I just installed a few days ago and I’m noticing the battery indicates is now at 36%. I have the doorbell hardwired. So does this mean that no matter what I will still have to remove the battery and charge it?
A few thoughts/questions immediately come to mind:
- What’s your transformer’s rated output?
- What voltage do you measure across the wires you connected to your Duo Cam Doorbell?
- How old is your Duo Cam Doorbell? A user in another topic recently reported that Wyze said there’s a problem with older units being powered from a transformer, but I haven’t verified this or seen this message directly from Wyze.
I don’t know about the transformer, but my house was just built last year. There was just a plain doorbell there. I don’t have a way to measure the voltage coming from the wires. But… the wires that were there at the original doorbell was of course the red, & black, but then there was also 1 white wire, & 1 green wire that had not been connected to anything.
I should’ve mentioned earlier that I don’t own Duo Cam Doorbell, but I’ve been using Video Doorbell v2 (my first video doorbell) since shortly after its launch and have done a lot of troubleshooting with it. Also, 
I am not an electrician.
So you had a “dumb” doorbell button connected to the red and black wires at the button’s location and then removed that and connected the red wire to one of Duo Cam Doorbell’s screw terminals and the black wire to the other screw terminal? If that’s the case, then I think you wired that part correctly, but I still like to test to be sure that the power being delivered there is what’s expected. For things like that, I’m still using an inexpensive (<US$10) multimeter that I picked up at Harbor Freight years ago. That’s a good tool to have in the kit, especially if you’re going to DIY electrical stuff.
I wouldn’t worry about the green and white wires. Sometimes I’ve seen 4-conductor wire used to run power to doorbells even though only two conductors are actually being used. If red and black were powering the previous button, then those are likely what you’ll want to use for Duo Cam Doorbell.
I would try to locate the transformer so that you can see if it’s rated output is adequate for Duo Cam Doorbell. Depending on which source you consult (Wyze has mixed messages), it expects to see 10-24 or 16-24 V AC and ≥10 VA. If you can find your transformer, then you should see its rated output stamped, printed, or engraved into the housing. In your case, I’d also expect to see a jacket with 4-conductor wire leading from the transformer with a red wire attached to one terminal and black wire attached to the other.
What kind of chime does your home have, and are you trying to use Duo Cam Doorbell to actuate that? What did you wire into the chime box when you wired your Duo Cam Doorbell? The package should’ve included a jump wire for connecting two terminals (e.g., FRONT and TRANS) in that box. Depending on your chime type, if you didn’t jump those, then you may not have a complete circuit in order to power the Duo Cam Doorbell itself.
I did use the wire in the kit to bypass the original chime. That all seems fine. As for the transformer, where would that be? Are you referring to the meter box on the outside of the house? Or something at the breaker box inside? When I hear transformer I think what’s up on the pole outside.
No, this will be a device somewhere inside the home. One side is connected to your home’s AC (~110-120 V) and then the transformer steps the power down so that the load side outputs lower voltage (typically ≤24 V). Mine looks like this:
It’s in the upper-right corner of the image. I was demonstrating a test of its voltage at the time, so you see red and white wires (going to the chime box) attached to the transformer’s load terminals, and you see red and black wires (from the multimeter’s leads) attached to those same terminals for testing. Note that this is a side view of the transformer, which is mounted to the bottom of a junction box. For links to other photos with frontal views, you can look at What is the recommended transformer for a Wyze Duo Cam doorbell?, or you can do an image search for doorbell transformer with your preferred search engine to get an idea of what to look for.
It could be located pretty much anywhere in the home, but typically you’ll see it at, near, or attached to a breaker box or in a mechanical room (like where a home’s furnace and water heater might be; the basement in my case). Some Forum users have reported that theirs are in attics or closets. Sometimes it’s even in a wall directly behind the chime box.
If you think you have everything wired correctly but don’t yet have an easy means to test the voltage at the Duo Cam Doorbell’s location, then tracking down the transformer would probably be my next step (but I’d still really want to test at some point). If you know which breaker controls power to your doorbell, then that might provide a clue about where to look for it.
Feel free also to post photos of any parts of your installation (transformer, chime, etc.). Good visuals can help others in the community who want to assist with troubleshooting.
That looks like a breaker box. I don’t see a transformer in that picture.
I don’t understand why the red and black wires are taped and don’t know what those are attached to at their other ends. It’s difficult to see even what the installed jumper wire is attached to (looks like TRANS and FRONT) or if anything else is attached to those chime terminals because of the black tape on the red wire and the way it’s obscuring those.
What it looks like in this view is that you’ve completely disrupted the circuit by removing the red and black wires from the chime completely (and then taping the bare wire for insulation) and that your jump wire is connecting two terminals on a chime that isn’t receiving any power at all. (So the jump wire is kind of pointless in this case. It’s not actually doing anything.)
How was the chime wired before? Do you have a “before” picture?
My best guess at this point is that somewhere in your circuit (maybe in the wall behind the chime) you have a red and black wire connected together with a wire nut and that one of the wires coming into the chime box (red or black) was connected to TRANS and the other was connected to FRONT before you started. That would comport with the wiring diagram there on the right side of the image if your previous doorbell was installed correctly and working.
Cool! Can you get a better picture of that showing all the wires and the front plate?
16 V × 625 mA = 10 VA, so that meets the specification on your doorbell chime’s wiring diagram and is the minimum Wyze recommends for their video doorbells.
Also, I hope that you’ve turned off power to that circuit while you’re handling that. Please be very careful there, especially on the back side of the transformer that’s connected to your home’s AC wiring.
In the setup process, it said to disconnect the red and black wire from the chime box. So was that wrong? I don’t have a pick of the original connection unfortunately.
Good! 
In that picture, it looks like the red wire coming off the right screw terminal is the red wire in your chime box, and it looks like the black wire coming into your chime box is the “return” wire from your doorbell button’s location.
Since I don’t have a Duo Cam Doorbell, I can’t get the app to go through that part of the setup so I can’t see if there was a misunderstanding there, but typically you’d leave whatever wires were connected to the chime’s FRONT and TRANS in place and just add the jump wire across those terminals in order to supply power to the video doorbell and bypass the chime. (If you want the Duo Cam Doorbell to actuate your chime, then the wiring is going to be different and it’s recommended that you connect a Chime Controller to the chime. You could try having Duo Cam Doorbell actuate the home’s built-in mechanical chime without installing Chime Controller, but a lot of users have reported unwanted noises from the chime when doing that, so I think you’ll want to get a Chime Controller if you want the same ding-dong sound you had before you started.)
This is what I’d try in your case for now:
- Mount the chime box back on the wall.
Remove the tape from the red wire and connect that wire to the TRANS terminal, leaving the jumper wire in place.
Remove the tape from the black wire and connect that wire to the FRONT terminal, leaving the jumper wire in place.- Restore power to the circuit (I hope you had it turned off before) and test.
That should supply power to your Duo Cam Doorbell to charge the battery (my understanding is that this doorbell is powered by the battery even when wired, but wiring to low-voltage AC provides a continuous charge) and bypass the chime so that a button press won’t ring the home’s built-in chime, but hopefully you have a Wi-Fi Chime or something else for hearing button press notifications.
If you want to use your home’s built-in chime, then you can try it without the jumper wire installed (connect the red wire to TRANS and black wire to FRONT but remove the jumper wire from the chime box), but that might not provide the continuous power to the Duo Cam Doorbell and could also result in unwanted noises (buzzes, hums, “phantom” chimes) unless you install a Chime Controller, and adding Chime Controller is something you can always do later if you want to restore the function of your chime box.
Looks like that did the trick! But.,the battery indicator still shows 35%, it doesn’t indicate that it’s charging, so I guess I’ll have to wait and see if it goes up or not. Also, Thank you so much for the help!!! Btw , I did flip the breaker when I was messing with the wiring. My brother in law never does, but I know better. Lol
You’re welcome, and I’m glad that seems to be working so far!
Like I said, I don’t have a Duo Cam Doorbell, so I haven’t seen for myself what the app is supposed to show for indicators when it’s charging from low-voltage AC, but this post shows a partial screenshot of what you should apparently expect:
If you’re not seeing that, then I wonder if you have to go through the in-app setup again and tell the app that you’re using the doorbell in a wired configuration (not battery powered). Before doing that, I’d probably try a reboot: If Duo Cam Doorbell is like other Wyze Cams, then on its main Settings screen there’s probably a Restart button.
Thanks for being safe and for sharing photos! Those are really helpful for understanding what’s going on.
Battery percentage just dropped to 34% so I know it’s still not right. I tried: restarting from the app, resetting services, then deleted and reinstalled the doorbell completely. Still not charging the battery. Going to try taking off the extension wires that came with the camera and just wiring direct to the original red & black wires. I don’t know what else to try at this point.
I still recommend testing the voltage at the Duo Cam Doorbell’s location if you can do that. If you don’t have a multimeter available but still have your original doorbell button, then you could try this as a quick test to make sure things are wired correctly in order to deliver power there:
- Turn off the circuit breaker supplying power to the doorbell.
- Disconnect Duo Cam Doorbell.
- Reconnect your original doorbell button with the red wire on one screw terminal and the black wire on the other.
- Disconnect one end of the jump wire in the chime box. It doesn’t matter which: We just don’t want to short across the FRONT and TRANS terminals while we test. Leave the red and black wires attached to their current chime terminals.
- Turn the breaker back on.
- Press the doorbell button.
If you do that and hear a chime from your chime box, then you know that the wiring is correct and things should be working when wired as before (with the white wire jumping FRONT⇄TRANS), so you could restore the setup to what you have now (reconnecting the jumper to both FRONT and TRANS terminals on the chime and reinstalling the Duo Cam Doorbell). I’m really curious about what you could measure if you put a multimeter at your doorbell button’s location, though. A 16 V AC, 10 VA transformer is at the low end of Wyze’s power recommendation, so maybe you’re getting juice to the Duo Cam Doorbell but it’s just not enough (which is another reason to try measuring). I also wonder if you’re using other settings (e.g., continuous recording to microSD) and/or if the doorbell camera is in a particularly busy location so that it’s being triggered frequently enough to drain the battery faster than the AC can charge it.
I don’t think it’s necessary to remove the extension wires, though you can certainly try that and it’s possible that there’s a break in one of the wires (something else you could test with a multimeter). Now that I think about it, it’s also possible that you don’t have good connections from the red and black wires to their respective extension wires, so you could double-check that you actually have conductor touching (metal to metal, twisted together) in the wire nuts if you’re using those. I like the spade terminals that the extension wires provide at one end just because they’re easier than bare wire to slip beneath the screws when mounting or removing the doorbell.
Now I’m confused by this earlier comment:
What were you seeing that indicated the problem was solved at that point?
I think you’re doing the right things so far. Hopefully we can get this working the way you want it.
Honestly, I should’ve followed that up with “I hope!”. I don’t know why i thought that worked.