Fred's got the definitions of ducking and muting spot on.
On July 1, 2018 at 08:52, buzz said...
The Pi can handle very complex control strategies and be the source of the chime. Hardware costs would be minimal.
This is exactly what the software department says when they don't have enough work to keep everyone employed at the moment.
In the most basic schemes the power up delay of the amplifier will be an issue. You can work around this with a very small modular amplifier that the experimenters would use in their projects. Switch the speakers to this amplifier while the chime rings -- just pick an amplifier that starts up promptly. Even with all this fuss your hardware costs could be under $100.
The software department also omits a software labor estimate, just like this.
