Hooking doorbell button to HE without doorbell chimes

And that's exactly where the discussion led very quickly in the thread above.

Yeah, duh. Perhaps you should read a bit more carefully before slamming people.

The first post in this thread stated the question up front before I attempted to test anything.

If I could use the Sage device without needing to buy a transformer and chime, then I'd like to know what the wiring would look like. If all I needed to buy was a transformer, I might be game for that approach, but I'd still need to know how to wire the SAGE sensor in this context. i.e. without a doorbell chime.

Unless I’ve misread your original question...I’d wire your doorbell button to ether side of the reed switch inside a door/window sensor. Basically using the door bell button to short out the door/window sensor’s, sensor.

1 Like

An update on where I landed on this door bell front:

Dropped the SAGE Doorbell Experiment

After spending a few hours experimenting with the $5 SAGE Doorbell Sensor I already had on hand, I decided it was more important to me to have a clean and packaged solution that didn't require custom instructions when we eventually sell our home.

This desire to minimize the size of the "home owner's manual" I need to maintain is on my mind whenever I'm considering new HA devices and approaches.

Considered Contacts Sensors with Exposed Terminals

Several people pointed out that you can easily use door/window contact sensors that have terminals to hook up external contacts. This approach looked pretty clean and would have likely worked fine with my mechanical door bell button.

Decided to Go With Aeotec Doorbell 6

In the end, I decided to go with the Aeotec Doorbell 6. I had researched this option prior to looking into modifying the SAGE Doorbell Sensor, but wanted to give the DIY approach a try first.

Although I'm not overly enamored by the white doorbell button of the Aeotec unit, it's a turnkey solution that has been working well for the past week. Unfortunately, the button is battery powered, but the chime/siren is mains powered. It's also uses Z-Wave, but it seems to respond pretty quickly in my network.

It's not clear to me if I'll have much use for the siren as a standalone speaker, but it's nice to know that I can use the siren separate from the doorbell button.

Thanks to all of you who provided advice concerning the SAGE Doorbell without a chime experiment. Perhaps those suggestions will help someone else who wants to tinker with that inexpensive device in this context.

1 Like

First, thank you for bringing the sage sensor to my attention. I ordered one from eBay and it is installed and working for me.

I did have some issues originally getting it to work - no problems triggering right off the transformer but a couple failed attempts connected to the doorbell. I have a clock/doorbell from the 1950s so this was entirely my issue just remembering the details of how I wire things.

My question is have you guys moved to the built in sage drive or stayed with one of the ones in this post?

The built in driver does not work for me so I am using the driver from darwinsden.com/sage-doorbell

Just curious.

I ordered one myself to play with. I've spent $5 on a lot worse things if it doesn't work for me.

I don't see it on the supported devices list. Did it actually pair with a built in driver instead of just coming up as Device?

Mike added a driver for it in the latest 2.1.8 release.

2 Likes

Yup, that’s what I was going to say. Added in the latest release.

I am not sure if the driver was auto selected when I originally paired or not.

But switching back and forth between the drivers (and hitting configure after) it does not work with the built in driver and only with the 3rd party driver I mentioned. No idea why.

2 Likes

I have replaced my doorbell (old intercom system for the external gate, 30mt. from the house, without an internal chime box) with a video doorbell cam (EZVIZ DB1). In the manual, it explicitly says that if you don't have a chime installed, you need to install a fuse wire, and that's my case. I don't know if installing the SAGE would still require the fuse wire.

In the manual it also says the camera needs an 8-24VAC power source, I used the existing transformer of the old system (28VDC) and the camera works perfectly. I ordered a SAGE sensor on ebay in order to intercept the ring, since EZVIZ, in current firmware, doesn't send an external notification/event that I can intercept when someone pushes the button.

So I will try to use the SAGE with the existing DC transformer, hoping it will not really require AC. The only real concern I have is that the transformer is installed outside, near the external gate on which the videodoorbell is installed, so I have to install the SAGE there, and being 30mt from the house, I don't know if Zigbee will reach my HE hub inside the house. I will first power it up and let HE discover it, then I will move it on the outside to see if it still connects.

Another interesting product worth checking, as an alternative to SAGE, is the Firefly Electronix WiFi Doorbell Sensor: WiFi Doorbell

Documentation:

It is battery powered and uses standard WiFi (would solve my prob), and it integrates via MQTT, etc.
Unfortunately it s out-of-stock now.

Docs here: WiFi Doorbell Documentation · fireflyelectronix/wifidoorbell Wiki · GitHub

Thanks for this thread, learned a lot, HE community is great. :slight_smile:

Hi @steve.maddigan, did you use this driver? SmartThingsPublic/sage-doorbell-sensor.groovy at master · DarwinsDen/SmartThingsPublic · GitHub

With the integrated driver I'm having issues. It works, but all of the sudden it stops working and I need to factory reset the sensor and reconfigure it.

Wanted to try the driver you mentioned but I wasn't sure if that was the one. Could you share the modification you made or provide the code so I can test it?

Thanks for the help.

Hi Alex, i am using the driver from the OP of this thread from darwinsden

https://community.hubitat.com/t/porting-sage-doorbell-sensor-driver-help-needed/20653

Steve

2 Likes

Thanks Steve. I found it before reading your message and I confirm that one works perfectly. I posted my experience in that thread.

I have one of the Sage doorbell sensors. I tried it with DC and it did not work that way. I really didn't think it would though being meant for AC.

Hi @alexdelprete,

This is the original Smartthings driver which was ported to Hubitat Elevation with the help of some talented people here on the Hubitat forum. It has worked since it was last updated. I have not changed anything in the code since last I chimed in on this thread.

FYI, I do have 14 of these doorbell sensors new in my storage if anyone wants to buy one.

Or as of this point in time, you can find them on eBay for a good price.

Wonder where all of them showed :joy: up from? I was looking for more of these since the original company went out of business.

1 Like

Very sorry I took time to respond.
Glad you are up and working. I see Mike’s reply on your other post. I don’t know how else to say that it doesn’t work. Lol.

Confirmed. It doesn't work in DC. Only AC.

Thanks a lot. I ordered 2 of them on ebay for $8 plus $20 of shipping to Rome, Italy.

I bought them only after I read HE had the official driver, but I found out that it was the official driver that was creating me the problems I had. I spent 3 days recabling everything in different ways. After that, I found your thread, and tried that driver, and it immediately started working.

This community is great because of people like you and the other devs that helped you porting the driver. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

No worries Steve, and thanks for your support. We said it doesn't work, and we pointed at the solution, in case someone else has our same issues. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Nice! Are you using the SAGE sensor without a chime and without any resistors? I.e. just wiring the SAGE as shown in one of the earlier posts including the use of a sufficient AC power source.

If so, that news would help anyone else trying the same and I’ll update the first post with that news.

And it would appear that my failed experiment where I also found that the SAGE device would stop working after a bit was due to the driver I used.

Without any "traditional" chime box. But the manufacturer of the video-doorbell provided what they call a "power box", and here's how to connect it. Instead of the chime, in the schema below, I used the SAGE sensor. Then I configured the video-doorbell as an "electronic chime".

This is a more detailed schema. The chime represents the SAGE sensor.

With the official driver, it only worked after the pairing of the sensor. With the user developed driver, it works pretty stable. Only thing I noticed is that when I turn off/on the transformer (simulating a power off/on event), the sensor doesn't trigger, I have to turn it off and then on removing the battery, but no pairing is needed, just a reboot, then it starts working perfectly.

I'm waiting for this other sensor: Doorbell Modernizr to be shipped. Difference is that is powere by a 5V transformer and it works via wifi, not zigbee. Uses MQTT as interface. Unfortunately HE is not the right hub for MQTT, but I read some threads about a possible MQTT client implementation for HE.

Hope it helps anybody with my same installation requirements. :slight_smile:

3 Likes