Hey Guys,
So my doorbell just failed on me today and its a wireless door bell. Is there any buttons out there that are fairly weather proof that I can connect to smartthings? I’ve seen the aeotech doorbell but all I really need is an inexpensive button. For the actual door bell I have something interesting in mind.
Much depends on your weather. I live near San Francisco, and there are a number of devices I can use in a sheltered space outdoors. Someone who lived in Minneapolis would have fewer.
The easiest button to connect to smartthings right now is probably the iris button. It’s one small square button that will connect directly to the hub and costs I think around $25, but you can usually get a coupon to bring the cost down 10 or 20%.
The Aeon panic button is a one zwave button key fob which can also connect directly to smartthings. That one is officially supported which is always a plus. But it tends to cost just under $50. It also looks a little more like a doorbell, maybe because of the contrast.
There are a number of other options including one of the battery operated light switches.
Personally, I like the flic buttons, but these are Bluetooth so you have to have a Bluetooth device set up as a receiver. That works at my house because we have a couple of tablets set up permanently as home automation controllers. They also cost more than the Iris, $30 - $35. But one of the reasons I like the flic is because my service dog can use it. That’s not an issue for many other people. 
So is always different things work for different people.
An alternative I was thinking of was mounting a smartthings motion sensor outside… in an enclosure but canadian winter will probably kill it.
PIR motion sensors, including the SmartThings, rarely work well outdoors because they are actually heat sensors which respond to very small variations in heat moving across the sensor. So even a cloud moving across the sun or a gust of warm breeze can create enough of the differential to set them off.
Several manufacturers, including Aeon, recommend disabling the motion sensor feature on their multi sensors before using the device outdoors to measure temperature and light for just this reason.
So you could try it, but you’d be likely to get a lot of false alarms, and for a doorbell that might be particularly annoying.
Don’t forget about the Aeon Doorbell-
I have the Aeon doorbell - the button it comes with was useless for me… I live in a concrete house, I couldn’t get it to work no matter what I did - I’m talking the units were 2 feet apart.
Next thing I tried was using the Iris button to trigger the Aeon. That is crappy because the Iris button seems to sleep and it often required 2 pushes to work - UPS ain’t got time fo dat! Plus, in the cold, the battery died weekly.
Next up - and this worked a treat, I bought a contact sensor. I just drilled a hole through my wall and mounted the contact sensor inside with wire run through the wall to the outdoors and used a standard doorbell button to complete the circuit (the contact sensor had terminals on the inside). Now the battery operated contact portion is indoors to protect the battery from dying in Ohio winters and the doorbell is a normal weatherproof button that people aren’t confused by! (I just trigger the Aeon doorbell function using the contact sensor closing)
This is a very practical idea! I also like the fact that then you can choose the look of the doorbell that you want.
We have mentioned something similar in the past for gate sensors in very cold environments – – using a nonnetworked weatherproof sensor on the gate and running wires to a radio device inside The House. But I haven’t heard anyone mention it before for doorbell use, and it makes even more sense there because of the aesthetics.
Thanks! I had to come up with something, my hardwired doorbell went kaput… add on construction made it basically impossible for me to get to the transformer and I can’t run anything through the walls due to filled cinder block construction. So I just tried everything I could until I finally stumbled on something that worked.
Neat idea! I thought of it at one point but wasn’t sure how well it would work, but now I am definitely considering it.
I could’ve swore I did a project topic on this exact use case, but I can’t find it in my posts. Hmmm. Maybe i’ll write it up as I have this exact scenario. I bought a momentary button and made a case for it, and used my existing wires to do this exact thing.
Hi All… Tried the above with two different types of Z-Wave switches…
A. Vision ZL 7432 Dual Relay - Rigged with ordinary momentary bell switch
B. Aeon Labs DSC06106-ZWUS - Z-Wave Smart Energy Switch - Using quick toggle On then Off
Both failed to work with on event simply not registering even in the LOG. Possibly because Off event cancelled the ON.
Is there any way to improve reliability? I have Hub V1.
