Does this sensor just sense the voltage change when the doorbell chime is activated? I’m trying to understand how this works. I do have an extra Ecolink sensor that allows 2 wires to be connected if you don’t want to use the magnet. Is that the same thing?
Hi @tuffloud1,
This sensor works of the temporary closed circuit. When someone presses the doorbell or in my case, I use it as a rain detector by dropping the two wire ends into my rain spout (instead of connecting them to the bell terminals for the doorbell button). When the circuit is closed, it sends me a notification. I.e., It is raining outside your house. But in this case, you will setup a custom alert in Smart Home Monitoring to notify you when momentary switch “DoorBell” is pushed. It will work on the same principle as what @JDRoberts recommended; without modifying the transformer; as you will be connecting a sensor with its own power source.
Keeping on the theme of dumb doorbells to smarter doorbells. Our NYC apartment building does not allow for changes to the outside of the door. So, my challenge was to figure out how to make our dumb doorbell smarter using the original 1974 Auth Electrical mechanical door chime. To my surprise these devices are still manufactured and look and act basically the same. With a limited toolshed in the city, I started looking around the house of what parts I had available. Here was my final parts list.
Two six-inch solid copper core 18-gauge thermostat wire that I had from integrating Ecobee4 units into our wall HVAC units. One plastic dress shirt collar stay. I then purchased a Ecolink DWZWAVE2.5-ECO sensor that has terminal contacts that will open and close the circuit.
The Auth unit has one (and only one) screw that holds the base and hammer in place. I used this screw to ground the yellow sensor contact wire to the hammer base under the wire guide; and used the same screw to hold the wire guide (formally collar stay) firmly in place to allow the other white sensor wire to make reasonable contact with the metal hammer itself. I did notch the cover to allow the cover to flush mount, but otherwise there are no other modifications to the old yellowing Auth door chime. I was surprised at how simple it came together and it works great with the hammer moving to the right and then back left after the front button press opening and then closing the circuit.
The Ecolink sensor does act as a momentary contact when SmartThings presents it to an Alexa Echo API. This allowed me to build a routine that will both announce “Someone is at the front door” on all Echos in the house; and give an “Front Doorbell was activated” alert on our iPhones.
There’s a device that hooks up to a wired doorbell. It connects directly through wifi. Looks like it has a fairly wide input range for anyone concerned about lower voltage systems. Also open source https://www.fireflyelectronix.com/product/wifidoorbell