I am looking to purchase a new device to primarily use as a simple door chime alert when a contact sensor is triggered open. Battery or plug-in acceptable. I don’t need a super loud siren to use as an alarm siren, as I’m unlikely to enable that sort of intruder security automation on a regular basis due to false alarms (and not wanting to wake up small kids). Custom sounds aren’t necessary (unless all the built-in sounds are terrible), but ideally would like something with the ability to play different sounds based on different triggers. I’ve been using a few Google Home Minis recently, but they have been unreliable, with the Google automation not always getting triggered 100% of the time.
What would your go-to device be for a new purchase? Many of the threads I’ve found on here are old and don’t necessarily reflect Edge support. I’ve looked into both Aeotec Siren 6 and Ecolink Z-Wave 700 (ISZW7-ECO) but they both are only 3.4/5 on Amazon and seem to each have issues reported in this community.
For a long time, I used a Dome Siren for this function, but the response time of the device is slow, combined with a small delay in volume at the start of the chime sound it has, often making the chime from opening the door after the door has been opened and closed. I have gone to using my Aqara Doorbell’s chime with a round about way of triggering it between ST and Aqara devices and it has been way more reliable and timely.
I have looked for zwave and zigbee devices to fill this role and came up short finding a dedicated device to replace the Dome Siren’s function that wasn’t finding the workaround I am currently using.
I personally use an Echo Dot for this, and it has been a popular choice in the community. Lots of choices of different sounds and sound effects, and has been reliable for me. You can have the sound play on multiple echo dot or specific sensors play on specific echo devices. It’s not local, though, so that’s another consideration.
Thanks. I’m interested in a local solution that won’t suffer from lag or other issues. I’m in the Google ecosystem and that’s what I’m currently using. Perhaps Alexa is more reliable. What I find currently is it works as expected maybe 70% of the time. The rest of the time, it doesn’t chime at all when a door opens or will chime 30 seconds late.
I have a Tapo H100 (matter bridge) with a built-in siren (actually a speaker). It’s quite well integrated into ST and exposes all of my Tapo sensors via Matter.
You could use the H100 as a chime in combination with your existing contact sensor or get the Tapo T110, which I love, because it’s tiny, stylish and the battery life is awesome.
I purchased a Tuya Coolcam Zigbee Siren from Aliexpress which is not super loud, very cheap and works with Wesley’s Edge driver. The routines trigger perfectly and have not had any issues in the last 3 months. It needs a USB C cable to keep it powered on always though it comes with 2 batteries.
What sort of settings are available after installing it with the generic Tuya driver? The Tuya siren says it has 18 optional alarm sounds - are there simple chimes (not sirens) that can be triggered differently with different routines? Thanks
Yes there are simple chimes, you can choose which one of the 18 melody sounds (out of which including one or two which produces siren sounds) you want, choose the duration of the alarm time and adjust the volume. To be honest, it’s not really a siren as it’s not very loud and I even posted about this in one of my posts but for what you asked for, it should do the trick.
The routines can neither be triggered with different sounds nor can you set different sounds. e.g. you cannot say if a condition is met, set the sound to 6 and you cannot say if the sound is 6, then do an action. The routines can be triggered with either alarm on or alarm off only.
