Door Bell Working - Hubitat, Aqara Hub, Aqara Mini Switch -

We moved to a place and was toying with the Idea of a doorbell. I was not to keen on the traditional bell and after pouring thru the forum this is what I got finally working.
Requirements:

  1. 2 x Doors require Push door bell (I dont have too many wiring options)
  2. Door Bell Ring Sound - Ding Dong :slight_smile: (Which is what everone wants)
  3. Notification in Hubitat if anyone rings the door bell
  4. Integration options with HE so that I can leverage the rule engine for What IF events
  5. Control your device from your phone or applewatch (Side effect of the solution)

Ingredients:

  1. a. Working HE setup

1.b. A working HomeBridge with Hubitat Integration (Had an old desktop but you could use Raspberry Pi or any NAS). I have a VLAN setup so had to install AVAHI for mDNS Reflector (Required for HomeKit on your iphone to see the HomeBrigde) - THIS WAS WHERE I LOST LOT OF MY TIME as I was new to it.

http://chrisreinking.com/need-bonjour-across-vlans-set-up-an-avahi-gateway/

  1. Aqara Hub - It is a zigbee hub but it also acts as my door bell when I ring it with visual effects.
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Y4SDXMJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

3.Aqara Wireless Mini Switch - Zigbee based NO WIRES
3 of Aqara Wireless Mini Switch, REQUIRES AQARA HUB, Zigbee Connection, Versatile 3-way Control Button for Smart Home Devices, Compatible with Apple HomeKit

  1. Water Proof Enclosures - Buy Any as long as the dimension of the miniswitch fits into it
    C&S Waterproof Plastic 3 Module Enclosure with 16A Switch and Socket

Approach:
Press the miniswitch kicks of automation in Aqara Hub which sends a notification to HomeBridge. Since Homebridge is integrated with Hubitat, All Hubitat automation and notification will work.

  1. Setup the Aqara Hub & Aqara Mini Switch with the native app. Implement the Automation ie IF you press the button the Hub should ring etc. Use the Europe Servers for better option ie Door Ring Bell (More Options) - Depending on the region it opens more options. Later you can block access to their servers using rules on your router or firewall. Setup the Aqara to integrate with Home Kit. THe Aqara hub integrates with Home Kit.

2.Setup the Homebridge for Homekit integration with hubitat. URLs above

  1. On HE. Setup MakerAPI and using the instructions above. Create a virtual Switch for each of the Aqara Mini Switch that can be used for Automation on Hubitat side. Maker API Will expose all the device on the Hubitat side to HomeBridge.

Homebridge is merely used for bringing in Aqara devices into HE. HE has native drivers but not for the Aqara Hub which is the reason for this round about integration

Few Pictures - Enclosure with Miniswitch with 3M doubleAdhesive to hold it in place.

Hope this helps...

1 Like

This is my method too, sort of. Instead of an Aqara button for the doorbell, I use a standard doorbell button. The two wires from the door button I ran into my basement where they are soldered to either side of an Aqara contact sensor’s reed switch. That rings the Aqara doorbell and closes a virtual switch in HomeKit, which in turn announced “Someone is at the door” on both my Echos.

Why the voltage converter though? The Chinese version of the Aqara Gateway supports 100~240 volts and 50Hz/60Hz.

Just a word of caution here. I have the exact same setup with the exact same problem, VLANs. The mDNS reflector works, however, if you have a Hue bridge, this will kill your hue bridge and causes it to restart randomly. Took me a while to figure that one out. So, I used the mDNS reflector to set it up and then stopped the mDNS reflector. Still works like a charm

I bought it in the US and for some odd reason the picture showed 220/110...

That is super helpful. I plan to implement ACL to isolate the IOT Vlan from the rest of the house and was not comfortable having a via media that bypasses this. Will try it out...Thanks @dan.t

What I like about the Aqara Mini switch is it is completely WIRE Free...

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.