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With a microphone on Readout’s screen, the Pi can listen for sounds someone who doesn’t hear them would want to know of:

The doorbell

Knocking

A smoke or fire alarm

A phone ringing

A baby crying

A dog barking

Choose which in Menu → Sounds and flashing, in the column for that screen. It listens for none until you choose some.

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When it hears one

  • On the screen, over whatever it shows, it flashes three times, slowly, and a yellow banner says what it was (“The doorbell rang”) for 15 seconds.
  • TVs showing captions flash and say so too, and an LG showing something else gets a pop-up.
  • Lights flash: the ones chosen for that sound in Sounds and flashing.
  • Phones that turned on A sound the Raspberry Pi heard in Menu → Notifications are told.
  • Activity says so, such as “Living room heard the doorbell”. A smoke or fire alarm is a warning.
What it hears stays on the Pi. It never records or sends sound: Readout only hears which of the six it was.

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Shows on TV

Doorbells and phones ring in TV shows too. So while the TV is playing something of its own, only an alarm counts, once it has gone on for about 8 seconds. Each sound is told once a minute at most.