https://www.amazon.co.uk/blink-chime/dp/B0GKR38RPH
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It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell
141–150 of 282 posts
Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell
#142I 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…
As a former embedded systems engineer, my door bell is two long bits of wire, a bell, a push button and two C cells. My light switches are similarly complicated.
Nah, for light switches I'm all-in Philips Hue because it's both pretty and convenient. Plus LEDs synchronized with that via House Assistant.
Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell
#143Don't use web security cameras to stop crime.
Every service wants your personal information.
Every service charges a subscription.
The crime will still happen.
Use a physically protected motion action video recorder. No web. The burglary will happen and you will have evidence. No software upgrades. Never obsolete.
YMMV
Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell
#144I prefer burglars more than cameras.
Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell
#145I 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…
As a former embedded systems engineer, my door bell is two long bits of wire, a bell, a push button and two C cells. My light switches are similarly complicated.
As a former embedded systems engineer, my door bell is two long bits of wire, a bell, a push button and two C cells.
I know a guy who lives is a 1700's-era house. His is a bell, a pulley, and a string.
Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell
#146I 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…
Pretty sure I have inherited some of your codebases.
Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell
#147We are in the era of techfluenza that suffocates and removes normal ways of living.
Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
“I was only following the requirements” at this point must be the Nurnberg defence of over engineering. If it quacks like a duck, doesn’t matter what you call it: it was over engineering.
It would be over engineered if one could design a system providing similar functionality using less hardware and less software. I challenge you to design a wireless doorbell that has a user-configurable chime, in a way that uses less software or less hardware than mine. You couldn't. In fact, if you did market research like me you would find that 99% of similar products have vastly more complex hardware or software o…
Challenge accepted: "Similar functionality" here is the same doorbells that have existed for over a century. Done. :)
If the requirements and constraints come from you, then saying "those are the requirements" doesn't settle anything. And is the same excuse people use for the over-engineered solutions you don't seem to like.
It is over-engineering compared to a regular doorbell, period.
Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell
#149I fail to see the relation between a video doorbell and stopping a burglar. Burglars wear masks. Also, a doorbell ringing on the outside of the door is not only silly but in case of an apartment complex highly annoying for your neighbors. And make sure your neighbors like being monitored through your five services. Personally I have a button outside my front door. It is connected with a copper wire to the other side…
Criminals don't just rob random houses.
If they are going through the trouble its because they know there is something of value in there and a camera is not going to stop them.
A camera is only going to dissuade crimes of opportunity, its basically just fancy lock.
Re: It takes 5 cloud services to hear my doorbell
#150I 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.
Wait until you hear about the data centers worth of cat pictures we generate as a species.