I have a friend with an office entry with two statues and the idea to place a button or possibly a motion sensor to play a prerecorded cd with one track or one passage with dialog pertaining to the two above mentioned pieces.....

His thoughts were possibly a touch panel, but this seemed too costly for just a simple system....

His other ideas ,and with my input ,related to a simple large button hard wired into the cd player to play that track each time the button is pressed.

Would a motion sensor allow this to happen so when people walked through it automatically played the track.

Im sure a relay would be possible to to close a circuit and push play with each motion sensed may cause certain cd players to toggle play/pause....
I could also leave the receiver on a timer to come on and already be set at volume and input so only the play command is necessary....


Just fishing for some ideas.....

Thanks

A motion sensor could do the trick, closing a relay to somehow "push" play; then the custom CD with only the one track on it would play to the end. No messy play/pause toggling.

The motion sensor might easily be too sensitive, though. They usually are not made to just detect things a few inches or a foot away. If so, "expensive" becomes a relative term. One hour of messing with ways to adjust a normal motion sensor might be more "expensive" than just putting in a reliable touch sensor. Lighting shops have touch sensors for turning lights off and on, and I have seen these for cabinet lighting as well.

I've seen many small shops using a photocell with a light source mounted across an entryway at ankle height to ring a bell or buzzer. Have you considered using one of those tapeless voice recorders for your dialog?