Looking for suggestion on how to build an 'intercom'

My first project is getting close to being finished and for the next project I want to build a communication device within our house, preferably ‘powered by blynk’.
The problem is that we have 4 floors and a teenager with headphones playing fortnite on the 4th floor, getting his attention is a pain and when we have it its still a pain to communicate.

The ideal situation:

  1. have a ‘box’ in his room that grabs his attention with a loud ‘beep’ and then allows 2 way voice communication
  2. communicate with that ‘box’ in two ways:
    a. with phone through the blynk app
    b. with another box on the ground floor.

(in case people suggest giving him a phone: he already has one and its usual state is either:

  • empty
  • silent/flightmode
  • downstairs)

Now I’m aware that voice communication with blynk is not possible, best option is using the streaming widget and set something up through the server. Let me say though that it would be a nice feature if sound can be transmitted with the blynk app (e.g. for a door intercom).

Hence the question is: how to build this in Blynk?

Online, the best I could find was:


which is a rather crappy solution and moreover doesn’t involve blynk, nor a phone.

Obviously I have give this some thought as well and so far the best I could think of:

  • ‘the box’ consists out of an ESP8266, a speaker, an amplifier, a button and an LCD screen.
  • the blynk app consists out of a text entry field and a button.

from the app you can enter text (or select some ‘default’ texts) and hit a ‘send’ button.
Then on the box a beep sounds every 5s until the button is hit and on the LCD the message is displayed.
When ‘the button’ is hit, the app shows a ‘received’ message.

I’m however open to suggestions to do this better or differently or easier or if you just have a cool thought…please let me know.

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okay, i gave it some thought ad here’s what i think.

  1. ideally i would use a Rpi Zero W because i won’t trust esp for reliable voice communications
  2. rpi is more suitable because since you plan to use a text field in the blynk dashboard so you need some sort of text to speach conversion. using google’s api you can do that. you could also use some dropdown menu in blynk app for quick messages.
  3. however if you do insist on using an esp8266 then just hack into an existing intercom system and use opto-isolators or something like those and create a function that triggers the buzzer and then triggers listening mode and the message is conveyed but using that would still not be ideal
    these are the things that i think should be ideal

or just buy 2 amazon echo devices and use its drop in system

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what do you think about connect blynk to an videophone 5 wires already in place?

possible or not ?

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Thank you both for the swift replies!

thats always an option, I have some esps lying around so I thought to start with those, if that doesnt work I can always change

I might not have been completely clear, I thought of entering a text in the blynk app and showing it on an LCD on ‘the box’ so no voice whatsoever. However…that’s a really cewl idea, I’ll need to check that out.

this sounds less ideal, still worth checkng out though.

I have absolutely no idea whether that’s possible, however I don’t see how the blynk app can do anything with those? Its not possible to do vid or sound (don’t want to do vid anyway though) through the blynk app.

using ESP to communicate with text is okay but if you want to go the voice route then esp8266 is something i won’t trust

Agreed that you really don’t want to see what’s going off in a teenager’s room, but there is a video streaming widget. I can’t remember if it does sound, but if it does then it’s only one way (camera to phone).

Maybe you need one of those strobes that so bright that it seems like it’s connected directly to the optic nerve, plus one of those fire alarm sirens that make your ears bleed. That should get his attention, and might be handy as an alarm clock/get out of bed device too!

Pete.

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hell yeah! You got teenagers yourself or have you recently been one?

Neither I’m afraid. 15 tears since our daughter was a teenager - but some experiences leave their mark!

Pete.

that’s a nice Freudian mistype!

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:cry::cry::cry:

You can either wire his bed with some high voltage which will definitely get his attention or hack one of these… link

thanks!
two interesting facts:

  • I’ve actually seen a program a while back, something like ‘people with ticks (quirks)’ and one guy had 220v connected to the steel frame of his bed and to his alarm, so he knew he had to get up before it went off.
  • Our teenager doesn’t have an issue with getting out of bed :open_mouth: but with hearing us when he’s ‘locked’ behind his PC with headphones…

The link is interesting, but I don’t want video!

Use a RasPi Zero W. It is small, cheap, and has WiFi capabilities making it the perfect choice for your project.

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yep that would be great