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Ideas for self hosted door bell (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

We want a new door bell and we will even be able to run new wires (currently we only have 2 Wires). I would like to have video and 2 way audio locally hosted, though the most important thing is, that the base functionality (door bell button with connected wireless door chimes through the house) needs to be absolutely reliable (no random connectivity issues).

I have found the Acuvox R20A, which is seems to have all the bells and whistles about SIP (audio and video) calls. Though from its documentation it seems, that bell chimes also must use SIP, making it more depending on my network infrastructure and the self hosted SIP server (like Asterisk). I don't see a possibility to trigger a relay on button press for triggering traditional door chimes. Which is a shame, since that would be the most reliable for this basic functionality

Do you have good ideas on how to go with this? Or does it make sense, to break this up and use a more basic door bell, while also adding camera and audio additionally as separate devices?

EDIT: I now decided to buy the Reolink PoE Doorbell. It even has an official integration with Home Assistant. I will see, how good I can get the 2-way audio to run through HA or Frigate

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[–] 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (10 children)

I would go full IP. Solutions like Reolink or unifi exist that do not need the cloud.

Only challenge would be getting ethernet to the door.

But there are 2 wire to ethernet even with poe from unifi. https://eu.store.ui.com/eu/en/category/accessories-poe-power/products/uacc-retrofit-poe-2wire

Not sure if they work well, never uses them but i would try that.

EDIT: Typo

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

    Edit: on re-reading, I think you typo'd not -> now

    Unifi doesn't need cloud, the storage is local. But unless youre already in the unifi ecosystem, their doorbells are expensive, as you also need poe switch and a cloud key (which is a poorly named local NVR).

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Yes its expensive but also good gear mostly (never used the door bell myself).

    PoE switch is not necessary, PoE injectors can be had for couple of bucks used.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    but also good gear mostly

    I used to believe this. Then I flashed openwrt on my two ubiquiti access points and they are actually more stable and faster.

    Ubiquiti is great at marketing.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    Switches, Security gear, nvr, central local management etc. not really something others can or do offer.

    Ia it the best probably not but its still good well functioning equipment, for what it offers.

    Just because something else works better, does not mean that it works not good.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    Ia it the best probably not but its still good well functioning equipment, for what it offers.

    Sure, for "power users", maybe a small business, it's fine. It's just not very sophisticated under the hood. The point of Ubiquiti is the "easy" part.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    The point is, the anecdotal evidence that you mentioned has nothing to say about other points you are making.

    Just because product X runs better in a use case with software Y, does not mean product X is bad.

    I do not want to come across like a ubiquity fan boy, since i only use it very targeted privately but the stuff is good, it's supported and a plug and play solution without the cloud. Exactly what fits the bill for what it's asked for here.

    It is run in operation by thousands of businesses. Does it have problems, sure, like every other brand.

    Have run openWRT myself on one of the latest lite APs, was good. Have not noticed a significant difference in the usage between both.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    Do the reolink door bells also provide their feature openly to othet systems like Home Assistent? I don't wanna use their proprietary app. And do you have experience with the connection stability on Wifi? I don't want the connection to randomly cut out. I can go with ethernet (as we get new cables on our door either way), but Reolink doesn't seem to have an ethernet option.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    First, I personally have not used it (but a security cam). But i have done some research.

    Reolink Integration has Platinum Status on Home Assistant.

    If you can set up Frigate then there seems to be 2 Way Voice Communication possible via the Home Assistant App.

    There are a couple of Videos that show the process.

    Reolink has at least one PoE Doorbell.

    https://m.reolink.com/product/reolink-video-doorbell-poe/

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    • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Reolink works well with Home Assistant. I have it working here, and have been quite pleased with it. No subscriptions required.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    Does it give you the option for 2 way audio through home assistantm And how are your experiences with wifi connection stability?

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    I have had a bad experience with HA + reolink

    First one, audio stopped after a winter storm, only static playing constantly

    You can set them up with 2 way audio with HA, but it's an endeavor, not a one click it works thing

    I highly recommend you look up ubiquity, get a ubiquity protect router and bite the bullet cost wise because they work flawlessly

    Or better, just get home cameras and keep a dumb doorbell

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    • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I just have two wires stuck out there. You have to twist the wires together to get it to ring, and you receive a little low voltage shock, so it makes you think whether or not you really need to ring the doorbell.

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    • [–] 3 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    I would go with separate devices. You can add a button with two set of terminals to trigger both the traditional chime and IOT thingy on the same time. Personally I don't see the appeal on video/audio with a doorbell, but I'd guess there's some raspberry pi project around to achieve what you want. SIP just for a single house doorbell at a first glance sounds like a massive overkill, camera with a two-way audio, possibly integrated to home assistant, works equally well without the overhead of running a whole IP telephone system with it.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 5 months ago

    I agree, that full SIP is overkill. Though I don't want to go the DIY hardware route. I already tried that and had constant disconnects. So I want to buy a system, that just runs, but also provide possibilities to do more in a self hosted solution.

    I'm not sure how much time I want to invest in this. Maybe I will just go with an easy, less capable solution instead.

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    • [–] [B] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    AP WiFi Access Point
    HA Home Assistant automation software
    ~ High Availability
    IP Internet Protocol
    NVR Network Video Recorder (generally for CCTV)
    PoE Power over Ethernet
    Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand

    6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 14 acronyms.

    [Thread #330 for this comm, first seen 3rd Jun 2026, 11:00] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

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    [–] 2 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    I built a DIY with a 12v chime, a 12v dry contact ZigBee relay, a 12v generator, one ZigBee button and a Tenda two way audio pts external camera .

    The 12v (AC) is required by my gate lock. The two way audio depends on a proprietary app (didn't bother too hard to make it works with Home assistant yet).

    Using home assistant I can open the gate and check the camera. To actually talk back I need to open the proprietary app

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 5 months ago (5 children)

    The proprietary app is something I don't like. Would be great to find something, that is open enough to work with other systems

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (4 children)

    I would need to mess with stuff and protocols, it should be possibile to get Rid of the proprietary app and maybe once I will have time to do it ..

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah, time, the all limiting factor. I have a big pile of project I want to do, if I only had more time...

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    We should self host time?

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    • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    I haven't finished setting it up yet, so I can't offer an opinion yet, but the way I've gone is a doorbell with electric lock control- mine does 2 locks, and you can set the 2nd lock to be a doorbell instead. The 'doorbell' output is a contact closure, which I just wired to a standard doorbell chime. Network down means I still have a doorbell.

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    • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (5 children)

    This is off topic but sometimes I am sorta annoid that the standard for a doot is lock in door and hole in wall. I feel if the setup had the lock in the wall then it could be wired into the electric and you would not need batteries or such for an electric one. Maybe a recharchable one so it would work for awhile in a power outage.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    It would be cool if you could make the deadbolt with a conductive material and slowly charge from a contact in the wall while the door is locked but there might be a risk of fire if things go wrong.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 5 months ago

    It is already possible without a battery. The new door, that we are getting, can also be bought with an automatic lock, though its expensive. Probably because the eletrical lines are running cleverly through the hinges. Having the lock on the outer side, woukd probably make it cheaper

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