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EntraLane Docs

Audio Playback & Voice Announcements (FAQ)

Clear acoustic callouts are essential in any busy waiting area. EntraLane combines two audio layers on the TV Call Display (/display):

  1. Zero-Latency Synthesized Chimes (audioPing): Generated directly inside the browser using the Web Audio API (Harmonic Chime, Ding-Dong, Reception Bell, Digital Ping, Gentle Tri-tone, or None).
  2. Spoken Voice Callouts (voiceCall): Uses the browser’s Web Speech API (window.speechSynthesis) to announce the ticket number, localized mnemonic word, and target desk in English (en-US) or German (de-DE) with a Female or Male voice profile.

Below are answers and solutions to the most common questions about setting up TV audio.

1. Why is my TV Call Screen silent after booting up? (Browser Autoplay Policy)

The Cause

Modern web browsers (Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox, and Android WebView) enforce strict Autoplay Policies: they start the browser’s AudioContext in a suspended state and block unprompted audio until a user clicks, taps, or presses a key on the page at least once.

When EntraLane detects that the browser is blocking audio, it automatically displays a pulsing amber “Enable Audio” (Ton aktivieren) pill in the top-right toolbar of the TV Display.

Immediate Fix (Manual)

Click or tap the “Enable Audio” pill in the top-right corner of the TV screen (or press the OK / Enter button on your TV remote). Audio unlocks immediately for the rest of the browser session and the warning pill disappears.

Permanent Unattended Fix (For Kiosk / Auto-Boot Setups)

So your TV Call Display plays chimes and voice announcements automatically after a morning power cycle with zero manual clicks, configure one of the following permanent overrides:

Launch Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or Chromium on your TV Mini-PC / Raspberry Pi with the --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required command-line flag:

Terminal window
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --kiosk "https://entralane.com/display/YOUR-DISPLAY-SLUG" --edge-kiosk-type=fullscreen --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required --no-first-run

2. Why does the chime play, but no spoken voice announcement is heard (especially on Smart TVs)?

The Cause

  • The Audio Chime (audioPing) is synthesized mathematically via the browser’s Web Audio API and works on virtually any device with speakers.
  • The Spoken Voice Callout (voiceCall) relies on the operating system and browser providing a Text-to-Speech (window.speechSynthesis) engine with installed English or German voice packs.
  • Smart TV Limitation: Built-in web browsers on many consumer Smart TVs (Samsung Tizen, LG webOS, Amazon Fire TV Silk, Hisense Vidaa) strip out OS-level Text-to-Speech engines to save firmware space. As a result, speechSynthesis has 0 available voices.
  • Automatic Acoustic Chime Fallback: EntraLane continuously monitors window.speechSynthesis availability (including a 1.8 s start watchdog for embedded TV WebViews). If a TV browser lacks native voice synthesis:
    • When an Audio-Ping Sound (audioPing) is already enabled (e.g. Harmonic Chime or Ding-Dong), the TV cleanly plays that configured chime once without double-triggering.
    • When Audio-Ping Sound is set to None (none) and only Voice Call (voiceCall) is enabled, EntraLane automatically falls back to playing a single Harmonic Chime via the Web Audio API so ticket calls are never completely silent on that TV.

The Fix

If you want spoken voice announcements (“Ticket A-014, Silver Fox, please proceed to Desk 2”) on your waiting room TV, plug a compact external device into the TV’s HDMI port:

  1. Windows 10/11 Mini-PC running Microsoft Edge (Recommended — includes studio-grade Microsoft Natural Neural TTS voices out of the box).
  2. Android TV / Google TV Box (e.g., Chromecast with Google TV, Xiaomi TV Box — uses Google Speech Services).
  3. Apple Mac Mini / iPad via HDMI (uses high-quality Apple Siri/Enhanced voices).

3. How do I get natural-sounding voices instead of robotic desktop voices?

EntraLane includes an automatic Voice Quality Scoring Engine: whenever the TV Display starts, it inspects all English (en-*) and German (de-*) voices exposed by the browser and automatically prioritizes Natural / Neural / Online / Enhanced / Google voices (+150 score boost) while penalizing legacy offline SAPI desktop voices.

How to Get the Best Voice Quality:

  • On Windows 10 / 11: Run your TV Display inside Microsoft Edge! Microsoft Edge exposes free, cloud-backed Microsoft Natural (Neural) Voices (such as Microsoft Aria Online (Natural), Microsoft Guy Online (Natural), Microsoft Katja Online (Natural), and Microsoft Conrad Online (Natural)) directly to the Web Speech API.
  • On Google Chrome: Chrome uses Google US English / Google Deutsch online voices when connected to the internet, or falls back to local OS voices.
  • Installing Missing OS Language Voices on Windows: If your Windows PC is missing English or German TTS voices, open Windows Settings → Time & language → Speech and click Add voices under Manage voices.

4. How can I test the TV’s volume and voice remotely from my admin PC?

You don’t need to create fake tickets to test your waiting room speakers. EntraLane offers two built-in test triggers:

  1. From Device Management: Open Devices, click the action menu (⋮) next to your online TV Display, and select Test Audio. EntraLane sends a real-time SignalR command to the TV to play its configured chime and a sample voice callout immediately.
  2. Inside the TV Display Settings Dialog: Open the TV Display’s Edit dialog and switch to the Audio tab. You can:
    • Click Preview Locally to hear the selected chime and voice on your own computer, or
    • Click Test on Device to play the selected combination live on the physical TV in your waiting area.

5. Why did HDMI audio stop working after the TV was turned off overnight?

When a television is powered off with its remote while the connected Mini-PC stays on, Windows may temporarily lose the HDMI audio handshake or switch to an internal dummy speaker:

  1. On your Mini-PC, open Windows Sound Settings and disable all unused audio output devices so only the HDMI TV Audio Output remains enabled.
  2. If a browser tab ever loses its audio output handle after an HDMI power cycle, you can refresh the TV remotely from your desk via Devices → ⋮ → Reload Device.