Thought I’d write a guide for those struggling to get HomeKit doorbell working with their video doorbells.
I have a Doorbird doorbell which I added to HASS using the integration:
I created the template binary sensor that would be triggered when the doorbell button is pushed. This entity will be used in HomeKit for linked_doorbell_sensor.
— In my case, the Doorbird sends an event to HASS and is therefore defined as the trigger for the virtual button-press. If you already have a binary sensor entity created, skip this step and just define it in your homekit linked_doorbell_sensor.
The integration and template sensor provide the “doorbell” entities which I could add into a HomeKit bridge - Note the GUI method doesn’t yet support the Doorbell accessory configuration and hence it had to be done manually in yaml.
I created a homekit.yaml and linked it to my configuration.yaml file like so
Audio is not working, so it only serves to deliver a snapshot and notification for the doorbell event which will pop up on all iphones in the Home and also on Apple TVs. If you have audio working do let me know how you’ve done it.
I’m struggling to add my Doorbird to Homekit via HA, i did everything as you’ve described, with no success. I’m pretty sure that my issue is related in „template” part, as i’ve never been using this functionality. Could you help me with this part? Cheers mate ! You are my only hope
First things first, can you tell me which stage you’re at and paste the relevant configs sans credentials? Going by your message it seems you have a problem either with exposing the entity to HomeKit or have issues adding the accessory to HomeKit. Please walk me through until you hit the issue so I can better help.
Thank for this info! Hoping you can help, I’d like my hikvision smart events to show up on Apple TV and to do this I need my camera to show as a doorbell which led me to this page.
Hello jonnystuart89, have you got your hikvision set up as a camera yet in home assistant?
If you do, just these 2 code snippets will get you settled
In configuration.yaml, do this
### This part is for your doorbell button to know it's been pressed, updating a binary sensor you will use as the doorbell sensor
template:
### Replace this trigger for a button press if that's your setup
- trigger:
- platform: event
event_type: doorbird_doorbird_Doorbell
### Name your button here
binary_sensor:
- name: doorbell_button
auto_off: 3
state: "true"
### This manual HomeKit entry will create a bridge you add in the home app
homekit:
- filter:
include_entities:
- camera.yourhikvisioncamera
name: Doorbell
entity_config:
camera.doorbird_live:
name: Doorbell
linked_doorbell_sensor: binary_sensor.doorbell_button
That’s great, in that case it’s just a matter of swapping the entities of your sensor and camera into the yaml config I posted. If you can’t get it working, do show me your configuration lines so that I know how to help you.
This is my first stab at it but the doorbell isn’t showing in the Home app
### This part is for your doorbell button to know it's been pressed, updating a binary sensor you will use as the doorbell sensor
template:
### Replace this trigger for a button press if that's your setup
- trigger:
- platform: event
event_type: binary_sensor.embedded_net_dvr_line_crossing_1
### Name your button here
binary_sensor:
- name: doorbell_motion
auto_off: 3
state: "true"
### This manual HomeKit entry will create a bridge you add in the home app
homekit:
- filter:
include_entities:
- camera.camera_1
name: Doorbell
entity_config:
camera.doorbird_live:
name: Doorbell
linked_doorbell_sensor: binary_sensor.doorbell_motion
Just a few things to go through, make sure you’ve:
Restart home assistant
Bottom left, hit notifications and you will see a QR code
Go to the home app and hit the + sign, add accessory and scan that QR code
Looking at your code, the trigger might be incorrect in your case
template:
### Replace this trigger for a button press if that's your setup
- trigger:
- platform: event
event_type: binary_sensor.embedded_net_dvr_line_crossing_1
### If you are triggering on a state change for binary sensor, then you should change the platform to state and the conditions to watch --- example below:
#platform: state
#entity_id: binary_sensor.motion_sensor_0112
#from: 'off'
#to: 'on'
### Name your button here
binary_sensor:
- name: doorbell_motion
auto_off: 3
state: "true"
But if you already have a binary sensor, there’s no need to create another one that is tagged onto the existing one. Just define it in homekit
I guess my only gripe is that there is a delay, I imagine that it’s down to the feed from the camera. My previous method of using binary_sensor.embedded_net_dvr_line_crossing_1 is pretty responsive
I would imagine the response to be the same since your entity update frequency/sensitivity wouldn’t change here. It’s just a different class of notifications to homekit between doorbell and motion.
