Make audio announcements

Last modified: Thursday October 02, 2025.

If you have speakers connected to your Alta solution, you can make audio announcements from Video view, Devices, Map view, and pop-up notifications. You can make live announcements through a microphone, play prerecorded audio clips, or a combination of both.

Before you start

  • Add speakers to your Alta apps and associate them with cameras. See Add speakers to the Alta Platform
  • Configure the audio settings of your Alta apps and add a microphone to make live announcements. See Audio options in Alta Video.
  • To make announcements from Map view, add your speakers or associated cameras to a map. See Configuring Map view.
  • To make announcements directly from alarm notifications, create rules using cameras associated with speakers and set pop-up notifications as a triggered alarm action. See Alta Video rule types.

Make announcements from a speaker

  1. Select the required speaker or associated camera:
    1. In Video view, you can drag a speaker directly into a view pane or open a view containing an associated camera.
    2. In the Devices tool, open the Speakers tab and select the required speaker.
    3. In map view, click on the required speaker or associated camera.
    4. From a pop-up alert, you can access the speaker from the video pane.
  2. To make a microphone announcement:
    1. Click and hold the Microphone button Push-to-talk (PTT) button and speak into the connected microphone.
      1. From cameras, click the Audio announcements icon Audio announcements icon to display the push-to-talk icon.
      2. If you do not see a response to your voice levels, check that the microphone is correctly connected and configured.
      3. If you do not see the Microphone volume icon showing green in response to your voice levels, check the microphone is correctly connected and configured.
      4. Check the status of the speaker in the side panel. It cannot be selected if it is already in use or is in an error state. See, Speaker states.
    2. When you have finished speaking, release the PTT button.
  3. To play an audio clip, open the dropdown audio announce button and click play audio clip button for the required sound. See Audio library for announcements and alarms.

Make bulk announcements from a speaker

  1. From the toolbar, open new tool button > devices button Devices.
  2. Hover over devices button Devices and select Speakers.
  3. Select the required speakers.
  4. Click bulk announce button Bulk announcement.
  5. Click and hold Microphone button Start live announcement and speak into the microphone.

Speaker states

The status of a speaker is shown in the side panel and can be Announcing, Not announcing, or Auto announcing. A speaker can also be in an error state and unable to make announcements.

When making bulk announcements, grey speaker icon shows a selected speaker is unavailable. Click the icon for more information.

If a speaker is already in use, subsequent users or actions cannot use that speaker.