Overview
The babyphone is a baby monitoring application that measures the audio noise level. If the volume exceeds a configurable threshold the phone initiates a call to a predefined phone number (the parents).
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the license, or (at your option) any later version.
Features
- measures audio level using the built in microphone
- allows setting of threshold for audio volume and time duration for triggering
- establishes a voice call to the predefined phone number on such event
- automatically accept incoming call from parent's phone to allow on demand monitoring of the baby
- to not wake up the baby, incoming calls are rejected during monitoring (configurable)
- if activated, inform the parents about missed calls (via SMS)
- optionally execute an arbitrary script as the action instead of initiating a phone call
Screenshots
N950, N9 / MeeGo
Screenshot of the Babyphone monitor and settings screen.
N900 / Maemo
Screenshot of the Babyphone monitor and settings screen.
Supported Systems
The application runs on the following systems:
- MeeGo Harmattan: Nokia N9, N950
- Maemo 5 Fremantle: Nokia N900
Since the development is done using Qt, porting the application to other Qt platforms like Symbian should be possible with reasonable effort.
Installation
MeeGo Harmattan
You can download Babyphone from Nokia Store.
Alternatively, you can use the following community repository.
Maemo 5
The installation follows the usual sequence for Maemo devices. The application is part of the extras repository, which is preconfigured.
A beta version may be available at extra-testing. For this you may need to activate the extra-testing application catalogue in the application manager on your N900 as described here:
Babyphone package information is available in Maemo's package management interface system.
Usage / Manual
General
After you start the application you must configure the parent's phone number on the top of the main screen. This phone number will be called in case of loud environment. You may enter the phone number directly or look up in your address book to select one.
The two graphs below display the audio measurements on the environment. The upper graph displays the audio level. Every time you see a red line the audio threshold is exceeded.
However, the phone does not call the parents already at the first loud audio sample. The noise need to be present for some time to be more resistant against noise. This is reflected by the bottom graph. The counter value is increased on loud noise and decreased if it is silent. As the gray threshold line gets exceeded the phone finally calls the parents.
After starting the application the program is monitoring the audio but does not initiate phone calls already. For this you need to activate the babyphone by clicking the button at the bottom. The active status will be indicated by changing the button's color to red.
As the babyphone established a phone call at high audio volume, you can take the call on your monitoring phone to hear your baby. As you hang-up the call the babyphone application gets active again and continues monitoring.
Adjusting the Settings
By pressing the application title on the top of the screen you get access to the application settings where you may want to adjust the parameters:
- Audio Amplification / Volume: If you increase this value the babyphone will be more sensitive to the audio level, which means it will trigger earlier. This settings will influence the upper audio graph. Notice that in the MeeGo version this configuration is accessible via the main screen as well as via the settings.
- Audio Duration Influence: If you increase this value the loud audio noise needs to be present only for a shorter time. Therefore a higher value makes the babyphone more sensitive. This settings will influence the lower audio graph. Notice that in the MeeGo version this configuration is accessible via the main screen as well as via the settings.
- Activation Delay: Once you activate the babyphone application you may not want to get immediately notified (e.g. when you produce noise while you leave the room). This setting allows you to specify a timeout until the application gets really active.
- Phone Recall Timeout: If you drop a received call due to high audio volume the babyphone application continues to monitor the audio level and will call you once again on audio trigger. To avoid a continuous sequence of calls one after each other the application has a timeout after each call. This timeout is specified by the phone recall timeout parameter.
- Call Setup Timeout: As the babyphone tries to call the parents but the parent's phone does not answer the call it will abort the call setup after this timeout. You may use this feature and set a short phone recall timeout to avoid getting into the parent's voice mailbox if you do not take the call.
- Handle Incoming Phone Calls: If you get called during the baby monitoring phase you phone will ring as usually. This may wake up your baby, which is probably not want you intend to. Therefore the babyphone application has a feature to reject any incoming phone call. Usually the caller will be redirected to your voice mailbox, depending on your phone line settings. By clicking the reject incoming phone calls checkbox you can enable this feature. This feature is active while babyphone is activated (red button).
Incoming calls from the parent's phone will not be rejected but taken. Therefore you can listen to your baby by calling it even if not notified by the babyphone! - Send SMS on Incoming Calls: Since you left your phone at your baby you will not recognize any incoming phone calls. If you activate this feature the babyphone application will send you an SMS to the parent's phone to notify you on the missed phone calls. This feature is active while babyphone is activated (red button).
- Show Call Statistic: If enabled you will see a summary of the calls the babyphone performed during the current activation period. The statistics is shown as you deactivate the monitoring. It is not shown if you just close the application. Notice that in the MeeGo version this configuration is not available and call statistics are always shown.
- Switch Profile to Silent: The babyphone application will change the phone profile to "silent" at startup and switch back the profile as you quit the application. This switch only gets active at the next invokation of the application.
- Disable Screen Auto Rotation [Maemo only]: When enabled the application will always be shown in landscape orientation and will not follow device orientation.
Advanced Settings
The application stores its settings in a config file at /home/user/.config/morawek.at/babyphone.conf. Few additional settings exist, which are not accessible via the graphical frontend but only via this settings file.
- No Graphs while Screen Locked (
view/disableGraphsWhileLocked, boolean, default: true): If this is set to false, the graphs continues to be updated even if the phone is locked and the screen disabled. This has the advantage that the audio level graphs are available immediately at screen unlock. If set to true the audio level graphs are not updated and start blank after unlocking the phone, which saves battery. - Execute Script on Audio Triggering (
application/notifyScript, string, default: ): With this setting you can specify a script to be executed instead of initiating a phone call. Please enter the absolute path to the script. Babyphone adds the parent's name and phone number as command arguments. The babyphone application is blocked during script execution and will not perform further notifications until the script exits. If you use a notification script you may also want to disable the handling of incoming phone calls and SMS feature to completely disable the phone functionality of the application.
Restrictions
Due to CPU processing load the battery will be drained faster while the babyphone application is executed. It yields an additional load of about 30-40 %. The majority of it comes from the pulseaudio audio capturing service and its analysis. The battery influence is not dramatically but recognizable.
Outlook
This is a list of considered upcoming features, which are not planned and implemented yet:
- support calling of Skype/GTalk contacts
- adaptive self-configuration of audio thresholds
- ...
Credits
Thanks to Anna Morawek for designing this website.
Thanks to the Tango Desktop Project for providing the application icon.
Thanks to the Spyphone project for inspiring me to develop this software.
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