It would be cool to have the ability to simulate doorbell button press in the app to help with setup, testing, and troubleshooting.
The app should have a virtual doorbell button somewhere within the settings for a given doorbell. Tapping this in the app would trigger the doorbell hardware to behave as if the physical doorbell button was actually pressed.
My Wyze doorbell experience so far is only with the Video Doorbell v2, and with that one I can actually hear my home’s mechanical doorbell if I press the physical button, but for models like the original Video Doorbell (Wired) and Video Doorbell Pro, which have separate chimes that can be placed remotely, such a feature could help a user to ensure that chimes are actually working as intended. Even with the Video Doorbell v2, this has potential usefulness now that Cam Pan v3 and Cam OG can be used as additional (and potentially quite remote) chimes:
I want this to be a Rule Action so that I can create a Shortcut type Rule to trigger it, which would give such a feature some flexibility:
Such a Shortcut could appear in the strip near the top of the app’s main screen and essentially act as a Doorbell button.
The same Shortcut could be assigned via the Wyze Watch’s settings in the app so that a Doorbell button press could be triggered directly from the Watch.
I actually do something like this already in order to get certain things to work in Alexa that don’t natively work in Alexa. There is a third party company I use: Virtual Smart Home™ • URL Routine Trigger for Alexa Routines that allows me to setup a virtual doorbell button press that links into Alexa. Then I just use it as a webhook, which means, when I get a certain notification on my phone, I have Macrodroid and a ping to the URL for that virtual doorbell button. They then tell Alexa the doorbell button was pressed and Alexa executes the routine I have set up.
I’m guessing you’re kind of asking for something similar here with Wyze where they could have the virtual doorbell button as an action that would then be treated the exact same as if somebody actually pressed the video doorbell’s button.
One way I would potentially use something like this, is if Wyze ends up launching new package detection options to have a trigger for package delivered or package picked up, rather than The current method which is just detecting when there is a package in the frame at all. I think that if they launch the package delivered option where it only tells us when a package is leaving somebody’s hand and going on to the porch, that would be a lot more useful. Then I could use the package delivered trigger to automatically trigger the virtual doorbell press even if the delivery person doesn’t press it themselves. And then I also wouldn’t have to worry about continual doorbell presses for hours in a row until I finally get the package off the porch since it would only ring once when it first got delivered and not the whole time it sits on the porch while any other motion triggers another event.
Though, maybe there should be a cool down option of a few seconds at least so we don’t get double rings. For example, if they ring the doorbell and then deliver the package, you might get a ring for the doorbell and then another ring once they deliver the package.
That’s part of it, yeah. Ideally the effect within the home—real (physical) and virtual (the Wyze “home” and or any integrated third-party “home” paradigm)—would be exactly as if a person had pressed the button on the doorbell camera device, including activating a home’s built-in wired mechanical chime. I realize that last bit is a bigger ask, though, because I imagine it would involve a hardware redesign to implement closing an electrical switch in order to make that happen.
I don’t know how the current doorbells activate wireless chimes (dedicated like Wyze Chime or Chime Pro, cameras used via the “Cameras as Chime” feature, or independent devices like Wi-Fi Chime), but I imagine a physical button press initiates some kind of event that the doorbell’s firmware interprets as a trigger and then sends a command or other message either directly (via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, depending on the doorbell and chime involved) or looping out through the Internet via Wyze’s servers to cause a chime sound at the receiving device. That’s how I imagine even a virtual button press might work, anyway.
I agree about triggering on a “package delivered” event, and I think that’s an excellent use case. I imagine something like this could help with porch piracy, too, because you could get a notification from the doorbell at the time of the package delivery and potentially reduce the time that a package is sitting in the open on a porch.
Actually, you’d potentially get two notifications:
You might hear the doorbell chime if you’re within earshot of an available chime attached to the doorbell.
You’d receive a button press notification on your phone, which would actually initiate a call automatically if you have VoIP enabled. (Even if you’re not using that, this would be another reason Wyze should provide a better way for all users to differentiate doorbell button presses from other notifications, but that’s a separate issue.)
A cooldown option would be one way to do minimize double rings. What I was envisioning was AI analysis of the event so that if the engine sees a sequence of…
a Person walking up to the door with a Package
a Package being left behind (delivered)
the Person walking away
…then the doorbell would ring. With the way Wyze’s AI is able to generate Descriptive Alerts now, something like this seems like it should be possible, so I could totally understand if something like this was developed and then initially released as a premium subscription feature, but I still think it’d be way cool and an additional way to stand out in the market (even though it’s a relatively narrow scenario, but I still think it’s a common use case).
I don’t think it would. As you mentioned later in your comment, the button press ultimately is encoded digitally as a button press. They can just have the “Virtual” press trigger the same digital variable/subroutine. I’m confident no hardware redesign is needed, probably firmware though. It would especially work better if there was local AI on the device, not just cloud AI.
I’m just thinking that this part of it probably involves physically closing a circuit, like a “dumb” doorbell button does, but I don’t actually know.
Even without that part, though, I think that a basic virtual button press capable of initiating chimes other than built-in wired chimes would still have the potential for a lot of utility, including ringing other doorbells, and should absolutely be doable via firmware/app/backend updates. Making something like that available to the user as a selectable action would be pretty swell. I agree that taking advantage of any available Edge AI features should improve speed, too, though in the AI-enhanced scenario I outlined the delay might actually be a benefit because it potentially gives the delivery person additional time to actually press the button (and obviate the need for the automatic ring). For something like that, the timing (lockout delay or whatever) could also be user selectable.
It’s a wish, though, so I’m wishing for a full simulated button press that ding-dong!s my mechanical chime along with all the rest of it.
