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?

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[–] grapemix@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Nednarb44@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Well in my scenario, both locations would be fixed, so I'm not really concerned about finding locations.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Yeah that's the problem, there are corporate options for corporate prices, but home intercoms have more or less disappeared with the advent of cell phones that everybody just has on them anyway.

I just put Amazon devices in most of the populated areas of the house and use broadcast, but honestly we rarely use them it's a lot easier just to text somebody.

One might consider getting some older phones mounting them in locations bringing power to them and running walkie talkie software.