When you think of a doorbell, you typically don’t think of anything very complicated. It’s a button that rings a bell inside your home. That’s about it. [Ahmad] decided he wanted to turn his doorbell up to eleven (Google Doc) with this build. Using a Raspberry Pi, he was able to cram in loads of features.
When the doorbell button is pressed, many different events can be triggered. In the demo video, [Ahmad] shows how his phone receives a text message, and email, and a tweet. The system can even be configured to place a voice call via Google Hangouts using a USB microphone. [Ahmad] demonstrates this and shows how the voice call is placed almost instantly when the button is pressed. This may be a bit overkill, but it does demonstrate many different options depending on your own needs.
For the hardware side of things, [Ahmad] purchased a wireless doorbell. He opened up the ringer unit and hooked up the speaker wires to a couple of pins on the Raspberry Pi through a resistor. The doorbell unit itself is powered off of the 3.3V supply from the Pi. The Pi also has a small LCD screen which shows helpful information such as if the Internet connection is working. The screen will also display the last time and date the doorbell was pressed, in case you weren’t home to answer the door.
On top of all of that, the system also includes a Raspberry Pi camera module. This allows [Ahmad] to take a photo of the person ringing the doorbell as a security measure. He can even view a live video feed from the front door by streaming directly to YouTube live. [Ahmad] has provided a link to his Pi image in the Google Doc so others can use it and modify it as they see fit.
Reblogged this on Imran's Tech Tips and commented:
Interesting take on the dumb old door bell :-)
Thanks
A camera? But m-m-muh privacies! D:
There is an issue regarding that, in my area you aren’t allowed to stream if the people/plates are recognizable but for the rest its allowed I understand.
But each country/region has its own rules. And then there’s the neighbors getting pissed outside of all that. You might take that in consideration too.
Oh and in most countries they certainly won’t allow you to stream people’s windows. Even the governments aren’t allowed that.
You could make your stream private so only you can see it on youtube, or have it stream only your local network. You can even turn off the stream completely. The camera could be positioned so only the person who is at your door is visible.
Exactly, you just need to some normal consideration and all is OK.
I like your project, and they sell wireless doorbells with pretty much nothing extra but just a bell for more in many shops.
And it’s expandable, if you wish you could have it open the door remotely on command and such. And maybe add a cat detector if you have a catflap, or a special display for messages to delivery guys maybe, and who knows what else you could add when you think on it a bit.
I was gearing up a long rant about such a huge waste of a PI and PI is the new arduino and 555 timer this and that…
But… Pretty cool project. Interesting concepts of how future doorbells should work.
I think the average home is sorely in need of technology boosts such as this. As much for security as convenience.
I was also going through the same thought, “overkill?” but then as you did I saw the whole setup and then was turned around completely and thought it was pretty nifty. And as raspi projects go certainly not the worst of them. I’ve seen some really pointless waste-of-money projects.
No way that this will cost only £17 (26$), RapiA 20$, RaspiCam 25$, LCD 4$, wlan 4$, webcam 4$, power supply 4$, wiring, pert.board and doorbell 4$. Total 65 $
Without the raspberry pi
Assuming you had the raspberry pi kit, and you wanted to make it yourself, this is the additional cost.
Will it be the last pi project, no and you buy another one…
and you forget the shipping cost, specially with the prices you told, I don’t know where you can get all these cheap parts from one supplier, but perhaps you live in Shenzen…
i have made this a year ago . the webcam was a microsoft hd 3000, with 2 powerlan adapters, 2 raspberry pi`s , a 7 inch monitor. it was all with bash scripts, with sshpass transmittng the commands. it is working this day on a friend of mine.
Any writeup about your solution?:) A github repo maybe?
Yep, https://github.com/in06khattab/Doorbell-6–final- and https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e7U_WM1jSo0wgMX5RdpN0eN6p9TWadGYHqWf6yR2JZM/edit.
Right now passwords are stored in plain text, but I will fix this in the future.
Excellent project. I’m also working on a raspi doorbell project. Mine uses WS2811 LED lighting on the inside of the house, sends a tweet, an email and will eventually send a push notification to my iphone.
I’m using a similar method to receive the doorbell signal. I’ve gutted a wireless doorbell received and hooked the LED light on the receiver to a GPIO pin on the raspi. This was not only the cheapest route but also lets me use a standard looking doorbell on the outside of the house.
Great project, I’m wanting to do the same. Could you share the hi res images in your doc, only I’m struggling to read them as there very blurred text? Thanks.
(Second attempt at posting this)
Could you improve the quality of the images in your guide on google docs, text is very low res and unreadable. Thanks for sharing.
Super! Suppose I want to build this too, is there a parts list of what to buy?
Pi camera (£10)
Wireless doorbell (£3)
Usb microphone (£2)
LCD (£2)
Total: £17
(Assuming you already have a raspberry pi and its stuff)
Thanks for that list, but it’s a bit general. Suppose I buy the following, will your image work?
RASPBERRY PI 2, MODEL B, 1GB RAM
RPI NOIR CAMERA BOARD Rev 1.3
Generic 16×2 LCD
Some Adafruit I²C backpack with buttons? Part number?
USB microphone seems pretty generic
Wireless doorbell
Thanks in advance!
It would, but you would need to change some settings in the code for it to call your phone and communicate with your accounts. For the usb mic, I used an old usb webcam which worked, try an old webcam and record some audio, see if it works, otherwise you would need a usb mic.
You don’t need the buttons for the adafruit, I was just using it for testing. The code in the image works for this https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-16×2-character-lcd-plus-keypad-for-raspberry-pi as I had it lying around,but you could change the code to use a normal lcd.
Hi sir. Can i know all the things i need to build this? I’m a newbie in raspi community and hoping to build one for my first try. Hope you can reply to me. Thanks :)
I wouldn’t use the pi noir, I’d just use the regular pi camera board.
Why?
link to where i can buy the exact doorbell model?
or let us know the model number please?
Price has increased marginally
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wireless-Cordless-Battery-Powered-Portable-Door-Bell-Doorbell-36-Chime-Orange-/321659364033?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Door_Accessories_LE&hash=item4ae46462c1
Nice job!
Looks great! This project could benefit from a full write-up though. The documentation in the Google Docs file is rather limited.
Pls can someone direct me to where the detailed code for this project can be found
OK, I built this today. Works fine, Sends text, e-mail and tweets when doorbell button is pressed, but no sound. I don’t see anything in the code to generate sound. Was the sound supposed come from the actual wireless doorbell ? I didn’t use a wireless doorbell, I just connected push button to the IO Port. I was expecting the Raspberry pi to play a wave file or something, but it seems it does not.
Thank you very much for the post :)
Built this up the other day and got it all working, really neat project.
I modified the code a bit to take two pictures one low resolution to email and a higher resolution picture which is copied to my NAS as well as having the doorbell write back to my mysql server with the date and time of each press.
Can see the first part of my build here:
http://nl.com.au/wordpress/?p=225
This looks great but for those of you who have made it how do you actually present the finished product as a doorbell?
Obviously the button stays on the outside but how do you fit the camera on the outside of the door to take photos/video and how does that impact where the pi/lcd is stored?
Mine works just perfect! Thanks for the help :)
Hi sir. I would like to build it but i don’t know the parts i need. I’m starting from scratch and it’s my first time to use raspberry pi. Can you tell me the things i need for it? Thank you :)
I am trying to make my own doorbell + video with the help of this. Thanks a lot