Doorbell Ideas

[burowyako]

When I built my house, I ran a Cat 6 cable to the location of my doorbell button in addition to the standard doorbell wire with plans to do something down the road.  I'd like to tie the doorbell into my C4 system, but I'm not sure what options I have and I'm curious what some of you have done.  I know that my controller (HC-800) supports different contacts and relays but I'm yet to configure any of them because I don't quite understand what each of them do.

Ideally, when the doorbell button is pressed, I'd like to trigger a sound to play in certain zones of my house via the audio matrix.  I've seen a similar setup for another C4 build and I believe that the Announcements feature in the Agents tab was used.  From what I remember, the sound was saved on the controller itself but there was a slight delay when the button was pressed.  I'm not sure if the delay was related to the controller, the triggers on the amps, or something else.  The delay wasn't bad and I could live with it but I'd also like to reduce the delay if possible.

One thing I noticed with the setup that I saw was the customer had a traditional doorbell button with a light.  However, when the connection to the C4 system was made, the doorbell light didn't work.  I don't understand circuitry very well but I assume that the doorbell button is normally lit by the transformer from the doorbell chime.  When the button was connected to the C4 system, the connection to the chime was disconnected, ultimately causing the light to stop working.  Since I already have a doorbell chime, is there a way to keep the light lit on the button but only trigger the C4 sound when pressed?  I assume that a standard doorbell button doesn't allow me to do this as the power from the transformer would probably get passed to the controller, but again, I don't understand circuitry very well.

I'd love to hear some of your ideas and suggestions.  I'm not exactly interested in a video doorbell right now, but I guess it's an option.  Thank you for your time!

[christophers]

i had a lit doorbell (before installing doorbird). i used the Elk 930 (http://www.elkproducts.com/product-catalog/elk-930-doorbell-and-telephone-ring-detector) inline between the transformer and the actual bell. 

that all worked fine, then i removed the doorbell button and installed the doorbird. it has contacts and relays onboard that i used to connect into the original doorbell chime and sensor. while the sensor (elk 930) is now redundant since i can program off of the doorbird, i still get the original chime since my receiver (denon x5200w) has quite a long warm up time before an announcement is played. i know this a bit opposite of what you want, but you can remove the chime by disconnecting/disabling the bell itself, using something such as the elk 930 to sense the button push and then trigger an announcement in your system.

[Dave w]

The new one from Clare Controls looks promising with ONVIF IP cam which should integrate same as asny other IP cams, and they look like they will integrate well with C4

http://www.cepro.com/article/best_wi_fi_doorbell_home_automation_clare_controls_isc_west

Ring is also popular and works well in right environment and has drivers for C4 as well. 

Both are video... if you just want chime control the C4 doorbell is very good.  It sounds like the setup you saw was using a closed contact to trigger C4 which is why there was no power to the button to light the light.   The same could be done with a relay so you had power to the button and a signal for the closed contact switch.  Pretty basic wiring.

 

 

[vstar]

3 hours ago, Dave w said:

The new one from Clare Controls looks promising with ONVIF IP cam which should integrate same as asny other IP cams, and they look like they will integrate well with C4

http://www.cepro.com/article/best_wi_fi_doorbell_home_automation_clare_controls_isc_west

Ring is also popular and works well in right environment and has drivers for C4 as well. 

Both are video... if you just want chime control the C4 doorbell is very good.  It sounds like the setup you saw was using a closed contact to trigger C4 which is why there was no power to the button to light the light.   The same could be done with a relay so you had power to the button and a signal for the closed contact switch.  Pretty basic wiring.

 

 

that looks pretty cool, thanks for pointing it out. I was looking for something with video support besides doorbird. hopefully someone will try out integration with control4 soon. I believe the Ring integration still lacks video support integration with control4 (unfortunately)?

[Dave w]

1 hour ago, vstar said:

I believe the Ring integration still lacks video support integration with control4 (unfortunately)?

It does, but their native app works very well for both audio and video, and you can use the blackwire ring driver to trigger events like announcements and pulling up a 2nd IP camera that views the front door on various displays or touch panels.  I'm pretty happy with mine overall. The Clare looks better though. 

[Cyknight]

11 hours ago, burowyako said:

what options I have

1-Integrate the doorbell directly.

There's a few ways of going about it, including elk, direct if not lighted, using the coil to trigger an extra contact sensor.

2-use the Axxess Industries ZigBee doorbell

added to make the list complete as you have all the wires you need

3- alternatively to 2 there are zwave options via Vera, possibly Wink bridges

again, more for completeion that OP use - note that this is likely to be the 'slowest' option in use.

4-the native C4 doorstation

5-3rd party intercom/doorstation incliding Ring (event only) Doorbird (full intercom), Holovision, and I believe Mobotix still carries the driver themselves that I'm aware of

6- 'other' 3rd party intercoms that have built in relays you can use (such as Loginex) to trigger a sensor.

 

Al of them would suffer from some delay at least to play audio.

The main causes of delays are twofold.

1-Amplifier - especially when using input sensing amps sucha s C4's own power amps this can be slow. This can be mitigated by using relay control or always on options.

2-Because you're playing a file from a controller, playback by default 'suffers' from the built in delay added to all such setups (in place to ensure sync). HOWEVER if you are able to make use of Advanced Audio (ie only use HC250/HC800 or EA series controllers for audio output) and you have a good network, this can be set to a very short delay and work well.

 

Basically between working with issues 1 and 2 you should be able to have the doorbell ring within a second or a button push.

 

In all cases, you can always continue to use your existing chime, if nothing else you could use a simple relay connection to trigger it.

[thegizzard]

On 4/11/2017 at 10:00 PM, vstar said:

that looks pretty cool, thanks for pointing it out. I was looking for something with video support besides doorbird. hopefully someone will try out integration with control4 soon. I believe the Ring integration still lacks video support integration with control4 (unfortunately)?

I have the equivalent of this... it looks like its just a rebrand of the Hikvision Doorbell Cam.  LTS, Nelly, RCA all seem to have the same one.  I am interested in triggering C4 events like porch lights and audio announcements from this.  Anyone give this a try yet?

 

[THEORY]

1 hour ago, thegizzard said:

I have the equivalent of this... it looks like its just a rebrand of the Hikvision Doorbell Cam.  LTS, Nelly, RCA all seem to have the same one.  I am interested in triggering C4 events like porch lights and audio announcements from this.  Anyone give this a try yet?

 

There isn't a driver I am aware of other than the one that works for the Clare Doorbell that will do all the triggers.

[Crustyloafer]

On 12/04/2017 at 5:56 AM, Cyknight said:

2-Because you're playing a file from a controller, playback by default 'suffers' from the built in delay added to all such setups (in place to ensure sync). HOWEVER if you are able to make use of Advanced Audio (ie only use HC250/HC800 or EA series controllers for audio output) and you have a good network, this can be set to a very short delay and work well.

We currently have the DoorBird integrated with C4 and the new Triad audio matrix and amp on several jobs and use the C4 announcement function to play a doorbell sound in all audio zones when buttons on DoorBird is pressed. The response time from BoorBird button press to announcement playback is less than 1 second, probably less than 500ms with this combo and more than acceptable.

[thegizzard]

I have a motion sensor on the porch that plays a chime over speakers.  The doorbell plays the chime in the house with the mechanical doorbell.   It's good enough for now.