Tired of hearing that flat sounding wireless doorbell when visitors happen to come by? Don’t get rid of it, improve it by adding a real bell. This hack rigs up a small hand bell to the wireless doorbell receiver. It was prototyped using LEGO pieces to shake the sound out of the bell, but the finished version uses a servo motor on a wooden frame. An Arduino monitors the wireless receiver, driving the servo when a transmission from the front door button is received.
Traditionally door bells have actually been chimes that are struck with solenoids. We appreciate this rendition because it adds an element of kinetic art to the home, laying bare the functional hardware instead of hiding it in a box. Don’t miss the demonstration after the break.
This is the finished version:
[flickr video=http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilspikey/4957539834/]
Here’s the LEGO version. We actually like this one bettter.
[flickr video=http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilspikey/4816173880/]
[via Boing Boing]
All that work, and then half ass it with black tape battery holders….
Nice.
this is a very expensive and unintuitive way to ring a bell
Solenoid would be better solution
It reminds me of a duck, the wooden shape of it. Guess they could call it the “Duck-Bell”. lol
wow nobody raged that its still has an arduino board on it yet? I’m surprised! The idea is pretty cool, but i don’t have a normal door bell, everybody just knocks. lol
OMG!!! arduino arduino arduino !!!
Nice bell.
You know you can just goto many a shop and buy a mechanical chime/bell doorbell, and many people still use them, so then you just need to make the activation wireless.
What I’m thinking now is that it might be fun to go alternative and have a bell that ‘knocks’ instead of chiming.
I need to hack my doorbell too. I need something LOUD that will overcome earphones. I’m also thinking of incorporating a strobe light. Just so you can’t miss the doorbell.
That way UPS and Fedex don’t have an excuse to tag and run, those bastards.
@ truthspew
I hooked my door bell to my X10 for the very same reason.
Aaah, for some reason, this is exactly the sort of thing that rings my bell! Simple, fairly useless, Rube Goldberg’ish setups that bring functions of computers and electronics into the real, physical world.
Like SpriteTM’s mechanical hitcounter:
http://spritesmods.com/?art=mechctr
So useless compared to Google analytics, and yet so infinitely much more satisfying!
Nice work!
I’ve been thinking about getting the Ring wifi doorbell but then came across this site; I love how classic this doorbell looks! Definitely gonna get something like this. Thanks for posting!
I love how traditional this looks! There are definitely lots of cool doorbells that you could choose from. Here’s one site I personally love to go to – http://doorbellhome.org
This was really interesting! I personally love wireless doorbells and believe they are an incredible addition to modern homes. I found a great website to check out some of the top wireless doorbells – http://wirelessdorobellreview.com