Z-Wave enabled ring bell

Posted on
Thu Apr 27, 2017 4:23 pm
Turribeach offline
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Z-Wave enabled ring bell

I wanted to generate events when someone pressed my door bell. I looked around and couldn't find any Z-Wave enabled ring bells so I decided to buy this the LightwaveRF Secure LW2301 Plug-in Wireless Door Chime which I used with the RFXCOM plugin and the RFXCOM USB Transceiver. Setup was easy and it worked OK with Indigo but the ringer base kept ignoring the remote chime every time the mains went off at my home so I had to power off/on the unit again to "re-sync" it which was very annoying. Eventually I hooked it to my computer UPS to avoid that problem but it shouldn't really do like that. But what made this unit useless is that with some months of use the remote chime push button became unreliable and eventually it wouldn't work even if you pushed really hard. Clearly not well made so I decided to avoid buying the same crappy door chime again.

I looked again for Z-Wave enabled ring bells but stillcouldn't find any. I found this article in Vesternet which showed how to convert an old school 6V wired bell chime using a relay and a Fibaro Door/Window module. This looked interesting but I wanted to integrate with a more fancy door bell. I then found this post which got very close to what I wanted to do. There were a couple of things that I didn't like though. The post used a battery powered door bell and I wanted a mains powered one. On the other side the circuit shown on that post connects the Fibaro Door/Window sensor with the door bell into a single circuit connecting both batteries. I checked with someone who knows about electronics and he said this could lead to the battery getting discharged faster.

I went on to research how I could Z-Wave enable a standard door bell. Using the idea from the second post I bought this £12.99 wireless door bell unit which has an LED on both the push button and the base. Taking the idea from the Vesternet post I tried to find a relay that could be activated when the bell rang and the LED flashed but unfortunately the LEDs on this unit work a very low voltage (<1v) so I couldn't find relays for such low voltage. I checked again with my friend and he suggested using an optocoupler. This is basically a relay that gets activated by light. They can be very sensitive and best of things you can keep the the two circuits separate which makes it a lot safer. I found a cheap optocoupler in Amazon UK for less than £ 3 which had the right specifications. The final piece was a DIP8 to SOP* adapter pcb (like this one) which I bought off eBay for less than £ 2. So in similar fashion to the above posts I connected the optocoupler to the LED of the push button unit and then the output of the optocoupler to the sensor of the Fibaro Door/Window sensor. Here is a video showing how it works. Below there are some pictures showing the connections in the push button unit. The red and blue cables are connected to the anode and a cathode of the push button LED. The two white cables go to the Fibaro Door/Window sensor. The events trigger almost immediately and it's extremely reliable so I am very happy with the solution. Should I need to replace the bell unit again I can either buy the same ringer again or any other ringer which has an LED incorporated.

With this idea you can make any LED in any device in your house Z-Wave enabled!

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Posted on
Thu Apr 27, 2017 4:36 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

Wow, cool.

It still completely amazes me that nobody has worked out how to build a reliable and simple Z-Wave device to detect doorbell rings...

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Posted on
Thu Apr 27, 2017 5:51 pm
durosity offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

Nicely done!

@Jay, do you mean device manufacturer or user made? If you mean use then plenty of folk use fibaro universal sensors or door sensors in a very reliable way.

Of course it'd be nice if a z-wave manufacturer could just make a reliable z-wave based doorbell!!


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Posted on
Thu Apr 27, 2017 7:56 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

I'm talking about a simple to install (no taking things apart, soldering, etc) and reliable way to detect a doorbell ring. I don't see how door sensors could be used in that capacity.

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Posted on
Fri Apr 28, 2017 11:05 am
durosity offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

It can be done with a door sensor and a relay, but it does require taking apart the doorbell.

Image

In this picture you can see a relay that's powered by the doorbell itself. When the button is pressed outside it causes the relay to lose power and close the circuit that's coming out on the left. This wire leads to a universal sensor elsewhere but I did for a while use a fibaro door module connected to its inputs on the inside of it.

BUT I do totally get your point that's not simple. It'd be nice if there was say a module that was just stuck onto the doorbell and detected the ring... or a Doorbell ringer that replaced the existing one which was Z-wave itself or if ring.com would publish a public API.


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Posted on
Fri Apr 28, 2017 11:11 am
petematheson offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

jay (support) wrote:
I'm talking about a simple to install (no taking things apart, soldering, etc) and reliable way to detect a doorbell ring. I don't see how door sensors could be used in that capacity.


I use one for exactly this. The Fibaro door sensors have a few binary inputs that you can wire into. So a plain open/close can trigger the door sensor.

Posted on
Sat Apr 29, 2017 9:32 am
Busta999 offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

Maybe I'm missing the point, but until I can incorporate Ring or get a ZWave `Doorbell more than happy to use a Byron SX doorbell and catch it in Indigo with RFXCOM. Simples. Doorbell rings, Live TV/Plex pause, one light in every room short flashes, lounge lights come up 20%, porch light and hallway lights go on, send iMessage to my phone. Just need to add next step, capture image of from door from Foscam HD plugin.


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Posted on
Sat Apr 29, 2017 11:42 am
autolog offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

Busta999 wrote:
Maybe I'm missing the point, but until I can incorporate Ring or...

Do mean the Ring Video Doorbell?
There is a plugin that handles that and I am using it connected to Indigo to ring a an old fashioned mechanical door bell.

See this post: Ring Doorbell Plugin :)

Posted on
Thu Jul 06, 2017 8:30 am
whmoorejr offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

Image
http://www.elkproducts.com/product-cata ... g-detector

The chip breaks into three pieces for two door bells sensors and one telephone sensor. You connect it somewhere in your attic inline with the doorbell wire (so you can use any doorbell to include lighted/constantly powered ones)

From there, the output can go to an I/O link or hardwire it as an automation zone on your DSC panel. Now every doorbell push is an indigo event with whatever doorbell you have.

I prefer the I/O route .... I have the 930 output & Neg --> I/O GND & Sense. Where the line for the transformer to the doorbell is cut and run through the 930, then route the wire from the 930 to I/O Linc N/O then from COM back to the transformer. Now you have to add a trigger for a "Ding-dong".... GND/Sense = Close => Momentary output = "Ding-Dong". Now you can also disable the N/O & COM (Disable the trigger) if you want "Silent" mode..... no ding, just notifications. (Good with sleeping babies).... or if you want to override the physical doorbell push and ring your door house chime based on a motion event at your front door / a photo beam sensor, pressure door mat, etc.

Bill
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Posted on
Thu Jul 06, 2017 10:57 am
blysik offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

Nexia Z-Wave Doorbell Sensor, DB100Z

Posted on
Thu Jul 06, 2017 11:32 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

blysik wrote:
Nexia Z-Wave Doorbell Sensor, DB100Z


Warning: I tried one of these earlier this year and it didn't work with my doorbell. Apparently, doorbells aren't as universally implemented as other things so there are (apparently) quite a few doorbells that it doesn't work with. Make sure if you do buy one that it's from a vendor that will except returns easily.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Thu Apr 12, 2018 3:58 pm
noel1983 offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell

autolog wrote:
Busta999 wrote:
Maybe I'm missing the point, but until I can incorporate Ring or...

Do mean the Ring Video Doorbell?
There is a plugin that handles that and I am using it connected to Indigo to ring a an old fashioned mechanical door bell.

See this post: Ring Doorbell Plugin :)


Hi Jon,
I'm assuming your using a zwave relay or similar to 'ring' the mechanical bell?

What's the real world response times like on this?

Am tempted to jump in with a Ring 1 that Amazon are promoting however reading up on the plugin and it calling the ring api's every 5seconds my concern was that it would be too slow with the mechanical ring side of things.

Cheers

Noel

Posted on
Thu Jun 11, 2020 4:06 am
Turribeach offline
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Re: Z-Wave enabled ring bell


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