set my own variables in a similar way as in EG?

On the microphones, I haven't had much luck with Mobiola. It keeps disconnecting and re-connecting every couple of seconds. Possibly a networking issue or IOS issue. Pocket Audio is stable but the lag is too much. Not yet tried it with my conference mike.

Finally, my understanding is that iTunes control only works on the same machine as VC, correct? No biggie, I will switch to a different music solution if I have to.

[Kalle]

Quick update after last night´s test:

EG integration work perfectly, very easy to achieve and with your suggested port shifting command, I will be able to do everything I need.

MP was a bit more difficult to get to work. For some reason, MP won't start after I installed the WiFiRemote plugin, it hangs on "loading plugins". Didn't have time to fix it, will continue tonight. Based on the tests I did run, I would say however that your suggested IP shifting command should suffice. No need for different security settings or simultaneous connections. Even though the MP client doesn't start, VC does connect and seems pretty quick. You mentioned using variables to keep track of active connection. I have read most of the wiki and a bunch of threads but not really come across anything on that subject. Could you point me in the right direction? Can I define and set my own variables in a similar way as in EG?

On the microphones, I haven't had much luck with Mobiola. It keeps disconnecting and re-connecting every couple of seconds. Possibly a networking issue or IOS issue. Pocket Audio is stable but the lag is too much. Not yet tried it with my conference mike.

Finally, my understanding is that iTunes control only works on the same machine as VC, correct? No biggie, I will switch to a different music solution if I have to.

That sounds great for the first 
A good option for music is MediaMonkey, it is free and works perfect with VC.

Kalle

[jitterjames]

mediamonkey and iTunes are both controlled by VC only on the local machine.  However, since you are using eventGhost, you can control either iTunes or MediaMonkey that way.  

MediaMonkey is better in every way including:
A - the program
B - the integration with EG
C - the integration with VC

Don't know about your problems booting MP with wifiremote, but if you want help with that you should start posting version numbers for everything you are using.  you should really be using the lastest versions of MP, WifiRemote, and VC that you can find.

MP 1.2.2 or later (I think 1.2.3 is out)
WifiRemote 0.6  get it here: http://code.google.com/p/wifiremote/downloads/list
VC 0.946 get it here: http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=787.0

[jitterjames]

Here's how you use user variables. (Import the attached group into your tree).

In this example, I've accessed the variable in the same command that set it, but it should remember its value for as long as VC is running, or until you set it to something else.

To be able to set a variable to something other than LastResult, as I have done in this example, requires that you use 0.946 or later.

[jitterjames]

update the files in VoxFolder\plugins\MpWifi with the ones in the attached rar

then you will be able (hopefully) to change MP machines using the connect command, passing the IP of the MP machine as the first parameter.

edit: plugin remove, see link below...

[mickelin]

Brilliant, you are the best! I will try these on Friday when I get back from a business trip.

My MP startup problems went away after uninstall and re-install of WiFiremote. I didn't install Bonjour the first time, didn't think that was needed since I'm addressing directly. But maybe that caused confusion somewhere. Anyway, all is good now.

 I'm using MP 1.2.2, WiFiRemote 0.6.1 on XP SP3 and VC 0.939 ( which I thought was the latest, I will swap to 0.946 asap) on win7 Ultimate.

Again, thanks for your incredible support!

Cheers,
Michael

[jitterjames]

Always a pleasure, especially when it's appreciated.  It will take slightly longer to get to the eventGhost changes since they are in the core program and I have some other things to clean up first.  soon though...

[mickelin]

No rush, I have plenty to play with now!

[jitterjames]

I updated the plugin again, just a little bugfix for connecting from the plugin options page.

I put it where it belongs, in the MP board.

http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=794

[mickelin]

Great, I'll test and feed back in that thread, and return here when you have published the EG port switch command. I will post my findings with the conference mic in the microphone section. Looking forward to an exciting weekend, also have some new hardware to play with!

[mickelin]

Hi James,

Working great now with four Mediaportal clients. Any updates on the EventGhost port switching command?

Cheers,
Michael

[jitterjames]

I added this feature in 0.950 which I posted on April 21st.  Sorry you missed it 

http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=797.0

you now have 2 new commands:

EventGhost.SetIP
EventGhost.SetPort

the command EventGhost by itself is being deprecated, you should now use

EventGhost.Send

[mickelin]

Brilliant, I need to pay more attention