Im thinking about the best way to create a video doorbell system for my specific case.
Due to the regulations of my country i don’t want to surveil the sidewalk right in front of my house.
Thats why im currently thinking that i HAVE TO use a separate IP-Camera which does not film straight from the front door to the sidewalk, but is mounted above the front door and only films downwards to my property.
My current plan is:
Monitor standard doorbell switch by using a Shelly i3, via MQTT
Get an IP-Camera with rtsp
Create a custom openHAB UI used for a tablet, mounted as panel at the inside of my front door
Im asking myself if this is a good idea or if there are better/simpler solutions?
Im also thinking, that there will be some limitations creating the panel because currently i think it is not possible after the doorbell is pressed to
Activate a Tablet via openHAB-App
Force opening of openHAB-App
Force opening of the IP-Camera video-stream
So maybe you have some recommendations regarding creating such a panel/system.
None of these limitations would be a showstopper for me, because having to unlock a tablet and opening the video-stream manually is not really a big problem i think.
Thanks in advance and i hope i did not miss already discussed topics in my research.
Its a good idea as standard ip cameras have way more features so you don’t have to make compromises. Instead of using a shelly, I would recommend you choose a camera that supports ALARM IN and OUT terminals via an API and also smart line crossing alarms. You can use the alarm in terminals to notify openHAB when the doorbell button is pushed and also to trigger recordings in a stand alone mode without needing openhab to use rules. Standard cameras also have PRIVACY block out areas so you can black out areas so they can not record parts of the street or the neighbors windows for example.
When choosing a camera and the location, you have to consider what happens if someone walks to your door wearing a hat. Keeping the camera down low allows you to see the face of someone that has a hat on, and makes cleaning spider webs off the lens easier.
To learn what features from different brands are implemented, see this post:
Streaming camera to google home devices can be done, but you will be far better off in the long run setting up your own solution using the above. More local, private and flexible whilst staying around the same cost. The above apps can put the screen in sleep mode until it detects a person in the camera on the tablet and it will then wake up the screen, lots can be done I just don’t have experience with them as I use the Google solution for now as we got one of them for free on a deal.
To have a standalone solution, you are proposing to use a camera which includes an ALARM IN via API
But to use this API i would still need to have some sort of sensor in the doorbell to trigger this right?
This is perfectly fine for me, i just wanted to make sure i understood everything well
I do not want to hardwire my doorbell to my camera → Only 1 Ethernet cable and thats it
By now i dont know what kind of trigger i need for the ALARM IN but i will figure this out by myself
A doorbell is a switch, that is all you need to short out the alarm input terminals which can then notify openhab andalso start recordings without openhabs intervention.
If you don’t want to add the short cable needed then you will need to do it the way you were looking at and there are more things that can fail or be offline.
