3875

This speaking clock displays the time (hour and date) on a TFT screen and speaks them as vocal message at predefined times on a loud speaker.

Speaking clock

I developed last year the 3 displays clock using the Arduino IDE and an ATMega328. The time is displayed on a 320 x 240 TFT screen. This clock was published in the Elektor magazine.

An Elektor reader asked me to develop a speaking clock : new challenge ! This clock has to : 
  • Display the time on an round shield and hands, and a relevant predefined icon.
  • Operate like an ordinary alarm clock.
  • Setting of the time and date.
  • Speak the date and time at predefined times, and the current activity.
  • Speak the date, time and activity at any moment  by means of a push button.
  • Record the words that will be spoken later.

 At predefined times, or by pressing a button, this vocal clock will speak, for example : “Today is”, “twenty”, “five”,  “January”,  “it is”, “seven”, “hour”, “thirty”, “five”, “minutes”, “breakfast”, and a relevant icon is displayed.

 This speaking clock is made up of an ATMega 2560 for simple compatibility with Arduino IDE: it can be programmed using the USB or ISP port. Thus the software can be easily modified for other needs.
 I use a voicecorder I seek on internet. This module is equipped with an ISD1700 chip, a mike and push buttons. Add a little loud speaker. The vocal words are recorded - and saved - on this chip.

 The activities times are recorded in the ATMega2560 EEPROM. The time and date in the RTC are saved by the back-up battery.

 This clock will be useful for people who loose time and location reference, such as very young children, old people, or mentally disabled people.

 One interesting thing is that the vocal messages are recorded by a familiar person, and thus in your mother tongue.
 This speaking clock works fine now. I hope you will be interested.
/!\  the ISD1700 is very fragile, I killed 3 ISD1700 during this development !