10 ms·

Building a DIY Smart Doorbell

157 points by buzzert 5y ago

sliken 5y ago
I like the idea, nice implementation, but I was hoping to be able to answer the door remotely. One alternative I've been looking at is the ubiquiti doorbell, it allows answering the door with 1 way video and 2 way audio, without involving any cloud services.
- biktor_gj 5y ago
  Given there's an electronic lock on the other side with a keypad, it makes me think that thing has its own actuator and didn't want to mess with it. Otherwise it would just be a matter of adding an "Electric strike?" (https://www.tesa.es/en/site/tesa/products/electromechanical-devices/electric-strikes/mortise-electric-strike/ https://www.tesa.es/en/site/tesa/products/electromechanical-...), feed it 12/24v through a relay connected to the pi zero, and add another api endpoint
- moepstar 5y ago
  I'd hold off buying anything Ubiquiti in the near term and wait for them to decide if they totally turn hostile their consumers (well, prosumers in that case) or not. Just search the recent (3 to 6 months ago) news for them...
  - colordrops 5y ago
    I think that's already been decided.
  - slantyyz 5y ago
    If you're not into walled gardens, don't bother waiting. You'll likely be unhappy with the outcome.
- TheHypnotist 5y ago
  I'm in a situation where there was no wire at my front door so I'm limited in the type of doorbell cam. The one I settled on is Eufy who at least stores the information locally on the home base and doesn't charge for access. That said, I don't really know what's happening with my data, but from what I understand, it's not going to at third party (at least for the doorbell). This seemed like my best option.
- slantyyz 5y ago
  I have the Unifi Doorbell, and I like it a lot. My use case is mainly for 24/7 recording and less so for interactive communication with people at the door, so take my preference with a grain of salt. Heck, I have never even used the two-way communication function since buying the doorbell earlier this year. While I generally like the Unifi Protect walled garden (because of usability compared to other non-cloud options), it's not all sunshine and rainbows either. If your doorbell rings and you launch the app, you're going to be waiting several seconds for the app to reinitialize, etc. By the time you answer, a significant amount of time will have passed. There's also latency between the two-way comms. In my particular case, the tradeoffs of going with the Protect walled garden were worth it. The cameras are decent (yes, you can get cheaper and better), it is super easy to set up, and I didn't need to train my wife on how to use the mobile app at all. If you're not into walled gardens, however, the Unifi Protect ecosystem probably isn't for you. As most surveillance cam peeps online will tell you, you can do a lot better for less money.
habibur 5y ago
The best parts I found here : > The Ring Doorbell, which is now owned by advertising megacorp Amazon, suffers from all of the same privacy problems described in my post about the Nest thermostat, but even worse. Like the Nest thermostat, the client software is a total “race to the bottom” one-size-fits-all garbage iOS app that not only looks bad, but is full of bugs. Also like the Nest, all of your data is hosted in “the cloud”, and a monthly ransom is required before you (“the customer”) are actually allowed to access it. Worse than the Nest, however, is the fact that the Ring doorbell actually has a camera and microphone built-in, so video and audio feeds are also held for ransom in “the cloud”, and are shared with any interested party, sometimes even without your permission. > Just like many other Internet of Things products, the Ring has also been subject to multiple disastrous data breaches, meaning besides law enforcement agencies and advertising partners, many Ring customers’ private data is now also in the hands of malicious hackers, who may in the future offer ransoms that are much harder to refuse than the one offered by Amazon. ____ end quote. Build all the small stuffs yourself, as much as you can. Another reason to learn DIY, even though off the shelf solutions exist.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  You had me at "monthly ransom".
- nine_k 5y ago
  As someone on HN once quipped, Iinternet of Things is not going to happen until LAN of Things happens". This has the problem of a common controller, though. The router could be it; most modern routers are quite beefy. For those running linux internally a standard to deploy apps, including the LAN smart home controller, should be reasonably easy to devise, unless it already exists.
  - rusk 5y ago
    > The router could be it Already seeing various home hubs coming bundled, so this seems to be on the way. Whether you’ll have access to this or if it hosts a “partner” remains to be seen. For now I think we’ll be seeing a profusion of Raspberri Pi based “LoT” devices just because they are so damn easy to work with and they come with a certain amount of sense and control stuff baked in.
Lammy 5y ago
The project box aesthetic works really well for this. Did you waterproof the mounting holes and seam where the box fits together? Some silicone sealant will help keep out the moisture and keep out the wasps (ask me how I know lol) My ideal DIY doorbell would be like a progressive-enhancement to the oldschool physical bell chime, just with the addition of a camera, maybe using something like this: https://www.2nusa.com/en_US/products/intercoms/2n-2wire https://www.2nusa.com/en_US/products/intercoms/2n-2wire
- buzzert 5y ago
  I used a little bit of hot glue to seal the screw holes I drilled into the back, and rubber washers for both the camera and the button in the front. Haven't had too many rainy days yet, but it seems to be holding up in the fog at least!
- 123pie123 5y ago
  thanks for the link to 2N - depending on costs it may save me a time implementing rs-485. The casing is huge, may be ok for a drivway system - in front of a gate, but I would want the casing to be much more lower profile I have been playing with a crazy idea of getting some sort of realisic dog effect when the door bell is pressed, by using a linear solinoid and syncing the solinoid hitting the door frame (without daminging it) once or twice with a sound of a dog - playing on a few speakers - not all at once, some close and some further away to the door so it sounds like the dog is coming to the door then running off
ocdtrekkie 5y ago
The killer bit here was that the author already had a PoE run available: That's the killer for nearly all good IoT projects. PoE is king, and unless you're building new, you probably don't have it.
- _AzMoo 5y ago
  PoE is desirable for sure, but you could always just power it with a battery.
  - sgt 5y ago
    RPI Zero with a camera is more power intensive than just a little microcontroller. You would need to either recharge / swap batteries now and then or charge from solar. Then you still need network and the WiFi signal might be weak where your doorbell is.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    My old doorbell has a wire, I'm sure it's just a low power switching wire but that should be good enough for the 5 volts needed.
    - zrail 5y ago
      Doorbells typically use 12-16VAC provided by a small transformer near your circuit breaker panel. It's plenty of power to run whatever you need.
      - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
        Sure, but then you have no data line, and using Wi-Fi for security is a really bad idea.
  - klysm 5y ago
    Low power design is pretty hard (for me at least) if you need to send radio stuff
dmje 5y ago
The "long range doorbell that doesn't do evil things" seems like a product space that is a bit of a vacuum. We've recently had an office built at the end of our garden. Finding a doorbell that will work from the front of our house has been a futile mission so far. I have little interest in a camera, I certainly have no need to connect anything to my (lack of) smart home. I just want a thing that rings in my shed when someone pushes the house bell. "Long range" wireless bells just don't seem to cut it. Everything else is massively over engineered. It's a strange thing that maybe my best solution seems to be running a very long wire down the garden...!
- tpetry 5y ago
  How about a baby phone near your door bell and one in your office?
- isoprophlex 5y ago
  Something like this? https://m.banggood.com/DIGOO-DG-DB1-433MHz-Wireless-Doorbell-58-Ringtones-Selection-Indoor-Outdoor-Chime-p-1703008.html https://m.banggood.com/DIGOO-DG-DB1-433MHz-Wireless-Doorbell...
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    I think that's similar to the one they are referring to; does it have the range to pass through a house into the back yard?
- callmemclovin 5y ago
  This seems like a good use case for LoRa wireless modules, I haven't used them personally, but they claim a range of 10 miles without obstacles. Try searching for "LoRaWAN Door Bell" if you want off-the-shelf products, or otherwise for "Arduino + LoRa" if you want to DIY :-)
  - abraae 5y ago
    I can recommend moteino - Arduino with a Lora transceiver piggy backed on it.
nxpnsv 5y ago
Nice project & looks great!
secure 5y ago
…or if you want to re-use your existing intercom and hook it up to MQTT, see https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2021-03-13-smart-intercom-backpack/ https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2021-03-13-smart-interco... for how I did that :)
- dstick 5y ago
  This looks amazing - well done! I’ve started dabbling in hardware about a year ago. Starting with the Arduino starter kit. But somehow my brain doesn’t seem wired for it. It feels like all the pieces are there in my head but I’m unable to draw the connections. I built a self igniting torpedo heater for a powder coat oven but even though it worked, I still feel like I stumbled through every step instead of understanding any of it. Like building a piece of software using SO snippets and just trial and erroring it until it works ;-) Do you have any tutorial (series) recommendations for semi beginners on stuff like this? Maybe some “hardware explained for a software developer”? :D
  - secure 5y ago
    I’m not aware of any tutorials unfortunately, but I would recommend connecting with your local Makerspace or Hackerspace. They can often be a great resource to find other people interested in electronics :)
  - rusk 5y ago
    > Starting with the Arduino starter kit. But somehow my brain doesn’t seem wired for it. Have you looked into Raspberry Pi. I use these for even very simple things, just because it’s so easy to get up and running. Way over spec’d of course but if you jus want to “get something done” they can’t be beat.
gorgoiler 5y ago
Nice. Next step would be a microphone and speaker. You are effectively building an outdoor SIP videophone.
hebrox 5y ago
I'm not sure if this is the case, but doesn't this create the option for somebody to remove the casing and directly connect to your network?
- nextlevelwizard 5y ago
  I just assumed that he Pi lives in a separate box on the other side of the fence with just the GPIO pins exposed through a small hole.
ragebol 5y ago
With all these smart devices, what is so smart about them? Does the doorbell know to ignore certain people? Most of the smartness in this doorbell is simply having the notification go to a different place. My smart TV still doesn't know what I want to watch, that is should pause stuff when I stand up during the middle of a move but should keep playing the commercials when I stand up so I can ignore them. Smart means: internet-connected or has a (touch)screen in case of a smartphone. /rant. Nice build though, I'll replicate this some time.
- skocznymroczny 5y ago
  Unfortunately a smart TV would be more likely to pause the commercials when it detects you are not looking at the TV
  - snet0 5y ago
    Reminds me of the infamous "Say McDonald's to end commercial" patent from Sony. You will engage with the advertisement, or content will be withheld.
- bluGill 5y ago
  That is what smart is: having technology that works when and how you need it to. Some people would put a sign on the door: "don't knock, just come in", and be comfortable with strangers doing that (the door exists for HVAC reasons) at any time of the day/night. Other people would prefer their doorbell be a few km away from their house and set it only ring during visiting hours. Most people are somewhere between those two extremes. Their doorbell needs to serve how they live their life.
otter-in-a-suit 5y ago
Neat. Even w/o PoE already wired up, I guess a Pi Zero can be powered with a regular 12V line that every doorbell uses. Otherwise, getting this to run off batteries with a Pi (and WiFi) would be an exercise in futility - am currently building something with some Zeros, and even at an optimistic 150mA, that'll eat through 3000mA lithium batteries in no time. I do wonder how the longevity of the case is, though - the case isn't weather-proof (also, its ABS, so I'd argue you can print it on an Ender 3). I always find that to be one of the most challenging problems for outdoor-projects. If you ever too take a part e.g. a Blink XT (equally spyware, but I gave up at that point), you'd notice some pretty tight tolerances and seals, so that the cameras survive the outdoors. That doesn't seem easily replicated with a $9 box.
- bluGill 5y ago
  Most doorbells in the US are 16volt AC, (from memory so I'm probably off by a bit). While you can power a pi from that, the power supply will be tricky.
  - syntheticnature 5y ago
    Yes, though for many doorbells when you push the button the power goes away.
dole 5y ago
While using an RPi is fun to get into and set up yourself, there's starting to be cheaper and better hardware featured controllers for doorbell projects like these, such as the TTGO, an ESP32-based board with camera, display, wireless, and button for anywhere from U$15-25. https://github.com/petrepa/ESPHome-VideoDoorbell https://github.com/petrepa/ESPHome-VideoDoorbell
nickt 5y ago
If you like this sort of thing, Crowdsupply [1] and Tindie [2] are great places to browse once in a while. And when you’re done with them, there’s always [3]! 1. https://www.crowdsupply.com/ https://www.crowdsupply.com/ 2. https://www.tindie.com/ https://www.tindie.com/ 3. https://twitter.com/internetofshit?s=21 https://twitter.com/internetofshit?s=21
c0l0 5y ago
What a cool project! If only I actually needed a doorbell... ;) I would however LOVE to have a blueprint for a DIY "smart" door lock (like https://nuki.io/ https://nuki.io/, but with FOSS firm- and software) available, yet a recent web search for such a thing did not yield results. If I did overlook something, please let me know!
vladgur 5y ago
All these DYI LoT projects assume one of two things: * you are connected to your home Wifi * you are routing all your mobile traffic to an always-on home VPN This is where they fail for me and Rings, Nests, etc win: * I do NOT want to route ALL my mobile data traffic through at-home VPN while im out and about. * I have an iPhone which does not allow app-specific VPN configuration * I want to be able to get instant real-time video feeds in case of a doorbell events. I have multiple internet-of-things hardware and software including * Ring * Wyze * Abode * Home Assistant * Blue Iris And one thing is common: cloud-based services(Ring, Wyze, Abode) are faster and easier to use remotely then local-only Lan-of-Things products such as Home Assistant and Blue Iris which require one of two assumptions I listed above. In other words, in order to connect to my local-only LoT products, i have to turn on my VPN and then open up the app and then to remember to turn it off when Im done. This is too slow and takes too much efforts and thus turns me back to cloud-based services. Im not even talking about training the software to ignore things like wind moving leaves and tree branches and to only pay attention to what can be identified as humans

157 points by buzzert 5y ago

I like the idea, nice implementation, but I was hoping to be able to answer the door remotely. One alternative I've been looking at is the ubiquiti doorbell, it allows answering the door with 1 way video and 2 way audio, without involving any cloud services.

biktor_gj 5y ago
Given there's an electronic lock on the other side with a keypad, it makes me think that thing has its own actuator and didn't want to mess with it. Otherwise it would just be a matter of adding an "Electric strike?" (https://www.tesa.es/en/site/tesa/products/electromechanical-devices/electric-strikes/mortise-electric-strike/ https://www.tesa.es/en/site/tesa/products/electromechanical-...), feed it 12/24v through a relay connected to the pi zero, and add another api endpoint
moepstar 5y ago
I'd hold off buying anything Ubiquiti in the near term and wait for them to decide if they totally turn hostile their consumers (well, prosumers in that case) or not. Just search the recent (3 to 6 months ago) news for them...
- colordrops 5y ago
  I think that's already been decided.
- slantyyz 5y ago
  If you're not into walled gardens, don't bother waiting. You'll likely be unhappy with the outcome.
TheHypnotist 5y ago
I'm in a situation where there was no wire at my front door so I'm limited in the type of doorbell cam. The one I settled on is Eufy who at least stores the information locally on the home base and doesn't charge for access. That said, I don't really know what's happening with my data, but from what I understand, it's not going to at third party (at least for the doorbell). This seemed like my best option.
slantyyz 5y ago
I have the Unifi Doorbell, and I like it a lot. My use case is mainly for 24/7 recording and less so for interactive communication with people at the door, so take my preference with a grain of salt. Heck, I have never even used the two-way communication function since buying the doorbell earlier this year. While I generally like the Unifi Protect walled garden (because of usability compared to other non-cloud options), it's not all sunshine and rainbows either. If your doorbell rings and you launch the app, you're going to be waiting several seconds for the app to reinitialize, etc. By the time you answer, a significant amount of time will have passed. There's also latency between the two-way comms. In my particular case, the tradeoffs of going with the Protect walled garden were worth it. The cameras are decent (yes, you can get cheaper and better), it is super easy to set up, and I didn't need to train my wife on how to use the mobile app at all. If you're not into walled gardens, however, the Unifi Protect ecosystem probably isn't for you. As most surveillance cam peeps online will tell you, you can do a lot better for less money.

habibur 5y ago

The best parts I found here : > The Ring Doorbell, which is now owned by advertising megacorp Amazon, suffers from all of the same privacy problems described in my post about the Nest thermostat, but even worse. Like the Nest thermostat, the client software is a total “race to the bottom” one-size-fits-all garbage iOS app that not only looks bad, but is full of bugs. Also like the Nest, all of your data is hosted in “the cloud”, and a monthly ransom is required before you (“the customer”) are actually allowed to access it. Worse than the Nest, however, is the fact that the Ring doorbell actually has a camera and microphone built-in, so video and audio feeds are also held for ransom in “the cloud”, and are shared with any interested party, sometimes even without your permission. > Just like many other Internet of Things products, the Ring has also been subject to multiple disastrous data breaches, meaning besides law enforcement agencies and advertising partners, many Ring customers’ private data is now also in the hands of malicious hackers, who may in the future offer ransoms that are much harder to refuse than the one offered by Amazon. ____ end quote. Build all the small stuffs yourself, as much as you can. Another reason to learn DIY, even though off the shelf solutions exist.

hellbannedguy 5y ago
You had me at "monthly ransom".
nine_k 5y ago
As someone on HN once quipped, Iinternet of Things is not going to happen until LAN of Things happens". This has the problem of a common controller, though. The router could be it; most modern routers are quite beefy. For those running linux internally a standard to deploy apps, including the LAN smart home controller, should be reasonably easy to devise, unless it already exists.
- rusk 5y ago
  > The router could be it Already seeing various home hubs coming bundled, so this seems to be on the way. Whether you’ll have access to this or if it hosts a “partner” remains to be seen. For now I think we’ll be seeing a profusion of Raspberri Pi based “LoT” devices just because they are so damn easy to work with and they come with a certain amount of sense and control stuff baked in.

Lammy 5y ago

The project box aesthetic works really well for this. Did you waterproof the mounting holes and seam where the box fits together? Some silicone sealant will help keep out the moisture and keep out the wasps (ask me how I know lol) My ideal DIY doorbell would be like a progressive-enhancement to the oldschool physical bell chime, just with the addition of a camera, maybe using something like this: https://www.2nusa.com/en_US/products/intercoms/2n-2wire https://www.2nusa.com/en_US/products/intercoms/2n-2wire

buzzert 5y ago
I used a little bit of hot glue to seal the screw holes I drilled into the back, and rubber washers for both the camera and the button in the front. Haven't had too many rainy days yet, but it seems to be holding up in the fog at least!
123pie123 5y ago
thanks for the link to 2N - depending on costs it may save me a time implementing rs-485. The casing is huge, may be ok for a drivway system - in front of a gate, but I would want the casing to be much more lower profile I have been playing with a crazy idea of getting some sort of realisic dog effect when the door bell is pressed, by using a linear solinoid and syncing the solinoid hitting the door frame (without daminging it) once or twice with a sound of a dog - playing on a few speakers - not all at once, some close and some further away to the door so it sounds like the dog is coming to the door then running off

ocdtrekkie 5y ago

The killer bit here was that the author already had a PoE run available: That's the killer for nearly all good IoT projects. PoE is king, and unless you're building new, you probably don't have it.

_AzMoo 5y ago
PoE is desirable for sure, but you could always just power it with a battery.
- sgt 5y ago
  RPI Zero with a camera is more power intensive than just a little microcontroller. You would need to either recharge / swap batteries now and then or charge from solar. Then you still need network and the WiFi signal might be weak where your doorbell is.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  My old doorbell has a wire, I'm sure it's just a low power switching wire but that should be good enough for the 5 volts needed.
  - zrail 5y ago
    Doorbells typically use 12-16VAC provided by a small transformer near your circuit breaker panel. It's plenty of power to run whatever you need.
    - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
      Sure, but then you have no data line, and using Wi-Fi for security is a really bad idea.
- klysm 5y ago
  Low power design is pretty hard (for me at least) if you need to send radio stuff

dmje 5y ago

The "long range doorbell that doesn't do evil things" seems like a product space that is a bit of a vacuum. We've recently had an office built at the end of our garden. Finding a doorbell that will work from the front of our house has been a futile mission so far. I have little interest in a camera, I certainly have no need to connect anything to my (lack of) smart home. I just want a thing that rings in my shed when someone pushes the house bell. "Long range" wireless bells just don't seem to cut it. Everything else is massively over engineered. It's a strange thing that maybe my best solution seems to be running a very long wire down the garden...!

tpetry 5y ago
How about a baby phone near your door bell and one in your office?
isoprophlex 5y ago
Something like this? https://m.banggood.com/DIGOO-DG-DB1-433MHz-Wireless-Doorbell-58-Ringtones-Selection-Indoor-Outdoor-Chime-p-1703008.html https://m.banggood.com/DIGOO-DG-DB1-433MHz-Wireless-Doorbell...
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  I think that's similar to the one they are referring to; does it have the range to pass through a house into the back yard?
callmemclovin 5y ago
This seems like a good use case for LoRa wireless modules, I haven't used them personally, but they claim a range of 10 miles without obstacles. Try searching for "LoRaWAN Door Bell" if you want off-the-shelf products, or otherwise for "Arduino + LoRa" if you want to DIY :-)
- abraae 5y ago
  I can recommend moteino - Arduino with a Lora transceiver piggy backed on it.

nxpnsv 5y ago

Nice project & looks great!

secure 5y ago

…or if you want to re-use your existing intercom and hook it up to MQTT, see https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2021-03-13-smart-intercom-backpack/ https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2021-03-13-smart-interco... for how I did that :)

dstick 5y ago
This looks amazing - well done! I’ve started dabbling in hardware about a year ago. Starting with the Arduino starter kit. But somehow my brain doesn’t seem wired for it. It feels like all the pieces are there in my head but I’m unable to draw the connections. I built a self igniting torpedo heater for a powder coat oven but even though it worked, I still feel like I stumbled through every step instead of understanding any of it. Like building a piece of software using SO snippets and just trial and erroring it until it works ;-) Do you have any tutorial (series) recommendations for semi beginners on stuff like this? Maybe some “hardware explained for a software developer”? :D
- secure 5y ago
  I’m not aware of any tutorials unfortunately, but I would recommend connecting with your local Makerspace or Hackerspace. They can often be a great resource to find other people interested in electronics :)
- rusk 5y ago
  > Starting with the Arduino starter kit. But somehow my brain doesn’t seem wired for it. Have you looked into Raspberry Pi. I use these for even very simple things, just because it’s so easy to get up and running. Way over spec’d of course but if you jus want to “get something done” they can’t be beat.

gorgoiler 5y ago

Nice. Next step would be a microphone and speaker. You are effectively building an outdoor SIP videophone.

hebrox 5y ago

I'm not sure if this is the case, but doesn't this create the option for somebody to remove the casing and directly connect to your network?

nextlevelwizard 5y ago
I just assumed that he Pi lives in a separate box on the other side of the fence with just the GPIO pins exposed through a small hole.

ragebol 5y ago

With all these smart devices, what is so smart about them? Does the doorbell know to ignore certain people? Most of the smartness in this doorbell is simply having the notification go to a different place. My smart TV still doesn't know what I want to watch, that is should pause stuff when I stand up during the middle of a move but should keep playing the commercials when I stand up so I can ignore them. Smart means: internet-connected or has a (touch)screen in case of a smartphone. /rant. Nice build though, I'll replicate this some time.

skocznymroczny 5y ago
Unfortunately a smart TV would be more likely to pause the commercials when it detects you are not looking at the TV
- snet0 5y ago
  Reminds me of the infamous "Say McDonald's to end commercial" patent from Sony. You will engage with the advertisement, or content will be withheld.
bluGill 5y ago
That is what smart is: having technology that works when and how you need it to. Some people would put a sign on the door: "don't knock, just come in", and be comfortable with strangers doing that (the door exists for HVAC reasons) at any time of the day/night. Other people would prefer their doorbell be a few km away from their house and set it only ring during visiting hours. Most people are somewhere between those two extremes. Their doorbell needs to serve how they live their life.

otter-in-a-suit 5y ago

Neat. Even w/o PoE already wired up, I guess a Pi Zero can be powered with a regular 12V line that every doorbell uses. Otherwise, getting this to run off batteries with a Pi (and WiFi) would be an exercise in futility - am currently building something with some Zeros, and even at an optimistic 150mA, that'll eat through 3000mA lithium batteries in no time. I do wonder how the longevity of the case is, though - the case isn't weather-proof (also, its ABS, so I'd argue you can print it on an Ender 3). I always find that to be one of the most challenging problems for outdoor-projects. If you ever too take a part e.g. a Blink XT (equally spyware, but I gave up at that point), you'd notice some pretty tight tolerances and seals, so that the cameras survive the outdoors. That doesn't seem easily replicated with a $9 box.

bluGill 5y ago
Most doorbells in the US are 16volt AC, (from memory so I'm probably off by a bit). While you can power a pi from that, the power supply will be tricky.
- syntheticnature 5y ago
  Yes, though for many doorbells when you push the button the power goes away.

dole 5y ago

While using an RPi is fun to get into and set up yourself, there's starting to be cheaper and better hardware featured controllers for doorbell projects like these, such as the TTGO, an ESP32-based board with camera, display, wireless, and button for anywhere from U$15-25. https://github.com/petrepa/ESPHome-VideoDoorbell https://github.com/petrepa/ESPHome-VideoDoorbell

nickt 5y ago

If you like this sort of thing, Crowdsupply [1] and Tindie [2] are great places to browse once in a while. And when you’re done with them, there’s always [3]! 1. https://www.crowdsupply.com/ https://www.crowdsupply.com/ 2. https://www.tindie.com/ https://www.tindie.com/ 3. https://twitter.com/internetofshit?s=21 https://twitter.com/internetofshit?s=21

c0l0 5y ago

What a cool project! If only I actually needed a doorbell... ;) I would however LOVE to have a blueprint for a DIY "smart" door lock (like https://nuki.io/ https://nuki.io/, but with FOSS firm- and software) available, yet a recent web search for such a thing did not yield results. If I did overlook something, please let me know!

vladgur 5y ago

All these DYI LoT projects assume one of two things: * you are connected to your home Wifi * you are routing all your mobile traffic to an always-on home VPN This is where they fail for me and Rings, Nests, etc win: * I do NOT want to route ALL my mobile data traffic through at-home VPN while im out and about. * I have an iPhone which does not allow app-specific VPN configuration * I want to be able to get instant real-time video feeds in case of a doorbell events. I have multiple internet-of-things hardware and software including * Ring * Wyze * Abode * Home Assistant * Blue Iris And one thing is common: cloud-based services(Ring, Wyze, Abode) are faster and easier to use remotely then local-only Lan-of-Things products such as Home Assistant and Blue Iris which require one of two assumptions I listed above. In other words, in order to connect to my local-only LoT products, i have to turn on my VPN and then open up the app and then to remember to turn it off when Im done. This is too slow and takes too much efforts and thus turns me back to cloud-based services. Im not even talking about training the software to ignore things like wind moving leaves and tree branches and to only pay attention to what can be identified as humans