AXIS Speaker Functionality for Singlewire InformaCast® - User manual

Singlewire InformaCast® is a platform that allows you to send out emergency messages and other communication with the technology your organization already has in place, including Axis network speakers. InformaCast mass notification system delivers intrusive and attention-getting audio alerts throughout your facility. AXIS Speaker Functionality for Singlewire InformaCast allows you to connect your Axis devices to your Singlewire InformaCast infrastructure. The application can be used on Axis network speakers after you purchase a license and install the application through AXIS Device Manager. 

1. Run AXIS Device Manager Client.

2. • To download and install AXIS Device Manager, go to axis.com/products/axis-device-manager.

3. When AXIS Device Manager starts, it automatically searches for devices.

4. 1. To manually search, click .

   2. If no devices are found, do an inspection of your network configuration.

   3. If the application informs you that some devices have old firmware, click the link to upgrade to the latest firmware.

   4. Select the devices you want to add, click Next, and then click Finish.

5. Set a password for the devices:

6. 1. Select all your devices and click .

   2. Enter username and password, and click OK.

The device password is the primary protection for your data and services. Axis devices do not impose a password policy as they may be used in various types of installations.

To protect your data we strongly recommend that you:

• Use a password with at least 8 characters, preferably created by a password generator.

• Don’t expose the password.

• Change the password at a recurring interval, at least once a year.

1. In AXIS Device Manager, click to create a system report.

2. Open the .csv in a program other than Microsoft® Excel®. 

3. Edit the .csv file.

4. Go to license key registration to generate keys from the license code. Go to axis.com/support/license-key-registration#/registration/batch.

5. Upload the .csv file from AXIS Device Manager.

   The system generates license keys that you can download.

6. To download the license keys, click Download the result as zip.

7. Extract the .zip file.

8. Download AXIS Speaker Functionality for Singlewire InformaCast for your device from axis.com/products/axis-speaker-functionality-for-singlewire-informacast.

9. Add the application to the device.

10. Go to the InformaCast portal to control that the devices were added.

1. Remove all data except for the MAC address on the devices you want to license.

2. Enter 'code' and 'device' in the first row. The format must be code,device. 

3. Enter the license code and the MAC address on the following rows. The format must be license code,MAC address.

Example

row 1: code,device

row 2: ABC1D-23EFG-H4IJ5-KL6MN,ABC0123DEFA4

row 3: ABC1D-23EFG-H4IJ5-KL67M,ABC123DE4FAB

1. Select your devices.

2. Click .

3. Click Browse to find and select the downloaded application.

4. Click Next.

5. When asked to install the application, select Yes and click Next.

6. Click Browse to find the license key file. Select the license key files for your selected devices. The connected MAC address is in the file name.

7. Click Next and Finish.

8. In the device web interface, go to Apps to start the application.

9. Redo if you want to set up other device models.

In addition to the elements specified by Singlewire, you can add Axis-specific elements to the IP speaker configuration file (InformaCastSpeaker.cfg) to configure features specific to Axis devices or customize their behavior. The following features can be configured:

• Display settings - how the display behaves when there is no message to display.

• Actions connected to broadcasts - control flashers, sirens and text appearance.

All Axis specific settings are enclosed inside the AxisConfig tag, for example DisplaySettings or Actions. The AxisConfig element is versioned and supports targeting both devices with specific product numbers and individual devices, and can therefore occur several times.

Example

<!-- Default config -->
<AxisConfig version="1"></AxisConfig>
 
<!-- Product specific config -->
<AxisConfig version="1" product-number="c1110-e"></AxisConfig>
 
<!-- Device specific config -->
<AxisConfig version="1" mac-address="accc8e000000"></AxisConfig>

The display settings section defines how the display behaves when no message is displayed on the device.

Example

DisplaySettings where idle display is shown in accordance with a schedule:

<DisplaySettings>
  <Brightness adaptive-brightness="true" max-adaptive-level="7" min-adaptive-level="5" manual-level="6"/>
  <IdleScreen>
    <Appearance use-24-hour-clock="true" show-date="true" show-seconds="true" background-color="#d5df2a" font-color="#29d997" language="en"/>
    <Schedule invert="false">
      <Recurrence>
        <Daily start-time="09:00" end-time="21:30" mon="true" tue="true" fri="true"/>
      </Recurrence>
    </Schedule>
  </IdleScreen>
</DisplaySettings>

Example

DisplaySettings where idle display is shown when presence is detected:

<DisplaySettings>
  <Brightness adaptive-brightness="true" max-adaptive-level="7" min-adaptive-level="5" manual-level="6"/>
  <IdleScreen>
    <Appearance use-24-hour-clock="true" show-date="true" show-seconds="true" background-color="#d5df2a" font-color="#29d997" language="en"/>
    <PresenceDetection timeout-minutes="10" />
  </IdleScreen>
</DisplaySettings>

You can define actions connected to broadcasts that control flashers, sirens, and text colors. Each InformaCast broadcast, except for text-only messages, has a priority level. This priority determines which action to use. For text-only messages, a special text-only action applies. If multiple broadcasts occur simultaneously, only the action for the highest-priority broadcast is used. When activating sirens and lights, text-only messages are considered low-priority. As a result, a text-only message won't interrupt the siren and light action of an ongoing broadcast. However, the text message will be displayed using the settings associated with text-only messages.

• Text appearance

  The colors of the text and background, and the number of rows, can be specified for any action.

• Siren and Light

  You can use the siren and light functionality to activate flashers and sirens on devices equipped with these features. You can either apply predefined profiles created in the device's web interface or specify which functions to activate directly. The available functions and patterns vary depending on the device. To determine what's available on each device, you can use the Siren and Light VAPIX API.

Example

An action that sets both text color and activates the Blink pattern on the SignalingLED function for priority 1 and 2 broadcasts:

<AudioAction start-prio="1" end-prio="2">
  <TextAppearance text-color="#ff0000" background-color="#000000" number-of-rows="2" />
  <SirenAndLight>
    <Functions>
      <Function name="SignalingLED" pattern="Blink" speed="3" intensity="5">
        <Colors>
          <Color>blue</Color>
          <Color>green</Color>
        </Colors>
      </Function>
    </Functions>
  </SirenAndLight>
</AudioAction>

This is an example of a complete configuration file that defines one default configuration and one that is only used by an AXIS C1710 device:

<InformaCastSpeakerConfiguration>
  <Servers registration-interval="5" capture-keepalive-seconds="2">
    <InformaCast url="http://123.45.67.89:8081/InformaCast/admin?cmd=spkr" />
  </Servers>
 
  <!-- Default config -->
  <AxisConfig version="1">
    <Actions>
      <AudioAction start-prio="1" end-prio="2">
        <TextAppearance text-color="#ff0000" background-color="#000000" />
        <SirenAndLight>
          <Functions>
            <Function name="SignalingLED" pattern="Alternate" speed="3" intensity="5">
              <Colors>
                <Color>red</Color>
                <Color>green</Color>
              </Colors>
            </Function>
          </Functions>
        </SirenAndLight>
      </AudioAction>
 
      <AudioAction start-prio="3" end-prio="100">
        <TextAppearance text-color="#00ff00" background-color="#ffffff" number-of-rows="3" />
      </AudioAction>
 
      <TextOnlyAction>
        <TextAppearance text-color="#0000ff" background-color="#ffffff" />
      </TextOnlyAction>
    </Actions>
 
    <DisplaySettings>
      <Brightness adaptive-brightness="true" max-adaptive-level="7" min-adaptive-level="5" manual-level="6"/>
      <IdleScreen>
        <Appearance use-24-hour-clock="true" show-date="true" show-seconds="true" background-color="#d5df2a" font-color="#29d997" language="en"/>
        <AlwaysOn/>
      </IdleScreen>
    </DisplaySettings>
  </AxisConfig>
 
<!-- Config that only applies to a C1710 device -->
  <AxisConfig version="1" product-number="C1710">
    <Actions>
      <AudioAction start-prio="1" end-prio="10">
        <TextAppearance text-color="#ff7800" background-color="#000000" />
        <SirenAndLight>
          <Functions>
            <Function name="SignalingLED" pattern="Alternate" speed="3" intensity="5">
              <Colors>
                <Color>red</Color>
                <Color>blue</Color>
             </Colors>
            </Function>
          </Functions>
        </SirenAndLight>
      </AudioAction>

      <TextOnlyAction>
        <TextAppearance text-color="#99c1f1" background-color="#000000" />
        <SirenAndLight>
          <Functions>
            <Function name="SignalingLED" pattern="Steady" speed="1" intensity="1">
              <Colors>
                <Color>red</Color>
             </Colors>
            </Function>
          </Functions>
        </SirenAndLight>
      </TextOnlyAction>
    </Actions>
  </AxisConfig>
 
<!-- Config that only applies to device with specific MAC address -->
  <AxisConfig version="1" mac-address="accc8e000000">
    <Actions>
      <AudioAction start-prio="1" end-prio="10">
        <SirenAndLight>
          <Functions>
            <Function name="SignalingLED" pattern="Rotate" speed="3" intensity="5">
              <Colors>
                <Color>red</Color>
                <Color>blue</Color>
              </Colors>
            </Function>
            <Function name="siren" pattern="Alarm: Car alarm" intensity="2" />
          </Functions>
        </SirenAndLight>
      </AudioAction>
    </Actions>
  </AxisConfig>
 
</InformaCastSpeakerConfiguration>

The Axis specific configuration is contained in an element named AxisConfig, that is placed inside the InformaCastSpeakerConfiguration element. The AxisConfig element is versioned and supports targeting both devices with a specific product number and individual devices, and can therefore occur several times.

AxisConfig

An AxisConfig element without product-number and mac-address is considered the default configuration. The AxisConfig elements are used in order of precedence, where mac-address is the highest and default is the lowest.

Actions

Defines a list of actions

TextOnlyAction

During a text-only broadcast the actions defined by the child elements will be applied for the duration of the text.

AudioAction

Overlapping priority ranges between actions are not allowed. If the priority interval matches the priority of a broadcast the actions defined by the child elements will be applied during the duration of that broadcast.

TextAppearance

Defines the text and background colors for text messages. Does not affect the display if no text message is present in the broadcast.

SirenAndLight

Defines how the siren and light functionality should be activated during a broadcast. Can be either a predefined profile on the device or a list of functions to activate.

Profile

Function

Specifies a function to activate. For details, see Siren and light VAPIX documentation. Which functions and patterns that are available are device dependent.

Colors

List of colors used by a pattern.

Color

DisplaySettings

Settings for the display when no message is displayed.

Brightness

Appearance

Controls the appearance of the display when no message is displayed.

IdleScreen

Selects the mode of the display when idle.

AlwaysOn

The display is always on.

AlwaysOff

The display is always off.

Schedule

Turns the display on and off based on a schedule.

PresenceDetection

Recurrence

Selects daily or weekly schedule.

Daily

Creates a schedule that is active between specific hours on selected days.

Weekly

Creates a schedule that is active from start day to end day at the specified hours.

If you need more help, go to axis.com/support.