[Asterisk-Users] Room Monitor

[Walt Reed]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 10:01:37AM -0500, Jim Flagg said:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Greg Hill"
> To: <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 9:24 PM
> Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Room Monitor
> 
> 
> > On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Jamin W. Collins wrote:
> > 
> > > On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 10:04:02PM -0800, David Liu wrote:
> > > > Well use a Polycom IP 500 and put to auto answer and ringer off.  Then you
> > > > can use it as a room monitor device.
> > >
> > > Seems like that could do the trick.  However, I was hoping for a sub
> > > $200 solution.  Anyone know of a less expensive solution?
> > 
> > If you've got an old PC lying around collecting dust (probably most of us
> > do!) then you could install asterisk on it, configure it for auto-answer
> > on the console, and then hook it up to your main asterisk server via
> > sip/iax/whatever. Maybe best if it's got a quiet power supply fan.. then
> > again, maybe the baby will appreciate the background noise.
> 
> Or even easier, get a microphone and  run the wire back to the sound card
> of your Asterisk computer.
> 
> Depending on distance you may need an audio amplifier/extender.

Hmm. Is it just me, or does this sound like a sledgehammer for a
thumbtack kind of application?

Radioshack has cheap intercoms that work fairly well. They have 900Mhz
wireless and FM over powerline versions. Most cheap baby monitors are in
the 27Mhz band which sucks and is very prone to static. They are also
made for $3 in china with NO QA and horrible parts using 1970's
technology.

A couple years ago, I also used a siemens cordless gigaset that had a
room monitor function. When the baby made noise it called another
intercom extension. This only worked for gigaset to gigaset and didn't
go over the normal phoneline. 

You may also want to look at a better model of intercom.
http://www.fisher-price.com/us/babygear/product.asp?id=17605&c=bgm
Uses 900Mhz.