Doorbell notifications :)

Community Playground General Discussions
1

Ok, I am interested in somehow adding the doorbell to my system so that I can setup scenes for when someone rings the doorbell. This house is crazy big but going up and down between floors so since the doorbell’…bell…is only on one floor…you may not always hear it go off. I was looking into options of extending the doorbell by adding additional bell units (whatever you can refer to them as) but there wasn’t really any solid product for it.

If I can somehow cause it to trigger within vera…then I can do all sorts of stuff with it :slight_smile:

2

At the very basic level, a wired door bell for example is just a simple relay/switch that you can connect to a number of zwave sensors. Therefore once it’s within your mesh network you can set it up just like any other device to notify you (via a trigger within a scene) when it’s been pushed/tripped.

I have my bell (button) connected and it now plays an MP3 doorbell file on a couple of my Sonos units around the house, plus it also sends me a Prowl message to my phone. So range wise as long as all of your nodes are reachable via Vera (and no more tha 4 hops (i think) you should be fine).

There are a number of posts on door bells on this forum, so feel free to have a search around as you should find some great examples.

Hope that helps…

3

Is there a zwave device that you can put on an existing wired bell to add functionality? For example, I would like to keep my current wired doorbell, but want to trigger exterior lights, camera and notification. What I am imagining is a device between the door bell and the buzzer, that is a pass throug, but also can act as a trigger for the vera. Thoughts?

4

If you are looking at something that "sits in the middle’ the Fibaro Universal Sensor could work (http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=10951.0)

I got one of these to do something similar, but have not got around to using it - so for now I’m using an Everspring SM103 door/window sensor linked to my Sonos (via Vera)

5

I gutted my door bell and wired in a relay and hooked the N.C. contacts to a everspring door window sensor, I used the relay and N.C. contacts so the sensor wouldn’t show tripped all the time. but there is no reason why you couldn’t wire in the relay coil in parallel with the existing door bell to keep the existing functioning the same way. I used one of these RIB relays because they will operate with anything from 10-30 volts ac or dc and since most doorbell systems are 16 volts and might be hard to find a 16 volt relay.

http://www.amazon.com/Enclosed-Relay-10Amp-10-30Vac-120Vac/dp/B009PAPJRA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1361926901&sr=8-2&keywords=rib+relay

6

i use a fibaro binary sensor http://www.uk-automation.co.uk/products/Z-Wave-Universal-Sensor-by-Fibaro.html for it. this has optional temperature probe and 2 inputs. 1 for doorbell and 1 for doorsensor. since it in a box outside it registers outside temp without wind-influence since its in a metal box. no need for relais since it can handle 30v

7

So the universal sensor is all that you are using? Running it “in-line” between the doorbell button and the doorbell unit?

8

Wow, I was looking at other temperature monitoring solutions in another thread, and this seems to be the best way to go and not that expensive either.

Does Vera recognize the temp sensors or did you have to write any code to make it work?

9
...........it. this has optional temperature probe and 2 inputs. 1 for doorbell and 1 for doorsensor. ............

it is not “and” , but “or” … it seems you cannot have them both together, basically it is an 2in1 sensor … there are several topics in this forum about the device.

Does Vera recognize the temp sensors or did you have to write any code to make it work?

You do have to change something in the advance tab, but that is explanined in “the other” thread about this device. easy to do, requires no programming and the temp sensor works very well (no digits behind the dot, comma)

Cor

10

I thing you talk about http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,12859.0.html, not http://www.uk-automation.co.uk/products/Z-Wave-Universal-Sensor-by-Fibaro.html

11

@ Sierek: ups, you’re right.

Cor

12

After some more reading, looks like the UK Fibaro won’t work in the US due to different frequencies, and the US version doesn’t seem to be available yet? Bummer.

13

Well that’s just unacceptable :slight_smile:

There has got to be an easy and affordable solution to simply add a notification option for when someone rings the doorbell (in the US).

14

A relay and a door window sensor isn’t all that difficult.

15

It sounded kind of complicated though. You are having to mcguyver it onto the system…doesn’t that involve soldering as I have zero solder stills to get this relay thing to connect to the door sensor?

As long as the parts aren’t too bulky I guess I can hide it behind the doorbell’s bell box inside.

16

you wouldn’t have to solder anything if you used a relay like one i posted a link for and the everspring door window sensor has two screw terminals for external contacts. you would just then wire the coil wires of the relay in parallel with the existing door bell terminals. but check to see how much room you have in the doorbell first, you might be able to install it by the transformer if they ran the door bells push button wires there first.

17

I know there is a low voltage thing on the wall of the garage. They said it was for the doorbell and the address sign above the garage to the side (the digits of my addr). Would be easiest if it could be connected there but I doubt it would be that easy :confused:

Or maybe I’m just not being optimistic because I feel kind of intimidated by something new :slight_smile:

I’ll take a look. I work all day tomorrow but I’ll try the following day if I have time.