Pressing the button automatically rings the doorbell and that’s in the hardware so I can’t prevent it, but if you set the doorbell track to something that doesn’t have a corresponding mp3 file, it will just light up instead of making a sound.
As long as you use a delay in Rule Machine long enough for the light to go out, you can play a different track when the button is pushed.
Example:
A wife wants the normal doorbell sound (track 2), but the husband wants it to tell a joke (track 10). The husband could use Rule Machine to setup a push button trigger for the doorbell that uses the wife’s presence as a condition, and has a 3 second delayed action that executes the custom command playTrack(2) for true and playTrack(10) for false.
A better example would be flashing the lights instead of playing a track when the nursery door is closed to prevent the doorbell from waking the baby.
I just officially released version 1.5 which as a few additional changes that the version you installed does not.
[quote=“ehoffman73, post:22, topic:36586”]
do you all recommend pushing forward with this
[/quote]I’m kind of biased because I created this version of the Device Handler, but I think it’s the best device I’ve bought so far.
It doesn’t work that well as a doorbell, it’s not loud enough to be a siren, the way it numbers tracks sucks, and it somes rings on its own, but it’s a z-wave repeater, it allows you to play 100 different mp3s, it’s 1/4 of the price of a Sonos and we’ve come up with workarounds for all of the other problems I mentioned.
Using free text to speech websites you can create mp3s that tell you which door opened, name of the rule being run, the name of the person that arrives (if the presence sensors worked better), when your laundry is finished, etc. My house is British and she yells at me for things like staying up too late or spending too much time on the couch.
I recommend using a prefix sound for all the mp3s that talk, unless it’s a response to something you initiate because when you’re not expecting it to say something, it’s easy to miss the beginning of the message.
I use a quick siren like chirp for important messages like security, leaks, fire, etc. and I use a soft tone for reminders about upcoming appointments, things I need to do and when things like laundry are finished.
At the moment, you need to create custom commands to get it to work with Rule Machine, but that won’t be necessary once RM supports the music player capability.
I am primarily interested in it as an actual doorbell…so its not quite primetime yet for that…do you have range issues too? Can you push notifications to your phone, etc?
[quote=“ehoffman73, post:24, topic:36586”]
I am primarily interested in it as an actual doorbell…
[/quote]I have the button mounted inside my house and I’ve been pressing it at least twice a day for several weeks and it hasn’t failed once.
Some people have reported problems with the battery clips, cold weather, and certain housing materials. You can find those posts here.
In my experience, it works out of the box as a doorbell. @krlaframboise is right that it’s not super loud, but I find it sufficient. The range is also not great, but again, I find it sufficient. One problem I had, for instance, is I have metal flashing around the exterior of my door frame, and that blocked the signal enough to the location where the speaker was that it wouldn’t pick up the button press. Solution… move it a couple inches to the right and stick it on the siding. As for the volume, you can add your own audio files at whatever volume you like. It sounds to me like the particular sounds included are at a lower volume than you’d expect. I think even with just the basic doorbell functionality you’ll be able to get push alerts on your phone for a button press. I had that working, I just wanted some additional features.
As for additional functionality, if you don’t mind a little tinkering, there are many different things you can do with this. There are a few DHs floating around that work great for some people right away with no tinkering (other than adding them in the API). The first one I tried worked to an extent, but not exactly for what I wanted. Luckily I stumbled across a post by @krlaframboise and posted my problem and he spent a lot of time yesterday working with me to get his DH working for me.
Bottom line, I’m very pleased with this device (and the outstanding ST community support).
I’m glad to hear it. I highly recommend reading the documentation in the top post before it arrives so you’ll know all the workarounds and avoid a lot of frustration.
Hoping someone can help me out. My doorbell just arrived. I paired it with my V2 hub with no problems (can make it chime etc from the phone app), but when I change the DH to this one nothing works after that. Beep, alarm doorbell buttons do nothing.
I thought I did double click the button to add it securely, but I must have done something wrong. Trying to remove it now. Getting stuck at removing the device.
I’m going to disconnect mine tonight so I can do some testing because that’s one of the sections I used from the other DH and never tested.
I have a better understanding of ST now so I’ll either release a new version if there’s a way to prevent this or post detailed instructions on how it needs to be installed.