Some soundmeters have the capability to record audio fragments. Only audio streaming devices that are coupled to a Sound Measurement Point can be listened to.
Enabling audio streaming
To start recording audio, the audio stream or recording needs to be enabled for that specific measurement point. This can be done in the edit screen of the measurement point, specifically the tab Audio Streaming.
Important: be sure to click on "Change audio stream" to apply any new settings!
Tip: If you do not want to use audio streaming at all, set both "Stream to platform" and "Record on sensor" to No.
Streaming and/or recording
Broadly speaking there are three ways to use the audio stream feature:
- Having the audio be recorded on the sensor, and downloading only certain pieces from the sensor to the platform, we call these pieces snippets.
We recommend using this method.* - Streaming based on a calendar (very handy when you want to always want to stream audio to the platform between certain hours of the day, no manual action needed)
- Continuously streaming to our platform (manually turning the stream on or off)
* not all devices support this feature.
The snippet feature is supported on our newest msspa and msspc devices. It allows you to only selectively download audio of interest which reduces the data usage of the sensor by a lot, when compared to a sensor that is continuously streaming audio to our platform.
Older versions of the msspa and our msnp devices just allow you to choose between streaming and not streaming.
Comparison between streaming to platform and recording on sensor.
| Audio streaming to platform | Audio recording on sensor (recommended) |
| + audio is directly available, in other words it can be listened to in near-real-time | + used a lot less bandwidth, which means you pay less |
| - audio can be lost when there is a network outage | + audio is available even if there is a network outage |
| - uses a lot of bandwidth, which you will have to pay for | - audio cannot be listened to directly, the audio first needs to be downloaded from the sensor to the platform, which takes some time |
Note that both options can be selected at the same time, although we recommend using audio recording.
How long and in what format will audio data be stored on my sensor?
Please refer to How long is audio stream data stored?
Playback
The recorded audio can be listened to and downloaded from the Graphics page.
Playback of audio stream
Select a property (for example LAeq,T) of the measurement point and plot a graph.
A green bar will show you for what periods there is streaming audio data available in the platform.
Now, make a selection in the graph. Two buttons will appear, allowing you to either play the audio or download it to your computer.
Playback of audio snippets
Playback of audio that is stored on the sensor works a little bit differently.
Since the audio data is stored on the sensor, and not in our platform, it cannot be listened to directly. It first needs to be downloaded from the sensor to our platform.
A yellow bar will show you for what periods there is audio data stored on the sensor.
Select the period you want to download in the graph. A new button will appear, click on that button to start the download from the sensor to the platform.
Important:
- This will happen in the background, you can safely close the portal website while a download is running.
- Make sure that the soundmeter is on to enable sending / downloading the audio that is stored on the sensor in the soundmeter to the platform.
- You may start multiple downloads at the same time, although they will not be downloaded simultaneously. They will be downloaded one after the other.
- Downloading will take some time. Please be patient.
A download will take slightly less time than the requested period that will be downloaded from the sensor. Meaning that a snippet of 10 minutes can take up to 10 minutes to be downloaded to the platform. - The graph will not automatically refresh to indicate that a snippet has been downloaded. You need to refresh the graph yourself by clicking on the Execute button.
When a snippet has been downloaded it will show up in a dark green bar:
You can now play this snippet. Click on the snippet in the dark green bar, it will turn blue.
From here you see the same buttons as you would get when playing audio stream that was streamed to the platform. You can play the snippet in your browser or download the file to your computer. Because the audio is now in our platform, this will be very fast.
For more information see how to properly install an audio streamer.
If you hear beeps in your audio please have a look at: I have a beep in my audiostream
For controlling the audio stream with a calendar, see: Using the calendar to control your audio stream
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