Mini-Guide: Doorbell automation from HomeKit to Home Assistant

Share your Projects!
, ,
1

I couldn’t find any exact guides on this so here is what I did in case it helps anyone else or there are suggestions on how to improve it.

Automation based on Doorbell press is not possible within the Home app, but for various reasons I wanted my HKSV Doorbell to remain truly connected to my Home via HomePod (working 2-way audio with video calls, identifying people by name, HomePod chimes, Apple TV pop-ups, etc). Maybe some or all of this is possible via Home Assistant without true Home Hub-connected devices… but why waste time trying to move it over when HomeKit is local anyway (would feel much different if I was using Google or Amazon)??

  1. Create an Input Button in HA.
  2. Expose Input Button to HomeKit via HomeKit integration.
  3. Download Eve app for iOS.
  4. In Eve, create an Automation to activate a new Scene that turns on the Input Button when the real Doorbell is pressed (as mentioned above, Automation from real Doorbell press is not possible in Apple Home UI but this seems to create a truly native HomeKit Automation that functions locally without the Eve app after it is created).
  5. Back in HA, use the Input Button as a Trigger to do whatever you like.

In my case I used this to create an Actionable iOS Notification that asks me if I want to Unlock the door when the Doorbell is pressed (Home Assistant Z-Wave lock). This works great on top of the Doorbell’s native HomeKit functionality!

3 Likes
2

Interesting. This is exactly what I’m hoping to do — get a HomeKit-native doorbell, but be able to react to it with automations in Home Assistant. Do you think this approach would work with any HomeKit doorbell?

3

Yes, this should work with any HomeKit Doorbell since these steps only depend on HomeKit functionality and not a specific doorbell hardware or brand.

In the end this works great. However, I found all official HomeKit doorbells lacking so I moved to a Unifi Doorbell w/ Scrypted to turn it into a HKSV Doorbell.

4

@SuperMega can you provide more details on how you did this? I have the same setup but cannot use two way radio from homekit.

5

would I be able to modify this for an old Google (Nest) Hello doorbell. I can see the activation on Apple Home so assuming that it is HomeKit compatible

6

I’m not sure what you are trying to do but this does not do anything with Audio / Video. It merely allows HomeKit to notify Home Assistant that the native HomeKit Doorbell has been pressed (for Automation triggers, etc).

7

Assuming you have your doorbell in HomeKit already this should work to provide notifications to Home Assistant whenever it is pressed!

8

Thanks, this was what I was looking for. I was trying to trigger a Shelly UNI to „push“ the original doorbell button that I removed when installing my Aqara G4. I wanted to keep the functionality of the old doorbell and intercom system and still have the luxury of video doorbell and two-way audio while away.
The Aqara G4 was also only showing movement as a trigger in HomeKit automations via the Home App. It‘s nice to know that the Eve app can create native HomeKit automations with added functionality vs. the Home app.
Since the Shelly UNI can be updated with a native HomeKit firmware I am triggering it right within HomeKit now with no delay (back to HA) whatsoever. But I also added the mentioned input_button functionality in HA to enable further automations and interaction within HA when the Aqara doorbell is pressed.