Amcrest Doorbel AD110: Expose Call Button

Hardware
26

Thanks for your answer. I just tried that trigger above and it worked!
I’ll keep the ONVIF integration for the moment, as it seems to work well, next to the Amcrest integration.

27

Using this trigger, I can now get a very elaborate doorbell system:

The automation triggers an mp3 file on an RPi, then some Google TTS, all while flashing my Hue lights.
Good for when I’m jamming in my studio :grin:

1 Like
29

Anyone have feedback on reliability of using events from the amcrest integration vs using Amcrest2MQTT

IE does it recover gracefully if the Doorbell loses wifi and reconnects or reboots?

I am currently using Amcrest2MQTT and would like to simplify down to a native integration if it is reliable… I have had some issues with Amcrest2MQTT that have now mostly been resolved…

30

I’ve used both and find the core amcrest integration event passing to be very reliable, even after reconnecting. I switched to it from amcrest2mqtt for the very reason you mentioned - to simplify things.

I’m also testing the custom dahua integration which also handles events nicely, and even provides the option to create binary sensors (which are nice to have, but not essential). It too works for the AD110/AD410.

31

I installed an AD410 over the weekend and I’m using the Dahua integration. The camera and motion detection works, but the doorbell button press duration is inconsistent. I left the entity names as created, and so I expected to see button presses reflected in binary_sensor.front_doorbell_call_no_answered. However… it only works sometimes. The last time I pressed the doorbell button, it remained in a detected state for over an hour, and subsequent presses don’t change the state. I can set the state in HA and it’ll remain. Maybe I’ll have to fudge it after a timeout; has anyone else encountered this?

EDIT: I should say that I have no Dahua or Amcrest event listeners listed here: https://<ha-ip>/developer-tools/event.

32

You should post issues with the custom Dahua integration to RRoller’s Dahua github site.

The auto-generated binary_sensor seems to be missing the “stop” event in your case. I don’t use those sensors and instead trigger only on the button press “start” event, as so:

  trigger:
  - platform: event
    event_type: dahua_event_received    # Note: for the core Amcrest integration, specify "Amcrest" here instead
    id: doorbell press
    event_data:
      event: CallNoAnswered
      payload:
        action: Start
1 Like
33

Ah yes–thank you, I’ll do that.

1 Like
34

Moved over to the [Dahua] custom via HACS… So nice to have GUI setup…

Call button on my AD110 seems to work great AND it can be configured as a DEVICE with event instead of having to use entities and services directly.

At least so far…

35

Great post. I was tracing constant “phantom” bandwidth use (approx 35 MB/minute) on the 2.4 ghz spectrum and discovered it was my AD110. Without digging too much deeper, it seems the dchesterton/amcrest2mqtt integration needs to always be looking at the stream to determine state? Anyhow, after a period of turning off that docker container and disabling mqtt (this is the only thing I’m using it for) and then directly calling the motion (binary) sensor state & discovering the CallNoAnswered event to solve all of my problems. It’s great to pull parts of the Rube Goldberg machine out!

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36

I just added an issue to the Git. I had some problems with my Amcrest account and had to re-add my AD410 to the integration. When I did, it was no longer recognized as an AD410 and instead as a generic RTSP camera, so it’s missing the doorbell press sensor.

EDIT: No dahua_event_received event is fired when the doorbell button is pressed. Also, I noticed another issue on the Git is that another user’s camera was recognized by the integration as a doorbell. So apparently there are some issues here. I’m trying to find a workaround in the meantime, since the reported issues are piling up over there and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of support for it.

37

Try the core Amcrest integration. The event it exposes is “Amcrest” replacing dahua_event_received. Unfortunately this integration is still all Yaml configurations, but it’s pretty straightforward.

38

I know I’ve tried it before… because I see old commented-out entries in my YAML. I don’t remember why, but I think I stopped using it because the Dahua integration offered the call_no_answered sensor. Well… now I don’t have that sensor. So maybe the Amcrest integration is the answer in the meantime.

39

The Amcrest integration continues to reliably return events, including doorbell presses and motion. Currently it has a limited number of auto-generated binary sensors. You will need to trigger on ‘CallNoAnswered’ event for doorbell press. For motion, you should be able to use the ‘crossline_detected’ Binary sensor for human detection, but I haven’t tested it and just trigger on the event instead. Avoid the motion_detected sensor.

1 Like
40

Hmm. So far… I’m unable to see a button press on the event bus. I can see the integration created a listener “amcrest.” However, by listening myself to amcrest events and pressing the button… nothing.

I also set up a quick Node-RED flow to check for a CallNoAnswered event_type, and didn’t see that:

[{"id":"143412a240111f99","type":"server-events","z":"b199f89f.aefe08","name":"Amcrest Event","server":"296c0678.b5f9ca","version":2,"eventType":"amcrest","exposeToHomeAssistant":false,"eventData":"","haConfig":[{"property":"name","value":""},{"property":"icon","value":""}],"waitForRunning":true,"outputProperties":[{"property":"payload","propertyType":"msg","value":"","valueType":"eventData"},{"property":"topic","propertyType":"msg","value":"$outputData(\"eventData\").event_type","valueType":"jsonata"}],"event_type":"","x":500,"y":2820,"wires":[["4c19161c762f6221"]]},{"id":"4c19161c762f6221","type":"switch","z":"b199f89f.aefe08","name":"Doorbell Button Pressed","property":"payload.event.actionName","propertyType":"msg","rules":[{"t":"eq","v":"CallNoAnswered","vt":"str"}],"checkall":"true","repair":false,"outputs":1,"x":710,"y":2820,"wires":[["2067ae5323a1233e"]]},{"id":"2067ae5323a1233e","type":"debug","z":"b199f89f.aefe08","name":"debug 2","active":true,"tosidebar":true,"console":false,"tostatus":false,"complete":"false","statusVal":"","statusType":"auto","x":920,"y":2820,"wires":[]},{"id":"296c0678.b5f9ca","type":"server","name":"Home Assistant","version":5,"addon":true,"rejectUnauthorizedCerts":true,"ha_boolean":"y|yes|true|on|home|open","connectionDelay":true,"cacheJson":true,"heartbeat":false,"heartbeatInterval":30,"areaSelector":"friendlyName","deviceSelector":"friendlyName","entitySelector":"friendlyName","statusSeparator":"at: ","statusYear":"hidden","statusMonth":"short","statusDay":"numeric","statusHourCycle":"h23","statusTimeFormat":"h:m","enableGlobalContextStore":true}]

I think I’ll continue to use the Dahua integration for video & motion detection. That seems to work well. I just need my button presses back.

41

I assume you have the AD110 model. Did you install the latest new firmware?

If so - that broke events! You need to contact Amcrest Support to have them send you a link to download the previous version.

42

Nope, I have the AD410. I’ve never updated firmware. I’ve actually had it isolated from the Internet from day 1.

I just listened to * events and amongst the massive influx of events in that few seconds, I got camera.front_doorbell_main, camera.front_doorbell_sub_1, camera.front_doorbell_sub_2, and camera.front_doorbell_sub_3. But no button press. Those came from the Dahua integration, presumably because my hand went over the camera when I pressed the button.

EDIT: button presses are showing up in the Amcrest app. Not sure where to go from here. The Dahua integration was doing everything I needed it to, and now it’s not.

43

I don’t have any idea what happened to the custom Dahua integration, but yeah - I see the issues have been really piling up there.

Meanwhile - as you have just found, the Amcrest integration is properly exposing the doorbell event. So all you have to do is set up an automation to trigger on the event instead of using the binary sensor equivalent. If you prefer to use a binary sensor, you have the option to create one manually, but it’s not really necessary.

Just refer to this example from a few posts up… Amcrest Doorbel AD110: Expose Call Button - #32 by GaryOkie

44

Oh… well, no, what I meant by my comment is that although there’s an amcrest listener, and although the Dahua integration is putting events on the bus… I’m getting nothing from the Amcrest integration. I tried listening and I don’t see that the Amcrest integration is exposing anything.

I can create a binary sensor easily. I just don’t know how to get the button press.

45

Apologies for my misinterpretation. What does your developer/Events panel show?

“amcrest” should be at the top of the list of listeners.

When I enter amcrest and click the start listening button, I immediately see various events occurring.

image

EDIT: nevermind, I see you already stated that you do now see an amcrest listener. So the question remains why you aren’t getting any events with the amcrest integration. Heck, I don’t know!

46

Yeah, and when I listen to amcrest I get nothing.

The only amcrest entity I have is camera.amcrest_camera, and it’s unavailable. I wonder if it’s the integration that’s not configured correctly. I would think it would give me an authentication error or something to tell me it’s not configured:

amcrest:
  - host: !secret amcrest_ip
    username: !secret amcrest_username
    password: !secret amcrest_password
    name: Front Doorbell
    stream_source: rtsp
    binary_sensors:
      - motion_detected