Is this possible? HRDS1 has contacts on it to sense a closed circuit… can I just wire this in to detect when the doorbell is rung? Seems like it should work to me… anyone have more experience with it?
I’d be concerned (no experience). When the door bell is not pressed, you 'll be putting 24 volts AC into the contacts. I’m guessing it’s just looking for a switch closure. You’ll probably fry it faster than you can blink.
as long as it doesn’t send 16V (doorbell transformer) through the contact inputs…
this may or may not be a concern and probably is worth trying at the expense of a door sensor, or are you planning on disconnecting the traditional door bell chime?
good idea and good luck
You could mod the button to have extra pair of contacts; or you could use close proximity/touch sensor to trigger when the doorbell is pressed
Maybe I am way off base here and I would have to check the exact voltage/current going through the doorbell circuit but it seems to me you could use the voltage going through the chime to energize a relay that is wired in series… then you could hook the dry contact circuit of the HRDS1 up to monitor contact status of the relay… that would keep the voltage from surging through the sensor.
I could probably even use a regular 12V automotive relay even if the doorbell transformer puts out 16V, its only a momentary contact and shouldn’t burn up the energizing coil. Even if I burn up the first relay… I can always measure the resistance of the energizing coil and wire an appropriate resistor in series with it to get it back down to 12V across the coil. Any thoughts?
The problem with wiring a relay in series is that you’ll reduce the current in the circuit AND split the transformer voltage between the Ringer and the relay. You might get a situation where only one or the other devices work.
Hmmm, that is true, I guess I’ll just have to play around and see what works… thanks for the tips. I just have an extra HRDS1 laying around and trying to find things to do with it.
It would be nice to know when a FedEx or UPS package gets dropped off at the house on days when I am expecting a delivery. I know a camera would be the easiest solution… but since I had an extra HRDS1 I thought I would give it a go on the doorbell sensor.
Any results of the HRDS1 + Doorbell experiment? I can’t believe that there isn’t a good z-wave doorbell solution.
Think about this. The HRDS1 has a reed switch in it to sense the magnet present or not. When you hit the door bell the chime activates creating a magnetic field. Hmmm the HRSD1 could sense the doorbell has bee pressed. Gonna experiment to see if it works like this.
Ok played around tonight and pulled out one of the reed switches I had in one of my electronics kits. I put it underneath the coil of the door bell and then hooked it up to the contacts on the HRSD1 and BINGO!
Hey wseverino thats genius!
Once I get it prettied up I will post a picture.
Ever get this fully working? I know it’s been a while but I’d love to see some pics.
Yes, Im looking for the same pictures and ideas for this. Since I have a few squeezeboxes and the SB plugins, I want to have the SB stop or lower the volume and then have it play a doorbell WAV file or “someone’s at the door” play when the doorbell is pressed.
Very cool ideas here, thanks for the inspiration!
I am working on a solution using the serIO board, but it would work [more] easily with the hrds1 -if you aren’t afraid to solder your own circuit… using parts from your local Radio Shack. I paralleled 2 wires off the door chime and fed a little custom pcb. Doorbell wires > bridge rectifier > 10uF capacitor > 5V voltage regulator > .1uF capacitor > 5VDC relay. You can connect the NO and C off the relay to the contacts on the HRDS1. I have confirmed the circuit works well - just programming the serIO and luup now.
I got this working last night - now the doorbell sends me notifications, pans/tilts the camera in the appropriate direction for two minutes, and if it’s after sunset, turns on the porch light for 5 minutes. It’s pretty slick.
So did you end up using the HRDS1 Door/Window or building your own board? I’d love to do this, but mine would interrupt my squeezeboxes and play a simullated doorbell and then resume.
I am actually using an Arduino Uno board now, but I am having issues with false trips, so I am playing around with different resistors in both pull-up and pull-down scenarios to see what corrects this. The board I built to convert the AC to DC and pick a 5VDC relay is working perfectly, so you should be able to use an HRDS1 for this… I am just picking up noise which is floating the pin input on the arduino board back and forth. I am using the arduino board for both input and output, so I have to use interrupts for the two inputs (garage door sensor and doorbell), but interrupts don’t allow delays, so I’m trying to find a different way to verify actual doorbell presses… or use a different size pullup or pulldown resistor to do the trick.
Are you de-bouncing the input?
See: [url=http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/Debounce]Arduino Playground - HomePage
Debouncing is for when you take the pin high (or low) and it bounces back and forth. Mine just floats between high and low quickly. If I was to try debouncing, it would actually pick up the high that it floats to and not pick up the low that it floats back to a few ms later. What I need to do is verify that the high is high for > 6 ms. Unfortunately, hitting the doorbell can last as little as 6 ms, so it’s going to be trickier than tricky. Maybe I’ll add a larger capacitor to hold the high longer, and stick in a diode to protect the voltage regulator, but I’ll play around with the resistor ratings first, since that seems easier.