It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell • Hacker News Board

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#101

Post by utopiah » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 7:30 AM UTC

mrb wrote: post #49

I am super sensitive to over engineering. For my doorbell I wanted something that lets me play a custom bell sound. You would be surprised that 99% of the solutions out there are complete over engineered stacks that depend on wifi devices, Internet access, connecting to various cloud services... So I built my own: a basic wireless button sends a radio 433 MHz signal, and my receiver is plugged inside the house and tr…

ZigBee button, double sided scotch tape, Zigbee dongle, HomeAssistant on RPi with a speaker.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#102

Post by vghaisas » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 7:31 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #4

vghaisas wrote: post #2

I thought it was finally time to write up the story of my absurd home doorbell implementation, especially because the upcoming Samsung SmartThings API pricing means things will have to change soon. Suggestions welcome!

We have a Ring doorbell that hooks into the actual chime that the old doorbell used, so it still preserves the old doorbell's functionality[1]. I can understand not wanting to buy into the Ring ecosystem (we started using them before they were bought by Amazon), but maybe there are cheaper doorbells that also do that? All we had to do to make the old chime work with the Ring doorbell was install an extra widget that…

Oh our London flat has no pre-installed doorbell at all! This is surprisingly common and everyone just knocks.

But yes, there were definitely other ways to solve this problem.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#103

Post by vghaisas » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 7:34 AM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #5

vghaisas wrote: post #2

I thought it was finally time to write up the story of my absurd home doorbell implementation, especially because the upcoming Samsung SmartThings API pricing means things will have to change soon. Suggestions welcome!

I'll have to check the latency of my 'smart' doorbell now. I have occasionally heard the doorbell, taken the obligatory time to find the key to unlock the door to find that it was just a package delivery, but enough time had passed that the courier was nowhere to be seen. (Yours wasn't a latency issue though, what kind of latency do you get with your 5-cloud services chain?) Also, interesting about the SmartThings AP…

It takes a few seconds, but a lot of that is just the HA polling interval.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#104

Post by utopiah » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 7:35 AM UTC

AngryData wrote: post #50

ezfe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's video surveillance, it makes it more likely they'll go elsewhere. That's literally the whole point of Ring.

People always say this, but is there any evidence it is true? Home burglars aren't exactly the cream of the criminal crop.

I recently exchanged with a police agent in Belgium who specializes in the topic. Their heuristics is opportunity of action, namely how easy it is to get in and out without being caught on the spot. They said they do not really care about being recognized, only being noticed and stopped in action. Consequently the advice is to strengthen physical security first, i.e. have a big door with proper locks and close your windows. Everything else, including cameras, only comes after. Imagine you have 7min to get in and out, everything that slows you down means higher chance of getting stopped and thus considering another target instead.

You can get more information, including a free home audit, at https://polbru.be/prevention-contre-le-vol/?lang=fr in French and https://polbru.be/diefstalpreventie/ in Dutch, sorry no English links.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#105

Post by vghaisas » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 7:36 AM UTC

riobard wrote: post #83

what's the latency when someone pressed the button and you hear the bell?

It's just a few seconds and a lot of that is the HA polling interval.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#106

Post by harel » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 7:38 AM UTC

We have a Ring door bell (well, 2 of them plus 2 cameras) and also 2 chimes. Those chimes do one thing: they ring inside the house, one on each floor, when the door bells ring. Seems expensive and over complicated and it is. But it works quite well and has been very useful on many occasions.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#107

Post by vghaisas » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 7:39 AM UTC

disillusioned wrote: post #35

So... you already owned Google Home minis... why not buy Google's Nest doorbell, which rings every Google Home device out of the box with none of the absurdity? If you have a Google 4k TV Streamer, it even pops up on your TV when someone rings the doorbell...

When I started my search, I thought this £30 doorbell would be good enough and I wouldn't need the £180 Nest doorbell. Little did I know...

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#108

Post by vghaisas » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 7:43 AM UTC

VoidWhisperer wrote: post #70

This seems way overkill. I understand that that the OP didn't want to pay a subscription, but a really quick google showed that Blink makes a $30 product that solves this exact problem (not being able to hear the doorbell inside), the Blink Chime, which plugs into an outlet and then connects to 2.4Ghz, not requiring a subscription. I guess $30 for what is effectively a glorified chime for your door is a bit much, but…

Yeah, a Blink chime is definitely a solution. But after feeling like I got a great deal on a cheap doorbell, I didn't want to buy yet another thing from them. I also thought it would have been easy to play audio on the Google home and so I started tinkering and then got carried away.

MQTT was an option, but it actually felt like overkill to add an MQTT server on my VPS than just a tiny Express server. (But who am I to talk about overkill here.)

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#109

Post by CrzyLngPwd » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 7:45 AM UTC

I can't imagine how much energy is wasted on what should be, a trivial thing that might run on a 9v battery for 10 years, or, like I had in a house I owned, a door bell that uses no battery at all...just a rope and a bell.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#110

Post by teiferer » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 7:45 AM UTC

schumpeter wrote: post #36

t098i3 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally just said it solved my problem. Most casual crime is opportunistic, and cameras and lights add uncertainty to the opportunity. Most people aren't willing to chance the camera for an opportunistic score.

I’m not sure how it’s so hard for people replying to you, to understand, cameras are a deterrent. Crime is often opportunistic. I grew up in 80s Miami, the common tactic was knock on your front door to see if anyone’s home, when no one answers, they’d kick in the backdoor. Cameras deter crime. Not ALL crime. Criminals aren’t stupid and will simply go burgle someone that isn’t recording.

> knock on your front door to see if anyone’s home, when no one answers, they’d kick in the backdoor.

So now your front camera has somebody with an unidentifiable hoodie knocking and your back camera has somebody with an unidentifiable hoodie kick in the backdoor. How did the camera help exactly? Is the police really going to find somebody with this almost-invisible stain of dirt on the sleeve of the hoodie? Or are they rather going to say "oh well we'll keep an eye out" and that's the last you hear? My experience is the latter. Now you lost the worth of what they took plus all the money spent on your camera gear and the time setting it up.

Or are you saying doesn't matter, the deterrent is enough? Well then put up a fake camera for a fraction of the price. Works offline too.