EZVIZ DB1/HikVision HD1 Doorbell with Shelly Uni + general deepdive

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21

Hi @seanblanchfield, great guide there. I’m the same guy that wrote the fw upgrade procedure that you mentioned in your beautiful guide.

The idea of using the Shelly UNI was very interesting, but I noticed you had issues reading AC inputs and you used a battery to solve the problem. I wanted to give you an idea: on the ipcamtalk 101 thread, I mentioned several times that these doorbells specify that their power requirement is X-Y AC, but in reality, they have an AC/DC converter, so you can actually power them with 12-24V DC. You might want to try that, so the UNI would then work correctly without requiring the battery.

For my setup, in order to intercept the button press, I used @fireflyelectronix sensor. Their site is offline now, but you can see everything on tindie: WiFi Doorbell Sensor from Firefly Electronix on Tindie and they have a GH repo here: GitHub - fireflyelectronix/firefly_doorbell_sensor.

I tested several sensors, but this one was the most reliable, it never misses a button press, and it uses MQTT for the notification.

The only downside I find is that it is battery powered and that it’s not based on ESPHome, so there could’ve been a native integration with HA. But MQTT is simple anyway.

I think this will be my last post reagrding the DB1, that has served me well with HA for the last years, I’ll probably switch to the new Reolink doorbell in the near future, so all this tinkering to make the doorbell work as expected will be a thing of the past, but I’ve learned a lot doing it. After all…tinkering is the real fun part of this home automation stuff. :slight_smile:

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22

Thanks for the tip and thoughtful notes Alex. If I had known about the @fireflyelectronix sensor I could have saved myself some trouble! But to paraphrase you - it’s about the journey, not the destination :slight_smile:

Everything’s working well since that series of blog posts I did, and I don’t think that battery will ever run out, so I don’t think I’m going to go back to DB1/HD1 hacking any time soon. Like you, my next doorbell will be the Reolink. I like to imagine that Reolink’s market research consisted of reading the ipcamtalk 101 thread and observing all the effort people like us were making to try to have a local-first doorbell. That way we can take a little bit of credit for it and not feel so bad about ditching all our hard work!

23

I couldn’t have said it better Sean: it’s all about the journey. In those 2-3 years I’ve learned a lot of things about sensors, protocols, a little bit of electronics and most of all HA. If I had the Reolink at the time, I wouldn’t have the knowledge I have today, so thank god I chose the DB1.

Take care, we’ll meet in the reolink thread. :slight_smile:

24

Integration of my Reolink Doorbell Poe… a fairy tale :heart_eyes:

REOLINK
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…certainly a better view than my old EZVIZ DB1

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25

Great device. Reolink makes good stuff and at a good price point. So glad they have all the functionalities we needed out of the box. :slight_smile:

I didn’t research it yet, but is it natively integrated or are you using an external integration? I saw there are a couple of integrations made by two devs, but I also saw that there’s official support also for the doorbell.

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…the integration is the official one; The firmware of the device is continuously updated, interaction with Google Home and Alexa has recently been added and the 2-way audio function which for now only works from Chrome on Android

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27

is it onvif compatible? I read that it doesn’t use a standard audio codec, and 2-way audio is problematic for that reason.

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For 2-way audio Reolink Doorbell uses ONVIF Profile T (fairly recent) however, under development for full integration with HA

29

Only the PoE doorbell? Not the Wifi?

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I don’t follow the WiFi model information, I think the doorbell should be wired and indeed, compared to Ezviz wifi, the Reolink Poe is much more stable

31

My EZVIZ DB1 is rock solid regarding the connection. I have a very reliable wifi mesh all around the house, great signal everywhere.

I’ll check if wifi has the same functionalities in terms of firmware. Hope the difference is only the connection type.

32

My reolink wifi will be here in a week, finally. And I just found out that:

  • the wifi version also has an ethernet port. :slight_smile:
  • sw functionalities are the same as the PoE version

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33

@seanblanchfield thank you for the detailed writeup, just a note regarding the Uni: It seems that you tried to connect it incorrectly - I think the IN1 should have been connected via the relay via L (pin 1).
The wiring diagram has improved since the original release mind you, it got less confusing.

I managed to blow up a uni because the pins didn’t line up in the original diagram and I shorted L to GND instead of IN_1 :frowning:

34

I think I’ve got it depicted correctly, at least according to the working implementation I built (which is still running after all this time). I’m referring to this diagram from my original post:

shelly_DC_button_direct_detection_success
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Note the section the blog post where I discuss my experience connecting 24V AC (the same line as L / pin 1) to IN1 via the relay:

I initially supplied the relay’s output contacts with 24V AC. At first it seemed that this worked, but after a day of operation I could see it was clearly unstable. The Shelly would not consistently detect doorbell presses, and it would also only detect when the doorbell press ended, not when it started. It turned out I wasn’t the first person to notice these problems.

I found this Shelly forum thread (in German, Google translate version here) in which users @thgoebel and @DIYROLLY discuss the same frustrations of detecting AC with the Shelly Uni, and conclude that it either has a design flaw or that the user manual incorrectly describes it supports detecting AC at its inputs. User @thgoebel makes the practical suggestion to just switch to DC if possible, or if not possible to add a diode to half-rectify the AC signal into the input sensor.

As a consequence, I put a battery into my design so I’d have a DC current source to send to IN1. Perhaps there’s new firmware that resolves this. Please let me know if so!

35

Right, I was talking about the original setup you made. I also encountered flaky detection of IN_1 when using 24VAC, and I was connecting my switch to the phase connected to pin 2.

In the recent diagrams you can see that you’re supposed to connect to the phase on pin 1. I did that and it’s been rock solid.

Of course, you already have your setup so there’s no point in changing it.

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36

Hi @seanblanchfield so sorry for loooong delays. A lot of life going on here :frowning:

Thanks for the answers to my questions above. I’ll further comment below, after my new question, and some new (hopefully helpful) info:

Question: I made the Guarding Vision sharing QR code as suggested.

a) You suggest pulling it into the Hik-Connect app, to share between GV and Hik/RCA. Hik-Connect says it’s an unrecognized QR code :frowning: … which versions of GV and Hik were compatible for you to do that?

b) Can you share multiply, eg for two apps on your phone, plus share with your wife?

Info: simplified restore and management of DB1

My DB1 reset itself, back to the softap_Dnnnnnn SSID level.

Turns out, there’s a much simpler way to restore my configuration:

  • On a computer with Hik Batch Configuration app, connect to the DB1 wifi:
    SSID softap_Dnnnnnnn and password softap_XXXXXX (the security code from the device. Mine starts with WW – six letters all upper case.
  • Run batch configuration, and refresh the upper list. (Do NOT use ‘Activate’ down below. See Sean’s guide!)
  • You should see your device online. Mine is always at 192.168.8.1
    • if necessary, click +Add at the top. Put in IP 192.168.8.1, user is admin, pw is your security code

With the device online, click the gear icon on that line to enter device config. We’re going to: fix the wifi connection, then import a saved config (if you have it), then fix anything else, then export the config.

  • To fix the wifi, go to Network->Wifi…
    • click “Select…” to the right of the SSID box (no, do NOT just type your SSID! This is going to fix a number of settings to match your wifi)
    • Choose the wifi SSID/channel/etc you want to use, and click Save
    • Now enter the correct password for that wifi and click save
    • wait for it. DB1 should reboot. Check on phone or laptop. softap_Dnnnnnn should be gone
    • close batch config
    • connect laptop to the correct wifi
    • open batch config. Be patient. Device should be visible and online
      • If not, manually add the DB1 with its (LAN) IP, login admin, pw WW…

Now you’re connected to the DB1 on your correct wifi

  • If you have a previous good export, use system maint->import to pull it in and then sysmaint->reboot
  • Check and fix all settings
  • Use SysMaint->export to save this good copy of your settings
37

I’m curious, have you found a way to mount the Reolink so it can see packages at the doorstep? That is one strength of the 180 degree vertical field of view of the DB1 :wink:

38

I don’t have that specific need. Couriers here in Italy don’t leave packages at the doorstep, they leave a note and retry the delivery. :slight_smile:

The Reolink doorbell is a great product, very happy about it, and the price/quality ratio is amazing, IMHO.

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39

@seanblanchfield thanks so much for an awesome write up. I went about this slightly differently using stuff I had laying around plus an extra ZMPT101B AC Voltage sensor. This is mostly as I had lost the power kit.

Hikvision-Doorbell

I get an MQTT message on doorbell press using the topic

shellies/shellyuni-98CDAC254DE0/input_event/0

Honestly no idea why this works (for starters the ZMPT101B is supposed to be fussy about needing 5v but is fed 3.2v by the sensor VCC) but it strangely does.

Also note my doorbell model is DB120A-IW. Not sure if this makes a difference but I doubt it

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40

The strangest thing. Whilst soldering everything together I accidently disconnected the ZMPT101B and yet I still get an MQTT message on doorbell press with this configuration.

Screenshot 2023-10-05 at 07.36.03
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Still no idea how it works