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Install Report: Doorbird internet connected video doorbell

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    Install Report: Doorbird internet connected video doorbell

    In case anyone is considering installing an internet connected video doorbell, I wanted to post about my recent install of a Doorbird doorbell.

    There are currently a few internet connected video doorbells available including Ring, Skybell and Doorbird. All three are paired with a companion mobile app which means that you can get notified on your phone when someone rings the doorbell, view that person in real time and then have a two-way conversation with them. You also can get snapshots of everyone that rings the doorbell (or sets off the motion sensor on it). The features/capabilities differ somewhat across all three products so you have to do your homework to figure out which one best fits your set-up.

    For me, I had two key requirements:

    A) Since I already had a Cat5 cable wired to my doorbell location, I really wanted a unit that had an Ethernet port and supported PoE as I wanted to have a highly reliable video connection to the doorbell (vs. Wifi) and did not want to worry about changing out batteries. Doorbird was the only unit that supported PoE so that made the decision somewhat easy.

    B) I wanted to be able to somehow integrate the doorbell into my HS system so that I could set off events when the doorbell was pressed. This was a much tougher requirement as none of the doorbells explicitly supported HS or any other home automation system for that matter and, at the time, none had published a public API. The one thing that gave me hope with Doorbird is that they mentioned they had a contact closure wire (for triggering an existing doorbell) and I figured I might be able to use that to integrate into Homeseer. My hopes were dashed though when I contacted their support team and they said they did not think the contact closure wires could be wired into a home automation system. They said they would be releasing an rest API shortly, so I figured I would go ahead an order one and if the contact closure wires didn't work hopefully I could figure out an HS script to interface HS with their API when it was released.

    I went ahead and purchased the unit for $300 all in (vs. $200 for Ring and Skybell) and it arrived in about a week from Germany. As you might expect from German engineers, the unit is solid and well built and came with everything you might need to install it.

    Here's a picture of the installed unit:


    The big and very positive discovery for me is that Doorbird's main PoE Internet connection only used 4 of the 8 Cat 5 wires. (This is not documented in any of their marketing material). This left 4 wires free and allowed me connect the 2 contact closure wires from the doorbell to the same Cat5 cable. Back at my Ethernet switch I was able to split off the contact closure wires separately from the PoE Ethernet connection and wire them directly into my Elk M1 (which in turn is connected to my HS server).

    As it turns out, Doorbird released their Rest API last week, so it's probably possible to just interact with Doorbird via the API now as opposed to using the contact closure wires, but for what it's worth you can do both.

    Here's a picture showing the Cat5 cable and how the contact closure wires were split off:


    Net, net I now have all the core features of an internet connected video doorbell, but I also have been able to wire it into my HS setup. This has allowed me to kick off HS events when it is pressed. My events are pretty simple (turning on the front porch light if it's dark outside, ringing one of the new Aeon Labs Zwave doorbells and announcing that there's someone at the front door) but its nice to have everything wired up together. My plan is to have a number of Zwave doorbells throughout the house that will all ring when the button is pressed.

    Anyway, just thought that other HS owners considering adding a video doorbell might like to hear about my experience as I can confirm that it is possible to wire at least one of them into HS and that once you do it's easy to use them in events.

    I have had the doorbell installed a couple weeks now and it is working well. I have found that the ability to get remotely pinged on your phone when someone rings the doorbell is actually pretty useful although you may get some odd stares and funny questions when you phone rings like a doorbell!
    Last edited by BillBurn; December 12, 2015, 03:58 PM.

    #2
    Nice, looks like the best one I have seen so far. The Doorbird site was down earlier but is back now. I would like to know more about the cloud recording option.

    Comment


      #3
      Very Nice !!


      Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by BillBurn View Post
        In case anyone is considering installing an internet connected video doorbell, I wanted to post about my recent install of a Doorbird doorbell.

        There are currently a few internet connected video doorbells available including Ring, Skybell and Doorbird. All three are paired with a companion mobile app which means that you can get notified on your phone when someone rings the doorbell, view that person in real time and then have a two-way conversation with them. You also can get snapshots of everyone that rings the doorbell (or sets of the motion sensor on it). The features/capabilities differ somewhat across all three products so you have to do your homework to figure out which best fits your set-up.

        For me, I had two key requirements:

        A) Since I already had a Cat5 cable wired to my doorbell location, I really wanted a unit that had a Ethernet port and supported PoE as I wanted to have a highly reliable video connection to the doorbell (vs. Wifi) and did not want to worry about changing out batteries. Doorbell was the only unit that supported PoE so that made the decision somewhat easy.

        B) I wanted to be able to somehow integrate the doorbell into my HS system so that I could set off events when the doorbell was pressed. This was a much tougher requirement as none of the doorbells explicitly supported HS or any other home automation system for that matter and, at the time, none had published a public API. The one thing that gave me hope with Doorbird is that they mentioned they had a contact closure wire (for triggering an existing doorbell) and I figured I might be able to use that to integrate into Homeseer. My hopes were dashed though when I contacted their support team and they said they did not think the contact closure wires could be wired into a home automation system. They said they would be releasing an rest API shortly, so I figured I would go ahead an order one and if the contact closure wires didn't work hopefully I could figure out an HS script to interface HS with their API when it was released.

        I went ahead and purchased the unit for $300 all in (vs. $200 for Ring and Skybell) and it arrived in about a week from Germany. As you might expect from German engineers, the unit is solid and well built and came with everything you might need to install it.

        Here's a picture of the installed unit:


        The big and very positive discovery for me is that Doorbird's main PoE Internet connection only used 4 of the 8 Cat 5 wires. (This is not documented in any of their marketing material). This left 4 wires free and allowed me connect the 2 contact closure wires from the doorbell to the same Cat5 cable. Back at my Ethernet switch I was able to split off the contact closure wires separately from the PoE Ethernet connection and wire them directly into Elk M1 (which in turn is connected to my HS server.

        As it turns out, Doorbird released their Rest API last week, so it's probably possible to just interact with Doorbird via the API now as opposed to using the contact closure wires, but for what it's worth you can do both.

        Here's a picture showing the Cat5 cable and how the contact closure wires were split off:


        Net, net I now have all the core features of an internet connected video doorbell, but I also have been able to wire it into my HS setup. This has allowed me to kick off HS events when it is pressed. My events are pretty simple (turning on the front porch light if it's dark outside, ringing one of the new Aeon Labs Zwave doorbells and announcing that there's someone at the front door) but its nice to have everything wired up together. My plan is to have a number of Zwave doorbells throughout the house that will all ring when the button is pressed.

        Anyway, just thought that other HS owners considering adding a video doorbell might like to hear about my experience as I can confirm that it is possible to wire at least one of them into HS and that once you do it's easy to use them in events.

        I have had the doorbell installed a couple weeks now and it is working well. I have found that the ability to get remotely pinged on your phone when someone rings the doorbell is actually pretty useful although you may get some odd stares and funny questions when you phone rings like a doorbell!

        Very nice

        Can you give us an idea of the FOV of the camera? Does it have to be at eye height or would it work in the common door bell position of waist high to the side of the door?

        Cheers.
        cheeryfool

        Comment


          #5
          I would like to know more about the cloud recording option.
          I got a newsletter from the company last week and they were looking for 100 beta testers of the Cloud recording feature. They said that feature would be offered "at the beginning of 2016". My guess is they will announce something around that at CES in a few weeks.

          It's interesting to note that API includes a standard http call to get a live JPEG stream (http://<device-ip>/bha-api/video.cgi), so you should be able to easily incorporate the stream into any existing IP Video recorder or IP security camera software.

          Can you give us an idea of the FOV of the camera? Does it have to be at eye height or would it work in the common door bell position of waist high to the side of the door?
          Here's a screenshot from the mobile app of our UPS driver dropping off a package today. I have my button at 4' 3" off the ground which seems standard height for a door bell:

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by cheeryfool View Post
            Can you give us an idea of the FOV of the camera? Does it have to be at eye height or would it work in the common door bell position of waist high to the side of the door?

            The Doorbird Data Sheet specifies camera should be at 125cm minimum height.

            Comment


              #7
              The Doorbird Data Sheet specifies camera should be at 125cm minimum height.
              I just made it within spec then!

              Comment


                #8
                Looks nice. Could you post a night snapshot ?

                Comment


                  #9
                  Thanks for posting your feedback!! I guess it can be used for gate entry , as "gate bell", also.


                  Sent from my iPhone
                  Tom
                  baby steps...starting again with HS3
                  HS3Pro: Z-NET & 80 Z wave Devices,
                  HSTouch: 4 Joggler (Android Kitkat), 2 iPhone, 3 iPads
                  Whole House Audio: 5 SqueezePlay Jogglers w Bose Speakers
                  In The Works: 10 Cameras Geovision, new Adecmo/Envisalink Alarm, Arduinos
                  System: XP on Fanless Mini-ITX w/ SSD

                  Comment


                    #10
                    It seems from the API doc that you can post an event subscription request that will fire out a JSON response when triggered. I don't see that you can define your own JSON command for the trigger output, unless that's built into the camera and not mentioned in the API doc. My guess is that you would somehow need to translate the output from the DoorBird to the JSON format that HS3 understands.
                    cheeryfool

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by TomTom View Post
                      Thanks for posting your feedback!! I guess it can be used for gate entry , as "gate bell", also.
                      Yes it could easily be used as a gate bell, but you would need to have at least power at the gate (you could use Wifi for the network) as battery power is not supported (I believe Ring allows battery power).


                      Originally posted by kriz83 View Post
                      Looks nice. Could you post a night snapshot ?
                      Here is a night shot in total darkness, save whatever light was coming through the door/windows. The IR sensor is very strong and dramatically changes the color of your clothes (that's a dark blue sweater) but I guess it does a good job illuminating the face.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        That is pretty slick. I would assume you could splice the contact closure wires so that you could connect to both your internal chime as well as something like a z-wave contact sensor to have direct integration with HS.

                        Thanks for the report!

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by chewie View Post
                          That is pretty slick. I would assume you could splice the contact closure wires so that you could connect to both your internal chime as well as something like a z-wave contact sensor to have direct integration with HS.

                          Thanks for the report!
                          I did not have to wire in a conventional chime so I can't confirm this, but I don't see why not as the designed purpose of the contact closure wires are to connect to internal chimes so there shouldn't be an issue doing a 3-way splice for the internal chime either at the unit itself or the other end of your Ethernet cable.

                          Here is what the install documentation says about the contact closure wires:

                          In addition the video door station comes with a zero-potential relay contact
                          for connecting a conventional electric door chime inside the building.
                          The relay contact can be used to activate the separate operating voltage
                          of the door chime or the door chime via its trigger input. If the operating
                          voltage of the door chime is activated, it should not be greater than 24V
                          (AC/DC). The power consumption should not exceed 1A. The video door
                          station does not provide its own power supply for the door chime. This is
                          provided through the separate power supply of your conventional door
                          chime
                          So as long as your existing chime doesn't exceed 24V you should be fine splicing that into the contact closure wires along with Homeseer.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Thanks for the review.

                            Is the camera IP and do you think its compatible with BlueIris?

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by BillBurn View Post
                              It's interesting to note that API includes a standard http call to get a live JPEG stream (http:///bha-api/video.cgi), so you should be able to easily incorporate the stream into any existing IP Video recorder or IP security camera software
                              Looks like it

                              Comment

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