announcer

What This Skill Does

The Announcer skill for OpenClaw provides a sophisticated text-to-speech (TTS) interface for your home environment. By leveraging the high-fidelity synthesis capabilities of ElevenLabs and the robust audio routing engine of Airfoil, this skill transforms your existing AirPlay-compatible hardware into a multi-room notification system. Unlike standard smart speaker notifications, this skill allows for granular control over which speakers are activated, the tone of the voice used, and the addition of a physical gong chime for auditory awareness, ensuring that announcements are both professional and attention-grabbing.

Installation

To integrate the Announcer skill into your OpenClaw environment, execute the following command in your terminal: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/odrobnik/announcer. After installation, navigate to the local configuration directory located at ~/clawd/announcer/config.json. Here, you must map your preferred AirPlay speakers, define your ElevenLabs API credentials, and configure your desired voice profile to ensure the audio stream is correctly routed to your target devices.

Use Cases

This skill is ideal for smart home enthusiasts looking to bridge the gap between digital automation and physical presence. Common use cases include: triggering time-sensitive alerts (e.g., "The laundry cycle is complete"), scheduled wake-up routines that play pleasant, synthesized morning briefings throughout the bedroom and kitchen, or security notifications that announce if a gate or door has been opened unexpectedly. By using Airfoil, the system can sync audio across multiple rooms perfectly, creating a unified home audio broadcast experience.

Example Prompts

1. "Announce to the entire house that it is time to leave for the airport in five minutes."
2. "Play a wake-up announcement in the kids' room with the morning weather report."
3. "Quietly notify the living room speakers that my coffee is ready without playing the chime."

Tips & Limitations

The Announcer skill is dependent on your network stability and the responsiveness of Airfoil. For best results, ensure your AirPlay devices are connected to a high-speed, 5GHz Wi-Fi network to prevent audio clipping during synthesis playback. Note that while ElevenLabs provides extremely realistic speech, it requires an active internet connection to generate the audio files. If you are running multiple simultaneous announcements, the system may queue them to prevent audio buffer conflicts on your Airfoil server. Always maintain an updated config.json to ensure your speaker names match the actual AirPlay labels exactly.