I've got it in my cart. My old bell is dead. I need to replace it, so now's a great time to improve it. Can you please give me the pros and cons of the aeotec doorbell 6. Can I have it flash a light instead of ring in certain circumstances? What will I be able to do with this on HE. What will I hate about it? Does it work well in HE? I've actually chosen zwave because my zwave mesh is strong with every switch being zwave or zwave plus. Hit me with the facts, please.
I have zero experience with the Aeotec 6 doorbell. However I do have a Ring Video Doorbell 2 which I really like. Having the video feature is very nice, especially knowing when packages are delivered even though they don't bother to ring the doorbell. I have my Ring Doorbell integrated with Hubitat via two Amazon Alexa Routines, one for 'motion' and another for 'doorbell pressed.'
Just another option in case you had not considered it, yet...
On sale for $90 here...
I guess I should add that I have a code for packages to the garage, so I'm not concerned so much about deliveries.
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It's pretty good so far, it's not just a doorbell, it can be used as an alarm or for chimes. It works great with HE. The problem is finding a suitable spot with an outlet to mount the speaker.
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From the cons department I'd just say cost.
If you already have a siren/speaker you can use for ringing in your house, $69 seems steep for a z-wave outdoor button without Video.
Granted, I'm also in the Ring boat where I've turned off all motion detection for it, so it only turns on when someone presses the button and rings my Domo Siren, etc. That way too it's only recording when someone actually presses it and if I'm not home the two-way audio is a nice addition.
If I didn't want the camera and I didn't already have a siren/speakers, then this does look good.
Just my 2 cents
I have it. As a doorbell it works fine. You can pair up to 3 buttons with it if you want.
You have something like 30 chimes/alarms to choose from. I'm not a fan really of any of the chimes but they work. Its also loud when you turn up the volume. But the volume is very adjustable.
The one issue I have with it though is that if you want to use it as a chime it has an issue with multiple chimes being set of. I don't know what it is, but this is also an issue with the dome siren as well. There is a very technical explanation as to why this happens somewhere in this forum and is related to traffic on the zwave mesh at the time the message is sent but because of this I was told to take them off and not have them chime. It would do it 4+ times at some points.
Its not an issue with a script or the driver or anything. I dug through the driver and you can get 5 good chimes and then 1 bad quadruple chime by pressing the chime button in HE.
I actually want to get my hands on the zooz alarm as you can load your own sounds on it. But they don't ship to canada and I'm also afraid it may have the same fate as a door chime.
I know you want it for a doorbell though, and I haven't had any repeat chimes when pressing the doorbell button so it works well as that. But keep in mind what I mentioned if you plan to use it as a door chime as well.
I have the Aeon Doorbell 5 and it stinks. I was hoping that the 6 solved all it's problems. Seems like it solves only one... the physical doorbell button of the 5 eats batteries voraciously. At the end, I got a new battery, installed it and put the button on a shelf where it would not get touched or moved. 2 days later, the battery was dead.
But the reason I bought it was to be an announcement device... I built mp3's for "Back Door Open" and a dozen others. The skipping and stuttering and all around horrid sound it would often make
got it relegated to the Junk Bin.
The MP3s got installed into/onto the Device, so there was only a "play track 6" type of message needed. Terrible.
From what I've read, the audio issues have not been cured... but I'd treat @gavincampbell reply as being more on-point to your question, here on Hubitat.
door bell/door chime can you differentiate for me? I'm from Iowa, so that seems the same to me.
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They way I think of it, when you press the button and it ding-dongs that's the doorbell.
If you setup an automation so that when a door/window opens that it just "dings" that's what I refer to as a chime.
Its not a very technical or scientific. Just how I have it sorted in my head.. lol
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Some folks who are accustomed to having an alarm system really miss the 'chime' any time a door or window is opened, even if the alarm panel is not armed. As someone who has never had one of these alarm systems, I find the concept of the 'door chime' to be a little annoying. My sister's house has an alarm system and every time a door is opened I get a little startled. 
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Ok, so that's the page I'm on.
so if someone pushes the button does it have to ding or sing? can i have some flash or dash instead?
If it’s anything like the doorbell 5, you could use rule machine to automate muting and unmuting the speaker based on whatever criteria you need. And the muted doorbell chime could still act as a trigger for other types of notifications, like lights flashing, push notifications etc.
For example, with my doorbell gen 5 I have it make a noise and send pushover notifications to me and my wife’s phones, when the kids are awake. When they’re asleep, the doorbell itself makes no noise but the pushover notifications still come through.
Edit: while I also have some complaints about the doorbell gen 5, my experience has been not nearly as negative as what @csteele described. Particularly the battery drain on the button; dying after a couple days is not what I would consider to be expected behavior from that thing. So like many devices, it seems like YMMV.
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As a bonus, this Multisiren features an audio speaker that is separate from the siren - this speaker allows you to upload custom audio files for the device to play, depending on the rules you set. This is a brand new feature that requires your hub to support the new Sound Switch command class.
Hubitat isn't supporting this yet.. apparently.
The aeotec doorbell also uses the Sound Switch command class. However it works around the fact that hubitat doesn't have it built in by manually building the commands in the driver and sending the raw commands. It was pretty interesting to see how they got around it.
Was hoping I would be able to do it as well on the multisiren if I got my hands on it.
@mrutenbeck has one of these because I convinced him to buy one. Perhaps he can chime in. I do know he's had bad luck with the button in the remote dying after only a few weeks (actually dying, not just the inside unit claiming that it's low--also a problem I've heard about), which Aeon just sent a new one for under warranty to see if it helps. He may know more about how it works as an actual doorbell and how you can configure the chime/siren portion to respond to the button.
I had the gen 5 and returned it after a day or two because it didn't work well for me. The outside button was hard to actually press (it may seem like you did but unless it was perfectly level, it didn't always register), so that limited its utility as a doorbell. I also wasn't a fan of the inside unit sounds. I've heard gen 6 is better all around, but it's been so long I can't remember how they compare, even even having at least some experience with both.
I do have a Ring as mentioned above. I have the gen 1, battery-powered, and I really don't like it. Video takes forever to load, even if I answer the notification on my phone right away--sometimes not in time to see what was actually there. Even after playing with the detection settings and buying the angle-mount kit, it's also a bit too sensitive, seeing things much farther from my house than I want, like headlights at night or large trucks during the day on the street. Newer generations have better settings here, and I've heard powered ones are a lot faster with video than when on batteries, but neither of those would sway me--you need the Internet to view video, even if you're on the same LAN. For what they charge, I'd just use a regular "dumb" or smart-ish doorbell (like the Aeon or even a Xiaomi or ST button, which I think I'll try next) and use something else for video, like a Wyze Cam (cheap and still mostly subject to that Internet issue, but...cheap enough that I'm OK wiht it). Neither has any good integration with Hubitat, though there are workarounds.
Just my opinion. 
Maybe that's why mine skips so much. Add one more item to the Research This pile... 
It has a light that flashes but I couldn't figure out anyplace to mount it where we could see it.
Not wanting it to be too loud but also wanting it to be audible anywhere on the first floor, I ended up putting it in the attic (the attic is open over the entire first floor and there was an outlet).
We use the basic tubular gong sound, it's not unpleasant.
I have not tried using it for a door chime or any of the alarm functions.
I did experience the audio "stutter" when I set it up. It's odd. When I trigger it from the device page in Hubitat, it sends two or three button presses which causes the audio to stutter. When you press the doorbell button it only sends one event and it sounds fine. Since the doorbell button is what I care about, I didn't worry about the other . . . not to cast aspersions but it seems like that must be something in the driver (using the built-in) . . .
I use the doorbell to trigger a video clip to iSpy from the camera pointed at the front door. It also sends a notification using Pushover. If I want to see who rang, I can use the iSpy app on my phone to view the video clip. Not real time but it all happens pretty fast.
No. The skipping is for another reason. The dome siren has the stupid skipping issue as well.
Here's the explanation on the skipping...krlaframboise wrote the driver for the aeotec doorbell 6 too.
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