HomeKit Door Bell

filmgarage · August 23, 2020, 9:20pm

I read in the release notes of 0.114 that HomeKit now supports door bells… So how would I configure a simple door bell and share this item with HomeKit? I now have the doorbell configured as a binary motion sensor and this sensor has been integrated in HomeKit. A ring at the door results in a motion event that triggers a pop-up in my HomeKit config. I would love to turn this into a ‘real’ door bell binary sensor. Anyone who can help me out?

dawess · August 24, 2020, 10:56am

Hi there,

I hope I can help you out and that I did understand you correctly.
2020-08-24_12-41-07
I staticly only publish single devices via the include option.
Than I did attach the doorbell button to camera. (brings the camera picture of an rtsp ipcam with the ring)

If you add a “doorbell”-only device to homekit and add it to a room it will turn invisible within the room you have added it via home.app … but it will still befired if you push the doorbell button as expected.

In the past I had such a single doorbell hooked in via nodered:
2020-08-24_12-52-14
the jsonpayloud that gets forwarded to the homekit-node has the following content:
2020-08-24_12-53-46

hope this helps and sorry for this short description. Please ask if you need more help.

Kind Regards,
Dieter

filmgarage · August 24, 2020, 12:47pm

Thanks Dieter,
This is very helpful indeed. But how would you configure an ‘invisible’ doorbell in the HomeKit YAML file? Not all doorbells have a matching camera feed… And would you need a specific setting for the binary_sensor that presents itself as the actual bell/button/klingel?
Thanks, Rob

dawess · August 25, 2020, 8:38am

Hi Rob,

sorry for this late reply. Actually I do not know how to do a single/standalone doorbell within the integrated homeassistant homekit/homebridge…

But as I wrote I did it with NodeRed and an additional homekit/homebridge - and then emulated a doorbell with it.

To do that (in HASSIO) go to
supervisor- addons - install NodeRed …
then within NodeRed you install
node-red-contrib-homekit-bridged
pallett

Configure the addon… example… and start it

credential_secret: robssupersecret
dark_mode: false
http_node:
  username: rob
  password: SUPERSECRETPASSWORD
http_static:
  username: rob
  password: SUPERSECRETPASSWORD
ssl: false
certfile: fullchain.pem
keyfile: privkey.pem
require_ssl: false
system_packages: []
npm_packages: []
init_commands: []

then within nodered install the named pallett…:

drag and drop it to the “stage” and then configure the homebridge node (name homekit pin)
and then configure it as a doorbell…

2020-08-25_10-29-12495×564 36 KB

then try to follow my screenshots from the post before -
If there are still any questions please ask them -
I will try to help as soon as possible

have a nice day.
bye

dawess · August 28, 2020, 10:59am

Did you get any further #stillneedhelp ?

filmgarage · October 18, 2020, 2:15pm

I gave up for a while until I realised I could set up a ‘fake’ camera entity using a static image as the source for a camera. Next, I connected the doorbell like you explained and voila! it is working flawlessly! I can’t wait to be able to connect it to my HomePods and use them to play the doorbell sound!

mohair73 · December 31, 2020, 2:30am

when you talk about using a static image or “fake” camera entity can you give me a bit more information. I am working to set up my Ring and I had it fully working with a hoob then installed home assistant to run everything else and voila it broke. I am not sure if it was the integration from smartthings which was tied or something else.

Then as I worked today to try to figure it out after spending hours to get everything all set up I broke HA so had to rebuild that system. So now trying to figure out a way to at least show this, I loved the moment I had all my camera’s showing on my Home Screen via home kit I had the layout perfect. the only issue was on my hoob I couldn’t get my zwave working, which brought me to this via a pi 4+ and HA and my hoob which now flawlessly runs myQ perfectly for the garage doors and siri but HA runs my smartthings and zwave/meross devices amazingly via openzwave and USB stick.

filmgarage · February 4, 2021, 7:03pm

If your Ring doorbell supplies a video stream you do not need a ‘fake’ camera. You can combine a video stream with a button so they show up as a video doorbell in HomeKit.

If you want to have a ‘fake’ camera, you can put an image in the www folder of your HA setup and create a camera entity as follows:

camera:
  - platform: generic
    still_image_url: https://127.0.0.1:8123/local/image/doorbell.jpeg
    name: Doorbell
    verify_ssl: false

(Just my example)

Keep in mind that
https://127.0.0.1:8123/local/
refers to the www folder in your config.

In my Homekit config I put them together:

homekit:
  entity_config:
    camera.doorbell
      name: Doorbell
      support_audio: false
      linked_doorbell_sensor: binary_sensor.some_other_button

keithcroshaw · August 2, 2021, 2:48am

So I started getting the warning that for best performance for cameras I should add them as an accessory via the ui. I haven’t done that because it lacks features like linked doorbell. I saw how to add separate accessories for cameras, great, but is linked_x coming to the UI config? Sorry if nobody knows just bummed I wasted my time to try to get my video working better when I loose my doorbell feature.

tim.home.assist · August 21, 2021, 10:09pm

Hey there,

Thanks for all the info, I’ve got a button setup up as a doorbell attached to a camera feed.
Just wondering if anyone knows how to add the button to a non-HA camera feed?

Thank you

Blackei · May 20, 2022, 4:31pm

Hi,

I am very new to the topic, so please do not assume too much…

I have a doorbell with the following event:

’ “name”: “HmIP-DSD-PCB 0026D43998F872”
“param”: “PRESS_SHORT”
“channel”: 1’

Then I have a Netatmo Camera that gives me a jpg…

And now I want to have the bell, with picture in HomeKit…how does it work?

I can’t quite get along with yaml yet.

keithcroshaw · June 14, 2022, 12:36pm

Do you have the camera in Home Assistant successfully?

lars86 · September 3, 2022, 1:54pm

Hi Did you get the linked_doorbell_sensor working via UI? Just added my doorbell via UI into homekit but doorbell feature on apple tv is not working do i need to do this via the config file?

keithcroshaw · September 6, 2022, 3:46am

Yea I’ve switched back to the config file.

xXkr13g3rXx · September 25, 2022, 10:43am

Hi Community!

Is it working without a cam? So only with the use of a switch (as doorbell), a homepod as a speaker and a fake cam? Can I get this to work?

filmgarage · September 25, 2022, 11:21am

That was my setup before I had a proper video door bell. So yes, should work.

pilot1981 · April 18, 2023, 11:33am

It’s also able to publish to HomeKit BI-directional audio flow?

Bodo · August 1, 2024, 2:09pm

Hello. I need help with configuring a doorbell button in the HomeKit bridge. I have installed the HomeKitBridge integration, and about 50 devices have been configured. All devices are added through the web UI (not through the configuration.YAML file). One device is the Ubiquiti G4 Pro camera. Everything works fine in Apple Home. Now I want to use the Shelly Button 1 as a doorbell button. However, I have two problems.

Shelly Button is not a “binary_sensor”

How do I create a binary sensor in Home Assistant that will be controlled by the Shelly Button using automation?

How to configure HomeKit so that the Shelly Button is a “linked_doorbell_sensor” for the G4 Pro camera? (Homekti is currently configured by UI)

Can someone help me with this?

HVR88 · August 14, 2024, 4:41pm

Here you go:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scrypted/comments/1dm0tt3/managed_to_make_a_shelly_button_work_as_doorbell/

As an aside, if you’re not using Unifi’s own Homekit plugin for Homekit Secure Video, you can use Scrypted for that too.