Hi everyone,
So to make the same functionality as all the expensive cloud doorbells work (Ring, Yale, Nest etc) all that is needed is the ability to invoke the microphone within the HA Apps.
If a user buys a cheap (or makes their own doorbell [pi based]) it is already possible to send a notification with the live stream or a snapshot and actionable notifications on iOS. The only missing link is being able to talk back to the speaker in the device (requirement could be to designate it as a media_player).
I personally (as I think others have too) overtime have changed and evolved my HA components, and tried to move away from cloud services, and consolidate to one I trust, and I secure.
Video doorbell comes up a LOT, and so there is an option here to stand out as a solution, and also provide a cheap solution to the expensive solutions (and actually in Ring’s case, poor experience - big lag, camera.ring isnt live, their devs having access to the videos etc).
This feature request is super. If we could get a maintainer to create a general item with all the needed things to claim support for doorbells it would be amazing.
For example:
Add doorbell as device class
Add support for calls on mobile app
There isn’t a general doorbell feature request which people could vote to, but instead there are millions of separate feature requests all targetting doorbells. I believe this should be taken into account as well.
Of course: this is only about the work to be done in HA core itself. With the APIs in hand, developers can then work to integrate each branch/model on their own pace.
After all, what’s a smart home without a smart door bell?
@frenck sorry to mention you, but if you agree with the aforementioned text, would you have any suggestion on what to do? I can build a good and well explained feature request and link all the related ones, but without a maintainer’s support it would just be yet another one.
There is a work in progress… @TECHFox is creating an sip card, it’s still in alpha, but we are testing it… It can be used with FreePBX, or you can use his asterisk add-on
I’ve created an addon that supplies WebRTC to Alexa to show the video - this isn’t exactly what you want but with the right support we may be able to add audio into it.