Help Us Develop Our Doorbell Camera!

I just assume everything in my house that is remotely smart listens to me. I have not heard any one say the WYZE bulbs specifically listen, I did not know they had a microphone, but I know some do that change colors based on sound.

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No but not surprised. Pretty much everything you own that’s electronic probably does something we would/may/could/wish it did not do. Our TV’s watch us watch them, our phones both listen and watch us and track where we go and where we eat and shop etc.

That’s why when I see someone say “I don’t own/use xyz “ due to privacy concerns on a public forum accessed by sophisticated electronic devices capable of much more subtle monitoring than whatever xyz device they claim they don’t use is… well let’s just say I have my own thoughts about their actual purpose.

But hey, we welcome everyone so I am glad your curiosity brought you to us. Kick back and enjoy the ambiance! We look forward to hopefully satisfying at least some of your curiosity.

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I am surprised, and curious…mostly because the average manufacturer is not going to spend the time and money putting extra parts in a device to sell it without touting the extra abilities and charging more. Not to mention that i have not seen a breakdown of any bulb that has a microphone in it. After a quick google search, here is what i have found.

this article talks about led light fixtures spying as part of a new surveillance system that the port authority just spent millions of dollars on… and was not kept a secret… the author goes on to talk about led lights for personal use " neither the light fixtures containing the hue bulbs, nor the light strips or even Bloom lights are spying on you"

If we are talking about the you tube video below, they are demonstrating that (with a microphone wired in, and a solar panel) led light can transmit audio - the publisher of this video has even added an edit to the description of this video “I may be misunderstood, the description should read “An LED light can be used to transmit audio”, many people are misinterpreting this to mean that the led can actually “pick up” audio like a microphone, this is not the case.”

I have some different versions of light changing bulbs/strips that respond to music - they have to be accessed through my cell phone, its my cell phone speaker that picks up the music and transmits to the bulb. I have seen other models that have a speaker built into the button control near the plug, not built into the led’s themselves.

If there are some references or links you could share that could back up the claim "did you know your light bulb listens to you? " I would love to see them, as i stated - i am curious and only did a quick search.

However I also want to curb any possible misinformation from being spread, its easy to make a snap judgement based on the titles of these articles/videos, its not until the end of the article that they address the fact that this is not happening in home/personal use.

Personally it wouldn’t bother me if they did, i have 4 alexa, 2 google home, smart tv’s, laptops, computers, cell phones, ect. that can all accomplish this. As far as these types of surveillance being put into airports and the like, i am all for it, if someone doesn’t feel comfortable with these safety measures they certainly do not have to go there. Sorry for getting long winded there, I’ll put my tinfoil hat back on and take a deep breath. :exploding_head::upside_down_face:

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Dude, everyone knows that the NSA tracks tinfoil hat reflections from space! Make sure you wear it dull side out!

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So happy to hear you’re going to develop a doorbell cam! People in my neighborhood have been going crazy throwing large sums of money at these devices, and I’ve been try to tell them Wyze is gonna do this and make you all sorry you spent so much money on a doorbell. Count me IN please I want to help.

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I have strong opinions about doorbells.

I was a real proponent of Ring when I first got my doorbell. I probably convinced many others to buy one. My good friend purchased the same ring doorbell that I did. I feel bad that I led him astray.

My doorbell stopped ringing my inside chime. There was always a delay but then it stopped ringing at all. I didn’t know it didn’t work. My neighbors just thought I was an ass. I am so frustrated at this, I called customer support and they blamed my mechanical doorbell that had been working for the previous year. Huh? They blamed my transformer. They said my mechanical chime wasn’t supported. They said that my problems were unique. They didn’t know what was happening or why. But they did know. Many or most report these exact problems. I felt betrayed and lied to.

After spending many hours and calling customer support many times, they FINALLY told me that it wouldn’t ring my inside chime if the outside doorbell was hot. I put some spacer washers behind my ring doorbell and that seemed to help, for awhile. My doorbell is well shaded under a 7 foot overhang.

About this same time I noticed that the video quality dropped significantly. I didn’t understand why that would happen. Customer support didn’t tell me but later I figured that because I had complained they had made a settings change to lower the video quality in in an effort to reduce the heat. Maybe they did thus to all Ring Pros or maybe they just updated mine that way.

A few months later I finally figured out my doorbell stopped working altogether. If I set it up from scratch, the video would work. As soon as I press the doorbell the video stops and the doorbell is completely broken.

I googled for help with my ring doorbell and found articles describing my issues EXACTLY! Not kinda like my issues but EXACTLY my issues. I was so surprised. The articles described how hot the doorbell would get, how the doorbell wouldn’t do its primary function which is ring the chime! That the video and audio quality had been reduced. That pushing the doorbell would cause the entire unit to fail. Holy crap! Yes! That’s the problem!

It all started to make sense. Ring knew they had problems with the ring pro. They would not admit those problems to me. They would not admit that they lowered the video quality. They would not admit that the heat was caused by their design. They would not admit that the chime problem was caused by their device rather than because of my mechanical chime. Holy cow! Why wouldn’t they just tell me instead of blaming me and my house and wasting my time? My doorbell had become my hobby! Yuck!

There are a few articles describing that the battery and capacitor could fail from overheating and over time. That made sense. The doorbell gets its power from the doorbell transformer. But in order to ring the chime the power lines have to be shorted together. In order to keep the doorbell powered up while ringing the doorbell, the doorbell has to have a battery. Because the battery is now dead, when I push the doorbell button, the power is lost, and my doorbell is dead. Why can’t a doorbell ring the chime? It can’t because the software can check the voltage and if shorting the wires to ring the chime will cause the entire device to fail, they don’t ring the chime. Duh! A major failure of a product. If I fix it I will likely have to replace the battery every year. Hmmmm. My dumb doorbell lasted 30 years. My Ring Pro lasted a year or a year and a half. :frowning: Sad.

Here is what is happening with the Ring. There is power to the doorbell until the doorbell is rung. When the doorbell is rung the wires are shorted together and therefore there is no power for a second. This is why there is a battery inside the doorbell. If this system determines that the battery is not sufficiently working to power the unit while the chime is rung, the doorbell doesn’t ring the chime. How can a doorbell product not ring the freaking doorbell? The battery lasts approximately 18 months to 24 months. At that point the doorbell is trash. Some people have reported that they have replaced the internal battery. It is similar to taking apart an iPhone. I have decided not to repair my ring pro even though I easily could do that. I do not want to make my doorbell another hobby. So in my opinion, the ring doorbell is expensive and poorly designed. I have gone back to my original pushbutton for my doorbell. There is a large capacitor and a battery inside the case. If these were replaceable by snapping them out of the back panel, these problems wouldn’t exist or would be easily solvable. Also the ring pro gets very hot even if the temperature outside is 70° and the ring pro is in the shade. This heat causes an early break down of the capacitor and the battery. How hard would it have been for them to have the battery be replaceable?

I have decided to have a regular doorbell and a separate Wyze camera next to my door. The camera has motion sensing and will let me know someone’s at the door, even if they don’t ring the bell. I am not buying a $200 or $300 doorbell every two years!

Do you know any Wyze product using ethernet cables?

Also, one of the options talks about power.

Could be just a doorbell, we have the cameras already, just need to trigger the camera.

Seems odd that your survey was only interested in wired/wireless and then purely concerned with my race and earnings. Having had a video doorbell for a few years (and being very frustrated with several major brands) I could have shared (hopefully useful) thoughts on what really matters and what often doesn’t work well.

Perhaps you’re more interested in choosing a price point than making sure it’s a good doorbell!

Once there is a supported Wyze product (NAS or API or other) which allows LAN access to recorded events from all my Wyze cameras, then I will consider new Wyze products, including a doorbell if it also allows LAN access to recorded events.

FWIW, most surveys are by marketing mba’s, not by nerdy tech developers. Marketing usually develops the profile for a product to succeed in the marketplace.

I agree with everything plewis lists, especially about paying Ring to store data. An SD card like the current Wyze cam (maby bigger SD cards) is sufficient. I would add that the ability to change the default “record time after motion stops” would be really desireable.

Agree 100%. I chose wireless, assuming they’re asking if I want it to connect via WiFi, but I’d much rather have the camera use the power supplied by the existing doorbell wiring than have to change batteries. The ideal option would be to allow it to run off of battery or existing wiring for power.

Done!

Great idea. Must run on the existing Door Bell power and must still be able to ring the old chimes at the other end of the house or better yet, have multiple chimes such as in the basement, garage, kitchen and of course my phone. Then we have multiple users in the house, would if notify both or all users? We have varied users here. Those who embrace all this kool technology and those who just want it to work either way. My best example is the PLUG. If you use the plug on a lamp, then you cannot just turn on the lamp without moving the couch. If you used the bulbs then you can still turn on the lamp no matter how it was turned on or off. So the doorbell would need to be transparent to one user and accessible to the techie who wants the video.

My constant concern (old X-10 user) no matter whose smart devices you use, what happens when the company decide it wants to shut down the servers. Of couse I am told, as long as it works with G__gle it will be ok. Westinghouse, RCA, Zenith, get my drift. So, I like the Wifi connected, no hub required.

Thanks for listening

Unless it was “Nest” :wink:

Battery charging and changing is a pain, you don’t wanna go through it, there are plugin doorbell transformer on Amazon, that’s all you need.

Thanks but I was already aware of the fact that I can buy a transformer :slightly_smiling_face:

It’s not the transformer that’s a problem, it’s running wires through concrete or just having an accessible location above the wall in an attic. Running wires is not an option for a significant number of people who’ve commented here including me.

Color Night Vision ala Skybell. If you don’t have that, you’ve lost me…