Squeezebox Server and Vera - Part III: Cool ideas

[Ap15e]

Cool ideas

• 1. Hack the camera plugin to support volume-play-stop-next-prev (as suggested by 325xi).
  DIY: All you need is at Squeezebox Server and Vera - Part II: Using the SBS CLI and DIY: Support for Foscam FI8908[w] (pan, tilt, patrol).
  

• 2. Use the camera plugin hack from part I (http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=3604.msg17645#msg17645) and text2gif (or rrdtool or cairo or ...) to display more useful information like SBS status and currently playing song.
  

• 3. Play pre-recorded audio files (things get quite complicated if you are going to interrupt and resume the currently playing song for the announcement ...).
  

• 4. Use speech synthesis to play arbitrary announcements. MBROLA comes to mind (http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/), but I do not know whether the MBROLA binary for Vera's hardware platform (Vera V1: BCM5354 rev 2?) is available from the MBROLA project.
  

• 5. Display/Announce the caller ID/name of caller (via reverse number lookup).

• 6. Create a Squeezebox UI for Vera (see http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=1047.msg16168#msg16168) - no need for a SBS plugin (via subscription to button clicks on player's remote; problem: how to tell SBS to ignore the button clicks? ('irenable 0' disables the processing of ir commands completely, even the notifications) - solution: use an additional remote with different IR codes).
  Implementation (pre-beta): Call for testers of new UI for Squeezeboxes
  

• 7. Use the Squeezebox for displaying debug messages.

• 8. Plug an IR transmitter into the phones jack of your Squeezebox and send IR codes ("irblaster send <device> <button>").
  Implementation: Sending IR codes (SB2/3 and Transporter)

I have attached the SBS CLI interface specification (SBS 7.5.0), so you can get an idea what is possible (I couldn't convince my PDF converters to format the pages properly).