Turned my wired doorbell into a smart doorbell with WiFi and Home Assistant

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Hi Everyone, We’ve been working on this project and have finished it into a product. The WiFi Doorbell hooks up to your wired doorbell. When your doorbell is pressed, the WiFi Doorbell senses this. It then publishes/sends and MQTT message to Home Assistant. I have an automation setup in Home Assistant that will send a notification to my phone when it receives the MQTT message. The notification includes a live feed of my front door camera. The WiFi doorbell also sends the battery voltage level in a JSON message along with the MQTT message. I have a sensor in Home Assistant that stores the battery level.

Check out the source code and documentation here: https://github.com/fireflyelectronix/wifidoorbell

Doorbell-Ring-Landscape-HA-logo
Doorbell-Ring-Landscape-HA-logo1200×628 162 KB

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I don’t understand the positioning of this piece of hard/software. Is your solution a means to transmit the signal of a doorbell via mqtt? That could be achieved much simpler then.

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Here’s the configuration I have under automations.yaml

alias: MQTT_Doorbell
  trigger:
  - platform: mqtt
    topic: ha/doorbell/notify
  condition: []
  action:
  - data:
      data:
        attachment:
          content-type: jpeg
        entity_id: camera.front
        push:
          category: camera
      message: Doorbell Pressed
    service: notify.ios_matts_iphone

You can also setup a sensor to will be used to track the battery voltage level. This is what you would setup in configuration.yaml

sensor:
  - platform: mqtt
    state_topic: "ha/doorbell/notify"
    value_template: '{{value_json.batt}}'
    unit_of_measurement: "Volts"
    name: "WiFi Doorbell"
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And this much simpler implementation that you developed, tested, sourced components for, and brought to market is where?

I picked on of these up, having a finished product that I can mount and insert two wires into was great. I am 100% sure that this can be done for cheaper going the DIY route, however, I think the price if fair given that someone else did all the leg work and sourced all the components and I can literally plug and play.

I did find an issue during initial installation which @fireflyelectronix responded to very quickly to help me troubleshoot. I was very impressed with the response times I got given that this appears to be a small company.

If you have a lighted doorbell or you have a diode across the contacts this product may not play nice if you don’t include the doorbell in the circuit. A snip of two wires to pull the lightbulb out of the circuit (which doesn’t light up anyway) solved the issue. (note: this is now documented in their documentation)

Here is how I am using it. Our doorbell is disconnected. A light flashes and our echo dot notifies us if someone arrives. I also get a notification on my phone.

https://github.com/SilvrrGIT/HomeAssistant/blob/master/automation/door_security.yaml#L130

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I would say you should get rid of the battery and use the existing transformed the wired doorbells already have. I think it’s great that folks create these things for sale, for folks who are not the DIY-types. @fireflyelectronix check out my design, it’s all open if you find anything worth using. My design (in very low volume) is very inexpensive, less than $12USD in parts.

https://www.jaycollett.com/2019/03/a-smarter-doorbell-without-all-the-extras/

Jay

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Thanks for the feedback @jaycollett! Impressed with your design. I like your comment here

(I personally do not like the asthenic of most modern “smart” doorbell buttons with cameras and bright blue LEDs)

We agree!

We did look at the option of powering from the doorbell transformer. It seemed that there may be a wider range of transformer voltages out there so it may be difficult to make it universal. We also looked at the use case of someone who would want to mount and connect next to the chime where is not constant power source. Someone who doesn’t have access to the transformer or someone in an apartment building. Since the WiFi Doorbell sits in deep sleep most of time, the battery should last a very long time. In our design testing, we found that it only draws 130 microamps while in deep sleep.

Our mission is to design and deliver open source home automation products. We don’t like the subscription model either. There are also so many different brands of products that it can be difficult to get them to work together when the software is locked down.

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Will the WiFi doorbell work with a lawview camera?

The one in this link.
https://www.laviewsecurity.com/video-doorbell-camera.html

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The WiFi Doorbell works with mechanical doorbell systems. It senses the ac voltage produced by the wired doorbell. Here’s a list of cameras supported with Home Assistant.

There may be a way to use the generic IP camera component in Home Assistant.

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I think you can just place a reed switch inside the chime box as it creates a magnetic field when it rings. A door sensor might work for this.

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@jaycollett I really like your design! It’s great that it doesn’t take over the function of the doorbell, and works without all the HA stuff.

I checked your site, and was wondering if there’s any chance you might be interested in selling these? I am unfortunately not capable of making PCB’s, etc, but REALLY like your design, and was hoping to use it.

Thanks!

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That’s great news for me. Its very helpful because i am also looking for video doorbell thanks for your posting. Some of my friend suggest me ring doorbell 2, but now i must try yours thanks.

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I purchased one from fireflyelectronix, but dont see how to “Turn off your doorbell sound”. Can you let me know how to do this?

And there are two ways to wire the box, I assume you have to wire it at the transformer to accomplish this.

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Don’t connect the chime to the circuit. I have a notification go to my phone and my wife’s and our echo dot announces there is someone at the door.

And there are two ways to wire the box, I assume you have to wire it at the transformer to accomplish this.

You don’t necessarily need transformer access, you just need access to the wiring.

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Ah that makes sense, I was thinking I could turn it on and off when I wanted (like a mute). Thanks, I have it up and running on the chime and seems to be working well.

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This would be nice.

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I would just like to “chime” in, I brought one of these about 6 months ago and its been great.
I’d previously messed around with a reed sensor with dry contact switch, which worked MOST of the time but very annoying when it didn’t.
Its cheap and works well, the home assistant script works well for sending a text with live feed. The only problem I’ve had is my own config were after a doorbell is pressed, it seems to keep the message in the queue and after making changes to any HA automations it will retrigger the alert. This was my first MQTT device.

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I’d also like to say that I got one of these cool little things and had it hooked up in a few minutes once I had worked out what wires do what on my intercom that wasn’t labelled at all…

This was my second foray into MQTT devices and couldn’t be much simpler.

Edit: I’d like to retract my statements above.

After hooking it up when I had no neighbours, it was fine. However after my neighbours moved in whenever they pressed the lobby door release button it would trigger the device. I posted on the Firefly Electronix forum and contacted them directly via email twice and I received no reply at all.

There is absolutely zero support for this product if you encounter issues. I ended up having to ask a friend with better knowledge of electronics to help me rig something up to fix this.

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