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It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

blog.vghaisas.com

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Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#111

Post by vghaisas »

KPGv2 wrote: post #60
VladVladikoff wrote: post #3

I’ve recently been looking into what older gen IoT devices I can buy used for cheap and are also hackable (some existing progress has been done before me is my bar). My first adventure was with an Amazon Echo Dot 2, I picked up two off Facebook marketplace for $5 each and managed to vibe code my way into a working implementation of LibreEcho (which does not currently support the echo dot). I’ve got that wired into my…

Amazon had these little Dash buttons about 10 years ago. The goal was you would click one, and it would re-order that product from Amazon. Many were branded. Basically just a wifi button. I hacked one so I could, in my brain fog, record the moment i started and finished feeding my infant by sending a ping to a server via a simple click. There's a bunch up on eBay. Could probably 3M tape one beside your door. Easy sol…

Oh, can a Dash button talk to my Google home mini? I imagined it would be the same problem I currently have.

A zigbee button/doorbell would work well, but then we'd have two buttons on the front door unless we hid the Blink's integrated button somehow.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#112

Post by mrb »

lukeify wrote: post #63
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…

You are super-sensitive to over-engineering, so you over-engineered your requirements and ultimately your end product, just in a different methodology and framework.

The requirements are not over engineered. They are what they are. Wireless and configurable chime. They are fixed parameters.

But my implementation of these requirements is absolutely not over engineered. I argue it is the simplest and most reliable it could be done.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#113

Post by jjav »

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.

Burglars also know that they can pretty much pose and smile for the camera before covering it with tape and then breaking into the house, and the probability of consequences is very near zero. Unless they happen to break into the house of a well-connected politician or such.

Seem silly, but just try going to the police with crisp hi-res video of a burglarly and try to get them interested. I know people who have done it and all have failed. "We don't have time for this", "Value is not high enough to pursue", "Just call your insurance, not us".

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#114

Post by vghaisas »

utopiah wrote: post #101
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.

Yeah this would have been my answer, except for one catch: what do I do with the existing integrated button on the Blink doorbell?

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#115

Post by teiferer »

pynappo wrote: post #45
mathisfun123 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. People have been stealing things from stores which have had cctv for decades. Your premises are manifestly false.

Sure, theft still happens, but I don't see why home theft wouldn't be reduced by the presence of CCTV or other video surveillance. CCTV doesn't work well when people feel like nobody is going to bother to check its footage (e.g. pocketing a $2 drink from a big-box department store). But when it comes to homes, there are much higher chances of captured footage being used and examined, so it may cause opportunistic bur…

Or it tells the burglar there is sth valuable that's being protected and to make sure to cut the fiber before they do anything.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#116

Post by mrb »

utopiah wrote: post #101
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.

That is exactly over engineered crap I want to avoid. I don't want my doorbell to depend on networking or a full blown Linux stack.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#117

Post by victorbjorklund »

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.

You don't need to be extremely bright to realize that it's easier to burglar a home with no alarm system and cameras than one with. And if your neighbor doesn't have cameras, but you do, many home burglars are going to be smart enough to know that it's better to not be seen on camera. I'm sure there are some who have too low IQ/too high to realize that getting caught on camera is a bad idea, but at least it's gonna work on some.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#118

Post by graemep »

bradley13 wrote: post #95

Our situation isn't quite that extreme, but sometimes "modern" tech is just ridiculous. For home automation, every manufacturer has their own protocol. "Matter" has just confirmed what XKCD has to say: https://xkcd.com/927/ Add to that: every manufacturer wants to run their own servers and their own cloud service. I don't want my data strewn throughout the internet. For most devices, there is zero reason they couldn'…

> we all know that half of those services will die in a few years, forcing us to replace perfectly good devices

That is a feature, not a bug.

Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell

#120

Post by bharatsuthar »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #109

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.

Maybe I'm just too primitive but I let dogs handle it. I homestead in a remote Indian village and many stray dogs I look after instinctively take care of my property. There are false positives sometimes but that's okay. I like it when they alert me for potential small intrusions around my house, like snakes, monitor lizards etc.
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