Help Us Develop Our Doorbell Camera!

Just done the survey! Good luck! :slight_smile:

I have a better idea. Start working on an OUTDOOR CAMERA instead.

They are.

You can convert the doorbell to run off the power that goes (went) to your doorbell. You just need to know what voltage the batteries are supplying and then use a couple of resistors and diodes to convert the power to DC and drop the voltage down so it’s the same as the batteries provide. You could also get a small DC power supply off of Amazon (Amazon.com). Put tape over the battery contacts and connect the power supply to the terminals on the Ring.

I’ve done this on a variety of gadgets over the years; after it’s done you never have to change. charge, or replace those batteries again.

I also like the idea of a peephole doorbell camera, BUT… it should be a two-part device. Ringing a doorbell that’s in the middle of your door just doesn’t feel natural. Most people simply aren’t going to do it, or they aren’t going to realize it’s a doorbell at all. There should be a separate ringer that can be placed where people expect a doorbell to be. That would connect to the peephole camera with Bluetooth or Zigbee or RF or whatever makes sense.

I like a LOT of things about making a two-part peephole doorbell. Awkward size is less of an issue, because the interior portion can house the battery. The bell ringer itself can easily be the size of a normal bell ringer, because it takes VERY little energy to simply transmit the push of a button occasionally. (I’d guess once or twice a week for the average person, probably.) The peephole is also a better camera angle, a bit higher than doorbell height. It could also house a built-in chime on the interior portion. And the chime could sound with basically no latency, because it’s responding based on the signal from the bell ringer itself, not WiFi. In most cases, you’d probably hear the chime before you’d get a notification.

Frankly, I’m not sure why Ring’s new peephole camera doesn’t work that way. It seems like the obvious way to go.

Fwiw, i got no problem with a button on the door. I had a lighted button 90 deg to door on sidewall that people would never use, they’d knock on door. I had to print a label saying RING BELL. Same on this house, I get very few at the door but half ignore or don’t notice the shiny brass button and just knock on the door. I’d just print a small label that says to ring here and put it near the peep cam button. Adding an RF remote button would seem to just use more of the limited power of a battery unit.

The bell portion would be a separate battery but a AAA or something similar could power something like that for several years. As for the peephole battery, I’m not an engineer, but I think there are pretty passive wireless technologies that shouldn’t impact battery very much, especially for something that just needs to receive a simple “on” signal for a moment.

I’m also not terribly worried about battery life (within reason) for the camera itself if the battery is on the inside and simple enough to change/recharge. It should be even easier than swapping the battery on my Ring 2 doorbell, which already isn’t that big of a deal. (I bought an extra so that I always have one charged up and ready to swap in. Changing it takes 2 minutes. Maybe less.)

Now that I’m thinking about it, the NICEST option for recharging the battery on a peephole camera would be if it’s an option to recharge without even removing it. Since it’s already inside the house, odds are you have an electrical outlet within 10 feet at the most. So whenever it needs charging, you could plug in a charging wire overnight while no one would be coming or going.

Anyway, it’s just my opinion, but I think that would be a MUCH nicer product. No need for a sign that says “ring here,” and because it’s attached to the door directly, it could probably detect a knock just as easily as a ring.

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Another benefit of a battery unit is that for many people it might end up being the only working cam during a power outage.

At least for me, a door mounted cam would be the only way I could check on hurricane conditions without the need to open my front door. All other windows and doors are blocked by hurricane shutters. A powered cam at the existing button location would be useless being 90 deg to the door and simply looking at the blank wall across from it. If they do offer a battery unit I’d probably mount it on the door anyway since a hurricane shutter over the sidelight window overlaps the trim a bit so the only other location is even worse on the hinge side of the door. On the door is my best option.

Possibly if it has sound triggering, it could turn on if it hears a knock on the door or the person rings a “legacy” doorbell that may left in place like at our house due to the poor location.

Bottom line is nearly everyone responding here has personal needs and preferences that may not be satisfied by a mainstream product targeting the most typical requirements - it’s unlikely any company will ever satisfy many of our less common needs or preferences. Meanwhile, I find it really great that Wyze is actively soliciting end users and may take a little extra time to figure out how to satisfy as many situations as possible and/or use this wealth of user feedback to build new products to meet more needs.

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I wanted to mention that most people (at least around here) have storm doors - helps with heating & cooling & security. So a peephole bell would NOT work with this configuration.
Has wyze looked at " Yiroka Self-Generating Power Door Chime" sold on Amazon - no batteries needed. Seems interesting.
I really hate running 120v power & repairing sheetrock -

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Me too – unfortunately, I don’t have existing doorbell wiring, and I’m not going to make the effort to run it and drill holes. I need a battery-powered option.

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Look wyze crew look at all the videos on YouTube on the nest hello and the ring reviews you will get the good and the bad and what was left out that can make it better . Go off there reviews and make the perfect door bell Cam

You didn’t ask me if I still own a video doorbell. I don’t.

Why? Privacy issues.

Width is a concern for me also. Our front entrance is framed by extruded aluminum up against limestone pillars. Power with house current, communicate with WiFi.

If your power is out, so is your WiFi. So a battery powered doorbell cam would not work. You could put your WiFi system on UPS battery backup, but you could power your doorbell cam with a small UPS as well.

Forgot to mention I got a large ups for router - rides out typical outages just fine. Was only way we could keep in touch during Irma. Ya, it crapped out eventually but gave us hours during the worst of it. But it’s not remotely close enough to power the doorbell transformer.

That is totally understandable, so I assume you don’t use any IoT devices for the same reasons. Just out of curiosity why are you here? It’s perfectly fine, glad to have you just curious why?

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I could not wait for you guys to come out with a Doorbell camera so I built my own using your Cam2 ( for the price and performance they are the bargain of the century). Why did I build my own, simple not one doorbell on the market has any type of interface if you have a door intercom as they are totally separate units.
To make your unit stand out and grab market share from home intercom owners OnQ, NuTone, etc. I would like to see additional inputs.

  1. Input to sense when the call button is pushed on the intercom, this is usually closing a circuit or in the case of the OnQ shorts out 12v going across the switch.
  2. Also when face or motion recognition activates I would like to see another input no/nc that would be able to trigger the intercom.
    Right now I have mine on “person” notification so I can see when someone approaches my front door.
    The OnQ uses ethernet cabling where there is one pair free, and this is where I hooked up the power supply from the main console.
    Your camera needs to stand out in this market and making it compatible with intercom systems is one great feature for homeowners and businesses.

P.s I 3D printed my own case, as I was very new to this I can say i must of printed 30 cases before I understood how to manipulate the software and how these printers work.

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Because I’m curious. I have a phone so there are those privacy issues. I just like to limit my exposure. I have a computer and a tablet, like pretty much everyone else. I did not want Ring invading my home directly.

glad you are curious about why I am here. there are other reasons too.

did you know your light bulb listens to you? Curious if you knew that?

I saw this illustrated with LED bulbs on you tube. Nothing surprises me anymore. :upside_down_face:

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If the power/wifi is out, but you have battery power and local recording to sd card…you will still get video saved to the sd that you can check later…according to the below thread: