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Do they sell a fairly cheap device that generate sounds based on a trigger that's sent via network? I am thinking of writing a program that triggers a sound in another room when interesting event happens.

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3 Answers

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One possible way if a dedicated device is too expensive is a Raspberry Pi connected to a set of speakers. You could easily run some kind of program on the Pi that listens for a certain packet on a certain port.

Specifically, a USB sound card or USB speakers on the Pi along with something like MPD. If all you need is one tone, it could be even simpler than that.

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Thanks! Yes, what I need is one tone. But a Linux box seems like an overkill, no? Although looks like it's cheaper than Arduino suggested by @Renan – pixelfreak Jun 3 '12 at 3:21
@pixelfreak it's also more configurable. For example, you could have a timed alarm without needing another computer if you wanted. Or you could listen to SNMP logs from your router and trigger on certain alerts. It would also work well over the internet. – Bob Jun 3 '12 at 3:34
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If you have electronics skills, you might want to hack something with an Arduino and an Ethernet Shield. It should be possible to make a device that triggers a ringer or sound generator when a specific packet is received.

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Unfortunately, I don't have much of electrical engineering skill, more of a software engineer. But I'll look at the docs to see if it's easy enough to understand. Thanks! – pixelfreak Jun 3 '12 at 3:19
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Well, if the rooms arn't too far apart, get a cd rom drive and a wireless doorbell. Set up the doorbell such that the cd rom drive opening will trigger off the door bell, and have a script eject the cd drive, and set off the door bell. You could then trigger this off via some form of remote access (or maybe even iscsi).

Credit to dailywtf

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Lol, brilliant! – pixelfreak Jun 3 '12 at 21:16

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