openHAB

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# Polly Text-to-Speech

PollyTTS is a voice service utilizing the Internet based text-to-speech (TTS) service Amazon Polly (opens new window). The service generates speech from both plain text input and text with Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) tags (opens new window). There are servers set in various geographic regions (opens new window). API keys provided by Amazon are required to get access to the service. Amazon Polly has a wide selection of voices and languages (opens new window). Be aware, that using this service may incur costs on your AWS account. You can find pricing information on the documentation page (opens new window).

# Obtaining Credentials

When you sign up for AWS, your account is automatically signed up for all services in AWS, including Amazon Polly.

Services in AWS, such as Amazon Polly, require that you provide credentials when you access them so that the service can determine whether you have permissions to access the resources owned by that service. Within the AWS console, you can create access keys for your AWS account to access the Polly API.

To use the service you will need the access key, secret key and server region.

# Configuration

The following settings can be edited in UI (Settings / Other Services - Polly Text-to-Speech):

  • Access Key - The AWS credentials access key (required).
  • Secret Key - The AWS credentials secret key (required).
  • Service Region - The service region used for accessing Polly (required). To reduce latency select the region closest to you. E.g. "eu-west-1" (see regions (opens new window))
  • Audio Format - Allows for overriding the system default audio format.

Use "default" to select the system default audio format. The default audio format can be overriden with the value "mp3" or "ogg".

In case you would like to setup the service via a text file, create a new file in $OPENHAB_ROOT/conf/services named pollytts.cfg

Its contents should look similar to:

org.openhab.voice.pollytts:accessKey=ACCESS_KEY
org.openhab.voice.pollytts:secretKey=SECRET_KEY
org.openhab.voice.pollytts:serviceRegion=eu-west-1
org.openhab.voice.pollytts:audioFormat=default

# Default Text-to-Speech and Voice Configuration

You can setup your preferred default Text-to-Speech and default voice in the UI:

  • Go to Settings.
  • Edit System Services - Voice.
  • Set PollyTTS as Default Text-to-Speech.
  • Choose your preferred Default Voice for your setup.

In case you would like to setup these settings via a text file, you can edit the file runtime.cfg in $OPENHAB_ROOT/conf/services and set the following entries:

org.openhab.voice:defaultTTS=pollytts
org.openhab.voice:defaultVoice=pollytts:Joanne

# Caching

The PolyTTS service uses the openHAB TTS cache to cache audio files produced from the most recent queries in order to reduce traffic, improve performance and reduce number of requests.

# Rule Examples

say("Hello there")  
say("Hello there", "pollytts:Joanne", "enhancedjavasound")  
say("" + item.state, "pollytts:Joey", "enhancedjavasound")  
say("<speak>Children, come to dinner <prosody volume='x-loud'>Right now!</prosody></speak>")
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