Blink doorbell pressed

Configuration
1

I have a blink doorbell that I just configured with HA and I am trying to get a notification/event triggered when someone presses the doorbell but no luck so far.

Is it even possible?

These are the entities created after adding the integration

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2

Hey there, just installed one myself. Did you ever work this out?

Looking at my history, when I press the button, it seems to track it in the entity “blink G8T1-TV02-2075-00JH Motion Detected” - As I see it change from OFF to ON for the period of about 5 minutes, so could possibly use that change, however, if you ALSO have motion detection turned on, not sure you’d be able to distinguish between the press and the motion event triggering.

1 Like
3

Nope.
Seems useless in it’s current form for HA but good thing you can arm/disarm the doorbell :man_facepalming:

4

Agreed, I’m hoping it’s because the doorbell is still quite new to the market, and the current integration only has the enity options exposed for security cameras (as that is what the core product base has been so far for Blink). What let’s see


EDIT at least I can create a Routine in Alexa for the doorbell press, so that is one option.

5

Hmm and can that be passed back to HA? Might be a “workaround” for now

1 Like
6

Hmm, good thinking!

The way I’ll do it, is create a dummy switch in HomeAssistant (or in Smartthings, as I still have a few things I run from there), then import that into Alexa. Then set up a routine that when the doorbell is pressed the swich toggles. That switch can then be used in HomeAssitant to trigger any automation needed (like flashing the lights)

7

That could work, I use a bunch of virtual buttons in smartthings as well and then HA can see when they were changed by Alexa. Assuming the delay is bearable.

8

Also works if you create an input helper button in HA, expose it to Alexa and then create an Alexa routine which “presses” the button.

1 Like
9

I did the method above with a virtual switch and an Alexa routine for when my blink doorbell was pressed, to get a notification via telegram (via node red) and also to change the colour of the smart bulbs in the house (again via node red.)

Interestingly, the delay between the notification from the blink app and the notification from telegram via node red was only 1 second.
This makes this workaround a viable alternative and (via node red) means theres way more customisation / options also.

2 Likes
10

This sounds great,

I am new on Alexa

Does the integration to Alexa ( accessing the HA switch) require you have a cloud HA account? Or is it possible to do the integration the other way around, that is HA can access Alexa devices like the doorbell and their events.

Thanks

11

Hey Matt,

can u please send me the code to do that? I’m not getting it to work :slight_smile:

12

What you need is a working node-red installation and those two “palettes”:

  • node-red-contrib-amazon-echo-oztourer (node-red <-> Alexa)
  • node-red-contrib-home-assistant-websocket (node-red <-> Home Assistant)

Then you create a helper in HASS of type “input boolean”.
In node-red you have to create a flow like this:

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“ring on” sets the helper you created to “on” and “ring off” sets it to “off”.

In the Alexa app a routine is needed that sets the device called “Trigger” to “on” when the doorbell is pressed" and after 2 seconds resets it to “off”.

Now you have an entity in HASS that follows the state in Alexa.
With a suitable automation you can now do whatever you like in HASS.

1 Like
13

Hi @mamoel

Can you share the entire flow?

Thanks

14

@mamoel I’m also interested.

15

This won’t help you in any way (and I have lots of other stuff in this flow).

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What you need is just the Echo-Hub (from ‘node-red-contrib-amazon-echo-oztourer’) that is connected to a Echo-Device (from ‘node-red-contrib-amazon-echo-oztourer’) connected to a simple switch:

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The output ‘1’ is connected to a ‘homeassistant call-service’ element (from ‘node-red-contrib-home-assistant-websocket’) that calls this:

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Output ‘2’ of the switch goes to the same type of element but calls ‘turn_off’.

That’s all the ‘magic’ in this flow.

3 Likes
17

Thanks! Very usefull!

18

My problem is that it takes two plus minutes for Alexa to respond. I wish that there was a native HA event, but they obviously did not want that. We should probably find another brand for this purpose.

19

That’s strange. In my case the “button pressed” event is routed “instant” (Blink->Alexa->Node-red->HA).
My Blink doorbell died a month ago and now I use the exact same method for my Aqara G4.

21

To be honest, I don’t know if this works without ECHO device.

In the meantime, I have switched from the implementation in Node-Red to Nabu Casa.
I have created a helper entity (“Ring button”) and released it for Alexa.

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This allows me to trigger this entity directly in the event of a ringing event.
The cumbersome way via Node-Red can thus be omitted.

23

Hi! I was just trying to make this work on my Blink Doorbell. Can you please elaborate better? I’m just a day-1 user with just a week’s worth of learning. Where can I find this helper?