WTH is there no automation trigger for pressing the button on a Blink doorbell?

[SteveDinn]

I just installed a Blink doorbell. Through home assistant, I can see the camera, and have access to all sorts of sensors, like wi-fi strength, temperature, motion sensing, whether the motion sensor was turned on or off, even battery life (it’s a wired doorbell) BUT there seems to be no way to trigger an automation if someone actually pressed the button on the doorbell.

Does Blink not support this? It seems like a no-brainer.

I think HA is just treating my doorbell like any other Blink camera.

[tom_l]

Can you show a screenshot of the device entities page?

Go to Settings → Devices & Services → click on the Blink card name then the link where it lists the number of entities. e.g.

If there is no binary sensor for the doorbell button is there an event entity?

[SteveDinn]

Here’s what I can see from the two views where the entities are shown:

[tom_l]

I’ve been doing a bit of research and it would appear that this is a limitation of the Blink cloud API. So there is nothing the developers can do about it unfortunately. You can read more here: Blink doorbell integration sensors not working · Issue #69923 · home-assistant/core · GitHub

There are some work-arounds here: Blink doorbell pressed

[SteveDinn]

That’s a bummer. Like i said, it seems like a no-brainer from an automation point of view. It’s unfortunate that there is no way to capture this event.

[iZork (Ivan)]

Hi everyone

I thought I’d share a useful Home Assistant automation I created. This automation captures a snapshot from my doorbell camera and sends it to me via Telegram and as a push notification to my iPhone whenever someone presses the doorbell. It’s simple, fast, and super handy when I’m not near the intercom.

Here’s the YAML code with comments to help you adapt it for your own setup:

alias: Doorbell - Send Photo to Telegram and iPhone

# Trigger: reacts when the camera's last_record attribute changes (i.e., new recording triggered by motion or doorbell press)
triggers:
  - entity_id: camera.doorbell
    attribute: last_record
    trigger: state

actions:
  # Step 1: Capture a snapshot from the doorbell camera
  - alias: Take snapshot from doorbell
    action: camera.snapshot
    data:
      entity_id: camera.doorbell
      filename: /config/www/doorbell.jpg  # Saved in www so it can be accessed externally

  # Step 2: Wait 2 seconds to make sure the file is written
  - alias: Wait for file to be saved
    delay: "00:00:02"

  # Step 3: Send the snapshot via Telegram bot
  - alias: Send photo to Telegram
    action: telegram_bot.send_photo
    data:
      target: 1234567  # Replace with your actual Telegram chat ID
      file: /config/www/doorbell.jpg
      caption: 🚪 Someone just rang the doorbell!

  # Step 4: Send iPhone push notification with the image
  - alias: Push notification to iPhone with image
    action: notify.mobile_app_myiPhone  # Update with your mobile app name
    data:
      title: Doorbell Alert
      message: Someone is at the door.
      data:
        image: http://Home_Assistant_local_address:8123/local/doorbell.jpg  # Replace with your HA IP or hostname
        push:
          sound: default  # Optional: customize the push sound

Let me know if you use this or improve it further.

[Neil_Brownlee]

I went with this solution which works perfectly

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/blink-doorbell-trigger-event-on-press/853312

[Sattaz (Sébastien)]

Hi!

Thx for sharing !

When I run this automation by executing it manually then it works and I get a picture as notification.

But when I press the button on the doorbell then the doorbell becomes busy as it seems it’s recording for a defined period… so the automation is not triggered at that time and would only trigger when the doorbell is not busy anymore.
Of course that’s too late as the person is already gone then …

I tried other approaches using Alexa routine + node red but the outcome is the same…

Did I miss something ?

Thx for your help !

Sébastien

[Neil_Brownlee]

Make sure you follow the instructions. You have to change the bell mode through the Blink config.

[Sattaz (Sébastien)]

Hi @Neil_Brownlee ,

I followed instructions given by @iZork , so the purely software solution.
I don’t find any instruction about what to change in the Blink config … maybe this is only related to the ‘harware’ solution.

As said, to receive a simple notification the software / automation solution within HA works great … but getting a snapshot fails as by pressing on the bell physical button will make the bell coming into a busy status because, I suppose, it is recording video.
During that time I’m unable to take a snapshot.

Thanks a lot!

Sebastien