Open Source @lemmy.ml Nednarb44 @lemmy.world 2mo ago

Looking for Suggestions for an Intercom

I'm looking for a better, more private solution to an intercom I have between the house and my barn. I have Ethernet run out there, and I currently use the "drop-in" feature on some Amazon echo devices. I'm looking to get away from the Amazon devices entirely (maybe implementing the pine speaker they announced?)

I don't have a lot of requirements, though VoIP would be preferred over a radio style, since it's a metal barn and blocks a lot of signals. I'm good with some self hosted solution, and ideally there's a dedicated device, as I don't want to use my phone or computer for it all the time. I'm probably missing some obvious solution, but figured I'd try to get some ideas together.

Thoughts?

28 comments

Look into asterix

https://www.voip-info.org/asterisk-paging-and-intercom/

You should be able to pick up voip phones relatively cheaply these days with all of the commercial offices going to remote.
- That looks pretty good. Looks like a lot of information to parse through, reading up now, thanks!
  
  But you need to know where your family/friend are. Or can the system broadcast to multiple locations?
  
  I saw some companies develop modern walkie talkie solution without wifi nor mobile signal for emergency rescue or expedition. But they are expensive.
- expanding on this, depending on technical skill level:
  
  i’d probably get some SBCs like raspberry pi (or cheaper; raspberry pi is probably overkill here!) to be the terminals, run asterisk and have an extension for each terminal… run a voip client that automatically picks up any call it receives, and connects to a mic & speaker, connect a button to GPIO and write a script to call a conference extension for all devices (or multiple buttons for multiple extensions to call individual locations)… i’d probably add a second button for a “call back”-like feature - a terminal broadcasts a message and there’s a button to reply only to the terminal the last call was from
  
  this would allow you to use phones as terminals too - even receiving “calls”, although in that case the caller would have to wait for the phone user to pick up - just like a regular phone. probably more useful as a transmitter
  
  all of these things aren’t super difficult in isolation - probably setting up asterisk is the hardest part
  
  Or just bury another line. Connect to speaker to each end, put a small mic/amplifier/push button on each end
  
  ;)
The ESP32 is a pretty versatile chip. Here's a walkie-talkie someone made from one
- Esp32 is very suitable but they jumped through a lot of hoops to recreate the ESP audio development boards you can buy for very little money with all of those parts already built in.
  
  Ooh, name me some please!
You've already run wires, why not a microphone and speaker system?
- I could I guess? What would that look like? Just mic and speakers wired over Ethernet and just always on but with a hardware switch or something? Or connected to something like a Raspberry pi running some software to talk with the other pi?
  
  From Amazon, I found "IS543 5/4/3 WIRE INTERCOM STAT-PLAST"
  
  It's similar to what we had growing up, 1 in the shed, 1 in the kitchen 1 in the game room, push the button of the location you wanted to talk to, only 1 direction of communication at a time, over.
  
  I feel like you're making it way more complicated than it needs to be, why would you involve a switch or processor when you're just carrying sound waves? You don't even need a modulator, it just needs to connect a microphone to a speaker like cans on a string. Is it the highest quality? No, will it record your conversation for posterity? Also no. Will it let you tell at someone to get their asses in for dinner, absolutely
Your phone
- I guess any used android smartphone should have plenty of apps. Then you can even have video com
Look into Alphone, they have many different intercom products. I'm a low voltage electrician and could probably give you some actual companies to look into, besides Amazon.

If you have an ethernet cable out there you have quite a few choices, you could get voice/video very easily, or you can twist a few pairs together and get just voice. Truly depends exactly what you want.

Aiphone has a phone app, which can be run entirely locally which is what I prefer. Fuck cloud solutions.
- I appreciate the info and the offer! I won't be messing with the Ethernet since that's used for networking. I was mainly looking to hook up an IP phone or something easy, but assumed I couldn't just connect that to my network and needed something so the two phones would tie together.
Could go old school and build your own:

Page 66: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/AUSTRALIA/Electronics-Australia/EA-1992-07.pdf

Page 126: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/AUSTRALIA/ETI-Australia/90s/ETI-1990-01.pdf

28 comments