I’m currently looking for a simple doorbell (or some cheap & small speaker device) that connects via WiFi (Z-wave etc. is not an option) that I could control via Openhab. This would include MQTT, some HTTP or REST-API as well as an existing binding.
Just what I’d like to achieve: I modified a custom antique brass door bell button plate so that it runs with a hidden homematic switch (HMIP-FCI1). The FCI1 runs on a battery, very nicely ,-) and it delivers the signal via CCU to Openhab - so I have the event already!
With the event I’d like to trigger different actions, among them some door bell sound on an arbitrary device (actually we need 2 of them) => and that device is something I’m currently looking for. So far I found a “doorbird” box, that cost almost 200€ each. Runs on Wifi, check, but no battery, Openhab binding, check => But with almost 400€ just for the bell I think that’s a hefty price tag for a little bit of Wifi, a plastic housing and a speaker. Aeotec offers something more cheaper, but unfortunately only with Z-Wave. From Unifi I found the “WiFi Smart Chime”, which runs at ~60€ each, plugs into a power socket and would be okay as we have a full blown Unifi installation anyhow.
So solutions exists, but I’d suppose that such a simple device would be available for 20~30€ max? I mean, an ESP32, speaker, plastic box, battery holder can’t be that expensive…
The problem is, just entering “wifi doorbell” returns millions of hits in any search machine, but not what I’m looking for. Millions of hits for propietary systems which are announced as “Wifi” but aren’t and so on…so I’m a little clueless right now.
So if anyone knows a nice product which would fit into that garp, that would be really appreciated.
I would not be surprised if what you are looking for doesn’t exist. And the high prices probably have more to do with lack of demand making it harder to recoup development costs to make these devices. If you are not selling many, you have to charge more per unit. The fact that anyone makes one at all is a little surprising.
If I were going about this, I’d probably get a traditional electronic chime and wire up a relay with an ESP8266 running something easy like ESPHome or Tasmota. A relay and the ESP should fit in the box of the chime so you don’t even have to worry about making it look good.
Of course, if you want to play arbitrary sounds, not just doorbell sounds, you’ll need to get fancier.
I use a wall mounted iPad (android will also do) which plays a sound if someone is ringing. Furthermore it gives you and you wife a control station which is always on and increases the waf factor.
No binding required. Just a one liner in your door bell script.
Also thought about it, but maybe it’s my age now. I find myself much more often searching the Internet for a ready-made solution that fits somehow instead of heating up the soldering station and then smashing something together in the evening. Or with other words: Nowadays I’m more in software then in hardware
So, it is the infamous good fast cheap challenge
finding 2 out of the 3 is easy finding all 3 next to impossible.
wifi controlled Inching relay /or a smart plug and software driving the plug on and off and powering conventional door bell with transformer is good and cheap
ipad is fast and good but not cheap. however all software no hardware.
everything else well not so cheap or fast to create.
So you’re just looking for something that you can command via wifi to make noise ? If you can plug it in instead of using batteries, this have a ton of options. For example an older generation google nest speaker can often be had for less than $20. You can play any MP3 on it.
Hi JimT, so far that most pragmatical idea “some wifi controlled device to make noises”- I’ll check what my favourite search engine will yield with a price target of <30€.
@justaoldman : I think I left the “fast” lane already, when I started to look for a ready solution instead of warming up the soldering iron and refitting a classical door chime
Just to put this thread to an end - at least from my side I bought myself 2 used google nest mini speakers, hooked them up as chromecast devices into openhab and created a very simple rule to play a nice “ding dong” sound as MP3 once the homematic switch is triggered.
In order to have a high WAF for this solution I also bought two 3d-printed wall supports, that fit nicely the power supply and the speaker into a single housing which also makes the power cable invisible and allows just to plug in all together virtually as a single piece into an 230V-socket. That costed me 22+23+15 (2xholder) = 58€ and about 3 hours of work to get everything up and running, including network, speaker registration and so on.
The drawback however is that you have to do the speaker registration through “Google home”, any self-soldered ESP8266 would have omitted that of course.
The positive thing OTOH is, the wife now can also play her Spotify playlist through the speakers - this is much more worth then the 58€ , so everything good now.
Learned a lot with this case again and I’m very happy with OH that it’s always so easy to integrate all that IOT stuff into a single solution
That is how I have done it at my place. Check out the “radio browser” binding as you can then stream local radio or other station around the world to the speakers. Sometimes you want some tuning that is not on Spotify.
“some wifi controlled device to make noises”- I’ll check what my favourite search engine will yield with a price target of <30€.
, so everything good now.