Z-Wave Doorbell from a Wireless Doorbell + Door/Window Sensor

I recently moved into a house with a wireless doorbell, and wanted to get notifications when it rings. I’m sure others have done this, but I couldn’t find it…

Materials:

  • Wireless Door Chime GE Model 19208… since that is what I had.
  • Ecolink Z-Wave Door/Window Sensor (DWZWAVE2-ECO)
  • Wire Strippers

Procedure:

(Spend some time with a multimeter trying to figure out the best way to do this… then…)

I opened the Door Chime and scraped off the glue from the LED. I then cut off the LED and stripped the wires. I opened the window sensor and plugged the wires into the contact sensor (red on the right). I then put it all back together, letting the wires just poke out of the top of the chime into the sensor: I just didn’t screw the top screws all the way together.

I used the “MIMO Lite Doorbell Device Type” (pretty much so it would say that it was a doorbell instead of a door) and the “Notify Me When” smartapp.

It works really well! I get notified almost immediately, while the doorbell is still making its noise.

7 Likes

@denhall thanks for sharing, this looks like a good project to post at http://www.hackster.io/smartthings but before you do that, @April can you give him picture posting ability so his pictures pull right over?

@denhall, feel free to post the images here directly now. I’ve upped your access.

Thanks @mattjfrank!

Great work. I have a Honeywell wireless door chime, do you think that will work? It doesn’t have an LED

Honeywell RCWL110A1006/N Wallmount Wireless Door Chime and Push Button https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001G0MATW/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_Mth6ub1J6NPZW

It might work, but you’ll have to figure out a different way to do it. This is why mine works:

That green box on the window sensor is a dry contact sensor. Whoever makes the window sensors decided they might as well include that as a bonus… and it’s great! It detects if the two wires attached to it are connected or not. For example, if I attached two wires to it and held the other ends apart from each other, it would send an “OPEN” signal. If I connected the other ends, it would send a “CLOSED” signal.

I took apart my chime and had my multimeter in the mode that detected resistance. I was pretty much looking for two points that were either disconnected or connected when no doorbell press was happening… but then changed that state when the doorbell was pressed. I had not really even noticed that LED before… but it was the winner. When nobody is ringing the chime, it is on: the red and black wire are connected. When somebody rings the doorbell, the light blinks off / on / off / on. When it blinks off, there is no connection between the red and black wire for a moment. That moment was enough to trigger the “OPEN” signal. (It actually sends it twice, but the ‘notify me when’ app ignores the second signal).

So… again, it might work, but you’ll have to find some other way to get the signal when the doorbell rings. I think I got lucky with the LED: I wasn’t easily able to find any other points on the board.

Thanks. I might just pick up your model for 30 bucks on Amazon and call it a day :slight_smile:

Were you able to get battery status with the Mimo lite door device? I set mine up but it’s not reporting battery properly.

Okay, I didn’t even pay attention to the battery… but now that you pointed it out, it was annoying me! This is how I think that I fixed it. (It says 100%, so I don’t know if it’s reporting correctly or not… but maybe it is?) I got changes by looking at the “Door/Window Sensor” device type.

In the MIMLight Device Type…

Add

    capability "Battery"

at the top where it has a list of capabilities.

Then, do a search and replace over the entire thing: wherever you see “voltage”, change it to “battery” instead.

Finally, where it (now) says:

       valueTile("battery", "device.battery") {
			state("battery", label:'${currentValue}v', unit:"ADC")
}

Change that v to a %:

        valueTile("battery", "device.battery") {
			state("battery", label:'${currentValue}%', unit:"ADC")
}

Then Save and Publish to “Me”. You’ll also have to change your device’s device type to “Self-Published”. This is probably a messy way to fix it, but it seems to work.

The battery polling is working! Thx

This worked great! Install went pretty smooth, just be careful when you take apart the housing of the doorbell as the jumpers need to be removed first. Also, when stripping the wires, use your fingernails as the wires are very delicate and a wire stripper will most likely cut the wire. This doorbell model is probably discontinued as I had to find it on eBay. This is a much cheaper option to have a smart doorbell and for people who don’t have the 24v wired doorbells in place. I have security cameras on my front door anyway.

Here is the video (later on I configured the Notify Me app to push notifications). Thank you @denhall !!

It seems crazy that there is not an off the shelf z-wave or zigbee doorbell out there. I was looking for one the other day. It doesn’t need video or to be as fancy as Skybell. Just a button that is weather resistant. @April are there any SmartThings partners (or Samsung) that might benefit from knowing about this void in the marketplace? Maybe something to pass along.

2GIG has just Released one for their new gocontrol line which may work, it’s hard to tell yet. See the following:

Thanks for the heads up. I just ordered one and I’ll report back when I receive it. Maybe it will just work? Or maybe this is a chance to get into writing a custom device type. We will see! :grinning:

From what I read the doorbell button is not Zwave, but enables the control unit to use zwave devices and trigger actions from it.

I used the same thing you guys are using…it is awesome.

Thanks for all the help.

my Window/door sensor remains open though. then when the door bell is rung, it closes for a second, opens again and then i have notification on my phone.

Shouldn’t be closed and open up when the door bell is rung ? is that something i can modify on the sensor without placing the magnet or is that something in the smartapp am using ?

Please help me with your input.

Thanks.

This was the best hack yet…unfortunately I used a different door bell and woke up at 3am to “someone is at your gate” with alerts every five minutes in the activity screen. I’m planning to install it on my perimeter gate in which i already have 2 door sensors on both openings. I have the same sensor and the status shows open until pressed then it shows closed at which my smartapp alerts with my message on the close event, One workaround that I’m going to try is since i dont care about the actual door bell i’m going to buy This Button or something similar and mount that to one side of the gate and mount my sensor to the other side in something secure which will work perfectly in my setup. Hope this helps someone else as it did for me.

Thx for posting. Got this up and running today. Works great. Got the GE door bell for $10 and an the EcoLink for $20 on eBay. Now just waiting on my outdoor foscam.

Hi,

Great idea! I was hoping to do the same, I bought the following doorbell http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KL6TTTQ/ref=pe_385721_51767431_TE_dp_1
but the 4 tiny leds are soldered directly onto the circuit board. Reckon there’s a way around this? or can anyone recommend a suitable doorbell set (UK/Ireland) that has an old school led?

Thanks

Did you get it working with that bell? I was thinking of trying with a similar model

@GeekyBiker

SkyBell HD is now compatible on IFTTT, which allows you to cross over and connect with SmartThings.

Also, SkyBell HD is the only doorbell on IFTTT that can do BOTH Triggers AND Actions. You can get triggers from the button or motion sensor, AND, tell SkyBell to start recording video, change the LED light or turn Silent Mode on! We also have full color night vision and up to 1080p video!

The SkyBell HD is also back in stock at www.skybell.com.

Learn more about IFTTT Channel: http://goo.gl/cYVclE