Hi All, I’m looking for a way to have a door chime play out loud when a door is opened. Similar to the cheap RF devices you can buy online. I’m open to using zwave or other technologies but would like to keep the cost down. We have little kids that like to open doors when we are not watching and would like a lovely chime when a door is open. Weather that be a bedroom door at night or the front or back door.
I currently have iOS notifications set up and they work ok, the concern is at night my phone goes into DND and I will not hear the notification (or if my phone is on silent and not in my pocket). Also I’ve set up a google home with TTS but it has an annoying notification that starts up before delivering a TTS or MP3. I’d prefer to stay away from the scenarios where I need to have internet (google home to announce or play an MP3). I would love to have this integrated with HA and not a stand alone device like you find online with RF.
Any suggestions on what hardware to use and how to set this up would be appreciate!
I’ve done this for security reasons. I have an automation that turns on every light in the house if the back or side doors are opened after 11pm. The automation also activates a RF doorbell which I’ve put in my bedroom to wake me up as lights going on don’t always wake me.
I purchased a cheap RF doorbell and opened up the remote button module and soldered wires to the button contacts. I connected these to a relay module which is controlled by a GPIO pin on the raspberry PI that Hassio runs on. The relay module has a driver that can be driven by a 3V output as that’s what the GPIO pins output.
The good thing about this solution is the doorbell I selected has about 30 different chimes and the volume is also adjustable.
I tried getting the Home Assistant 433MHz component to interface with a compatible doorbell, but gave up as I couldn’t get it to work.
I’d recommend getting a Xiaomi Gateway which you can than program to do anything you want. It has a small LED light around the device itself, so you can have it play a tone and flash the light at the same time.
+1 to @icaman004 I have Xiaomi gateway that I use for my doorbell. Have a mqtt doorbell setup, so when that gets triggered, it sends a sound to the Gateway. I also have the Xiaomi door sensors on a few things, so would be super easy to setup a trigger for whenever they open, just play the sound on the gateway.
This is the part of the script you would need to play a tone.
Where do you recommend buying the gateway and sensors? I thought I read that the Xiaomi doesn’t come with a US wall plug? Also is it using the zigbee protocol? Can you connect other zigbee devices to the gateway?
Is the signal (door opened/closed) being sent to the gateway first and then HA is receiving it from the gateway through WiFi? Is there a delay in the message being received?
I bought some from ebay, some from Aliexpress. Depends on how quickly you want them as to how much you pay. Just got a motion sensor for under £10 in a week off ebay. You can only use Xiaomi stuff with the gateway. There is other projects out there if you dont want to run the gateway and other equipment, check out, Zigbee2mqtt: getting rid of your proprietary Zigbee bridges (Xiaomi, Hue, TRADFRI) if that’s what you are after. You just need an US to UK adaptor to run the hub in the UK, most sellers will sell you one.
Yes thats correct, its goes the gateway, and then through wifi over your router to HA, there is no real delay, nothing more than any other kinda of sensor setup from any company. A second or two at the most to work through a script and send the sound to whatever you need.
Thanks Cee! I was hoping not to have to wait as the kids are currrntly opening doors and leaving when not in sight.
Zigbee2mqtt seems more than I want to get into and not all that easy to get pairing to work. Seems like the z-wave usb stick would be simpler - but no chime notification.
I’m trying to find a solution I can expand on with motion sensors and light switches. So for example - automate when I arrive home and open a door the lights turn on. Or motion detected outside garage after 11pm, turn on our door lights. Anyone have a good experience with RF and decrypting the codes being sent and received?
How about a Zwave Chime. http://a.co/iFIvtcZ This is a siren/chime. You can use it multiple ways as the description says. Programatically change the the tune for doors opening and as a siren when there is an emergency.
Cee mentioned Zigbee2mqtt project is an option. You don’t have to use it. It allows you to control devices locally without connecting to foreign servers at initial setup steps.
The Xiaomi gateway and its sensors are the cheapest solution and easiest route IMHO. Because the sensors are originally designed for Chinese market; thus it requires to connect to Chinese servers for setup purpose. Once the setup is done, you don’t have to use its app and use HA for automation instead.
The second easy option and more expensive is to buy ZWave hub and PIR motion sensors. This will cost more and do not connect to any Chinese servers at initial setup steps. The zwave control is around $99 or cheaper. The sensors are around $29 from Amazon. Let me know if you need specific info.
Guess it depends on the budget you want to spend really too. I have been trying to do my house cheaply, but reliably, and so far the Xiaomi stuff fits the bill for me. I dont want to have to diy anything too much, just plug and play. Anything over that, I am out of the picture for information I am afraid. Other’s seem’d to have chimed in though for you. I did like the idea of the Sonoff RF bridge too, as I have a lot of the there other devices around as well. But don’t see a current need for it in my setup.
The Xiaomi way is the easiest way I’d say, and probably cheapest. Once set up and integrated with HA, you can have it do anything, as well as have the Xiaomi sensors/buttons/switches interact with other HA devices. I have the gateway, a few temperature/humidity sensors, door sensors and a few wireless switches. HA will see each of those devices individually (as long as they’re on the supported components page) then your HA scripts can do the rest.
Hi Juan - I like the idea of an RF bridge. The sonoff only allows up to 16 devices but is plug in play except for flashing the firmware. Can you control/receive on any RF devices with the sonoff?
I like the idea of the 433mhz and MQTT on ESP8266 bidirectional gateway, but it seems a little daunting to set up and configure. I’m not concerned with the soldering but more so with the configuration and getting everything work with HA. I have extra Wemos D1 Mini’s laying around I could use and only need to order the RF receiver/transmitter. There seems to be more flexibility with this option.
Also I do not have a separate MQTT server running and was planning on using the one built into HA. I would like to keep everything running on the same Pi. Any advice?
Jon, the sonoff receives and transmitts. You’re limitted to 16 devices saved on the gateway itself. But once you get the codes of the devices (sensors) you can then create mqtt sensors or switches in your HA yaml file and save as many as you want.
I dont use any of the 16 sonoff “memories” it’s all done from HA yaml.
Flashing is simple. I used the gateway sketch and now using the tasmotta sketch. It works fine.
You can use the HA built in mqtt server or mosquitto. Makes no difference. I would suggest mosquitto, because it’s what everyone uses and you’re bound to get more help if stock.
Installing is just one command. If you’re using Hass IO then it’s just an add on.
Awesome! I’ll have to pick up a sonoff RF gateway. When storing the codes in HA, is the sonoff always picking up the signals being set by RF devices even when they are not paired?