Hardwire doorbell pro installation frying transformer

Cameras
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I have purchased the doorbell pro with the intention of hardwiring it so I won’t have to constantly recharge the camera. I live in a city where it gets to -20C or colder in the winter and I’m sure the built-in batteries will have a major challenge performing if I did not hardwire the doorbell.

The problem is that I have ended up frying my original doorbell transformer and also its replacement. I a now down 2 transformers and I still don’t have my doorbell pro hardwired. I’m not sure what is causing (what I presume to be ) the short circuit causing the transformer to burn out.

I have followed the installation instructions. I live in a 4yr old (ie. new) home. The house is only wired for a front doorbell. I started with using the jumper cable to connect up the “Trans” and “Front” terminals in the door chime unit. Then I went to connect the doorbell pro to the black and red wires at my front door where my previous doorbell switch was connected. The doorbell pro was working but from the Wyze app, I can see that it was not charging-despite being hardwired. I then went to my garage where the doorbell transformer was located and measured the voltage on the two exposed terminals. I got a measurement of zero volts AC!

I then purchased a replacement doorbell transformer. Installed it. Before connecting any wires to it, I measured its output. 24V AC. Perfect! Now I connect the two wires to the transformer. (the rest of the circuit was already all connected up. The doorbell pro was connected to the wires at the front door already). I measure the output at the transformer again, right after connecting the wires. It was down to around 7V AC. Now I measure it a few more seconds later, it’s now zero!!! The transformer itself got fairly warm. So, something about my connection has burned out a second transformer!

I thought maybe there is a short circuit somewhere in my wiring. So to test that out, I connected a simple AA battery to the 2 wires in my garage (that would otherwise connect to the transformer terminals), and I went out to the front door to measure the voltage at the two, now disconnected, doorbell wires. I got a reading of 1.42V. I also checked the AA battery a few minutes later. It wasn’t even warm. My thinking is that this would test for and show me if I had any short circuit in my wiring.

It seems like, somehow there is a short circuit which is causing my transformers to blow. Wyze is sending me a replacement doorbell pro, in case there is a problem with the camera doorbell. Is it even possible for the camera to have some defect to cause this problem? BTW, the camera works perfectly fine on battery power. All of its functions work. So, if there is a defect, this is an isolated defect.

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Unfortunately, I can’t tell what the current requirements are for the doorbell pro from the specs. Will see if I can find out.

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The input specs (printed on the back of the Wyze Video Doorbell Pro) are the following:

10-24V AC, 10VA 60Hz

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Thanks for that tip. I had no idea that it would represent a security issues.

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MAC addresses generally are safe to share. They are just an identifier for that specific device, and sharing them doesn’t really represent a security issue.

1 Like
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Thanks for your tip as well. I guess Wyze is sending me a new doorbell camera unit. So I likely won’t be using this old one anyways.

Still scratching my head as to how/why I fried 2 doorbell transformer with the set up. I have now purchased and installed one more doorbell transformer. However, I have not hooked up the wires on the low voltage side yet. I think I’ll wait to receive the replacement doorbell unit. And then hook up the doorbell camera directly to the transformer (literally, physically a few inches from the transformer) as a test to see if the doorbell itself will fry the transformer. If that tests is OK. Then I will connect the transformer to the doorbell wires at the garage end and measure the voltage output at the front door wires (without the doorbell cam being hooked up). If that also checks out. Then I guess I’ll hook up the new camera to the front door wires and cross my fingers.

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Any resolution to this. I have fried 4 transformers. I had a nest doorbell hardwired for years without an issue. Now I can’t get the pro to charge at all without blowing the transformer. Exact scenario as you. Plug in. Voltage drops to 7. Then dead

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Any update on this? Im kinda having same issue especially this cold weather. Mine is hard wired and on the app it sometimes show icon of hardwire and other time show battery icon. Its seem that when cold around 32 degrees the doorbell pro is not connected cus battery dead even if hard wite. Not sure whats going one. Its a hit and misss with it working through the week.