Mine won’t charge, took about a week to go from 100% to 20. Pulled the battery and charged it 100%. 48 hours and it’s down to 58%. Mine is going back and I’m just putting the DB Pro back in. The DB pro looks ( and overall works ) much better. the DB Pro covers my front doormat anyway. The “upgrade” to 2.5 K over the HD of the PRO isn’t worth it IMO as to how the Duo performs.
I did read somewhere (sorry, I cannot find the post, it may have been on reddit) that the DB Duo charges very slowly when on wire, by design.
I’m assuming you have read the posts regarding the transformer volts/amps required for best results on the hardwired doorbells. Common consensus is at least 16V and 30VA (aka 30Watts, volts*amps=watts). Have you the ability to check what you have? It is entirely possible that the DB Duo requires just enough difference in voltage/amp draw than the VDB PRO that your transformer cannot provide enough to charge it.
Further, do you have the house chime activated in app to use your built in home chime? Sounds like you’re upgrading from the VDB Pro which doesn’t have the chime controller. Are you experiencing the charging issue on VDB Duo without the use of the chime controller? I suspect if you are not using the chime controller, or you’re transformer is underpowered, that may be a source(s) of your charging issues.
You state that the Pro is better than the DUO in terms of video - which if you don’t mind the fisheye, sure. However, you lack local storage and operation of existing house chime capabilities, as well as using WIFI chime and other camera as chime features. To each their own - if those aren’t important for you then your use case may only need the Pro.
Fyi… Newest version of the Android app was just released and fixed the “existing chime” issue. The option now exists.
3.2.5.591
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Long reply warning. Your situation intrigued me and a lot of questions I’ve been reading about have all somewhat “clicked” for me as possible explanation that may benefit the masses. I’m sorry, but bear with me.
Though there are reports of the VDB Duo working with mechanical chime without the chime controller (my own report earlier in this thread included), I am confident this results in a continuous power being provided to the the house chime in addition to the VDB Duo. Together, this could be enough power draw to not provide enough juice to the VDB Duo to both supply it’s own operation, and charge circuits to battery. Why am I confident in the continuous power to house chime without chime controller? Because the VDB Duo to take power from the hot wire, has to pass the current down the other wire, which closes the circuit through the solenoid actuator (mechanical house chime) or electronic circuit (digital house chime). If you remove the Wyze doorbell and put a mechanical doorbell, it is merely closing a circuit to provide power.
Further evidence: there have been reports of people who have the VDB V2 or VDB Duo without the chime controller installed hearing phantom low volume dings in their house chime when the camera detects motion, (or, in my case, when it turns on/off IR Lights - not consistently, sometimes), or a low hum from their mechanical chime. The low hum is the mechanical chime solenoid/coil getting a low level of constant power and is partially deployed. Constant power as it is part of the “closing the circuit” with the camera. This partial deployment could explain a faint ding people may hear when camera detects motion or uses IR lights. Lights turn on/off, camera records, etc, creates a slight voltage/amp draw change in the camera, which causes a slight “ripple” to the mechanical house chime. The house chime solenoids are not absolute in positioning, they are a bit springy in nature, so a change in the deployment of the plunger position could be springy enough (in either direction) to create slight contact with the actual bell, creating in the faint “ding” reported. Some may not experience this soft ding without the chime controller if the physical distance isn’t as great, or if the the voltage ripple (also impacted by resistance in the solenoid, the doorbell wiring size/length) doesn’t produce enough movement in the solenoid. Some may not hear the hum because of age/type/design of solenoid, or individual hearing sensitivities. However, I’d bet if you got right up next to it, anyone using a solenoid chime without the chime controller will likely hear a faint hum when camera installed. Others with a “digital” house chime (no solenoid or plunger) have reported that without chime controller, their digital chime wouldn’t play the whole doorbell song (also reported with people with under-powered transformers with DB pro, VDB v2). This is likely due to the complexity of digital circuits, and the design of digital doorbells. Sustained power draw by digital doorbells throughout the ring cycle could be greater than total voltage available upon doorbell activation (remember and the power available is diminished downstream of doorbell). Further, some with not enough juice by their transformer have seen their doorbells crash and reset (VDB 2) when the chime is rung. The “ripples” i have mentioned can also create back current and cause digital chime circuits to reset/stop, which can also explain incomplete digital chime sequence. My theory here is the same, not enough power to split between the two devices.
So, where does that leave us? the Chime Controller. Many are asking why it’s needed if the house doorbell CAN work without it. Given what I have explained above, and my moderate understanding of electrical circuits, I believe that the chime controller serves a few purposes. 1) Surge protection device as officially stated by Wyze. 2) It absolutely prevents power from going to the house chime all the time - therefore eliminates the constant “hum” and faint “dings” that are a result of a partially deployed solenoid (which indicates and requires constant power to be partially deployed), and also could prevent weird behavior of digital house chimes due to nature of integrated circuits inside. 3) Diverts power to the house chime ONLY when doorbell button is pressed, doorbell does not reset when pressed (VDB 2 - non battery version has a capacitor/circuit to ensure it keeps running without battery) 4) Ensures enough power is going to doorbell to operate/charge on regular basis by preventing constant power share between house chime and doorbell.
How does this all work? Chime Controller has 3 wires, The Red wire is taking power from transformer, the black wire is passing this to the video doorbell. Video doorbell completes it’s circuit to have regular power via the other wire at doorbell that goes directly to transformer. This is commonly a white wire (depicted as green house wire in Wyze diagram). The WHITE wire in the Chime Controller ties to the “front” terminal on house chime. When the doorbell button is pressed, the doorbell creates a power ripple (not sure if it is an increase or decrease in draw) or some other signal to the Chime Controller Back down the black wire, which activates a circuit in the chime controller to close a contact between the black and white wire on chime controller, which then momentarily closes the circuit through the house chime. This works because the power is constantly flowing through doorbell to the neutral of the transformer. - Wait, it creates a “ripple” or some other signal for the chime controller? - Yes, remember you must activate the type of house chime you’re using, and if you’re using it. That setting likely causes some pre-determined ripple or signal, and also would create a length of time setting that the chime controller would need to provide power from black wire to white wire (digital chimes may have a long jingle sequence and require power longer than a mechanical chime to just activate the plunger quickly).
Now, what about people who have tried every wiring combination and can’t get the chime controller to work (reported on VDB V2). Not sure on this one, but my theory (without testing or speaking with anyone who experienced this) is that potentially the house wiring from transformer is flip flopped - the wire that should be HOT may be Neutral (think flipping black/red - polarity is reversed). In the days of mechanical and digital chimes, polarity wasn’t necessary critical, But when using a chime controller that has smarter circuits and potentially logic gates, polarity does matter.
Now, If I could find time to physically test and photograph/video all of this, I might be able to put to bed lots of questions about chime controller and help people troubleshoot.
TLDR 3 - Chime Controller is best to ensure proper voltage to doorbell, ensuring proper charging, not wear out existing house chime, and protect circuit from power spikes. You may be able to use your house chime without it, but it might not work for you. Wyze would be silly to ever officially support that.
Thanks for all who have read this far. I’m hoping this may spark some healthy buzz on that matter (no pun intended).
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Hey! Somebody stole my diagram! 
(Eh…okay, it’s Wyze’s diagram that I added some labels to in order to explain a specific situation to a specific user.)
I appreciate this discussion and wonder if you’ve seen a teardown video for the Chime Controller (and Video Doorbell v2).
My issue was that the “hot”/“line” wire coming from the transformer was apparently connected to the chime's FRONT terminal, and what should've been the doorbell's “load” wire was connected to TRANS before I moved into this house. My guess is that it was wired that way at the time of construction or when some repainting was done. (This is another lengthy read for anyone interested.)
This is copied from Video doorbell V2 chime controller wiring issues - #19 by Crease if you want more information in context.
TL;DR:
I discovered that the red house wire attached to my doorbell chime’s TRANS terminal was actually coming from the doorbell, and the red house wire I’ve had connected to the Chime Controller’s black wire (this red wire which was originally connected to the doorbell chime’s FRONT terminal) was actually coming from the transformer. These had apparently been reversed at the time of the old “dumb” doorbell’s original installation, so I swapped them to their proper locations today.
More Detail:
I installed my own Video Doorbell v2 roughly 11 months ago using the standard wiring installation for the Chime Controller, and everything worked as expected from that time until a couple of months ago, when the chime stopped ringing with a button press. I tried a number of the typical troubleshooting steps and eventually got the chime ringing again somewhat reliably by using the alternate wiring instructions, but the ding-dong! is often accompanied by an unpleasant rattle/hum sound. Wyze Support says that “the buzzing/clicking sound on the chime is normal when an alternative wiring method is used”, but this seems odd to me, and trying to think my way through @fabron72’s wiring situation got me to explore and reevaluate my own doorbell wiring situation, so now I have a better understanding of what’s going on.
This is what I did:
- Tested the voltage at my 10VA/16V transformer and read 18.5 V AC.
- Turned off power to my doorbell.
- Disconnected the house wires in my chime box and labeled the red wire (what I believe would equate to one of @fabron72’s black wires) that was attached to the TRANS terminal. (I wrote “Transformer” on a piece of tape to differentiate it from the other red wire.)
- Untwisted the white wires in the chime box that have been twisted together and capped with electrical tape.
- Clipped a test lead to the red and white wires at my transformer, effectively shorting across them (probably unnecessary).
- Attached my multimeter to the red “Transformer” wire and its paired white wire (as they come into the box through the same insulation sheath), put it in resistance measurement mode, and turned it on, where it settled on “1”, even after double-checking all my connections. Oops.
- Attached the multimeter to the other red wire (the one that was initially on the FRONT terminal and has instead been twisted together with the black wire from the Chime Controller) and its paired white wire and tested resistance to get a realistic reading of conductor resistance (which I didn’t record). This is the actual wire pair coming from the transformer!
- Removed the Video Doorbell v2 from the wall and disconnected the wires so that I could test resistance again with that air gap and with a test lead clipped across the wires in order to confirm that the red wire which has been connected to TRANS this whole time is actually coming from the doorbell-side wire pair.
- Reattached the multimeter to the actual transformer wire pair (now that I know which it is), put it in AC voltage measurement mode, restored power to the doorbell, and turned on the multimeter, which read 18.9 V, confirming that this is actually the transformer wire pair.
- Turned off doorbell power again.
- Reattached and remounted Video Doorbell v2 outside.
- Rewired my chime box:
- Twisted the two white wires back together, taped the exposed conductors to insulate them, and tucked them out of the way.
- Attached my known transformer red wire to the TRANS terminal along with the red wire from the Chime Controller.
- Attached the white Chime Controller wire to the FRONT terminal.
- Twisted the black Chime Controller wire together with the remaining red wire (the false “Transformer” wire that I now know is actually coming from the doorbell) after removing my temporary tape label.
- Restored power to the doorbell, waited for it to boot up and load a video stream to the Wyze app, and then tested by pressing the button to get a nice ding-dong! from the house’s built-in chime now that the wiring is correct and the Chime Controller is wired back with its true standard wiring installation.
Going through that exercise now has me adding that confirmation (that the correct wire is actually going to TRANS) to my troubleshooting list when trying to assist with wired doorbell issues here in the Forum, and I think it’s more ammunition for the argument that anyone doing this sort of thing (wiring his or her own doorbell) should have a multimeter in the toolkit. I’ve gotten by with an inexpensive one for years.
Your explanation about the hum without the Chime Controller (constant power through the solenoid) seems to echo what I was experiencing with the Chime Controller wired in its “alternate” configuration, so I appreciate that. 
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A very interesting read. I will be installing 2 vdb duos with 2 chime controllers in place from vdb.v2’s. My concern now has to be focused on if indeed the batteries in the duos will stay charged. 24/40 transformer I hope will do the job. Just downloaded the 3.2.5 Android update to my S22 Ultra and have yet to unbox for setup the duo doorbells. I feel I should wait for more users experiences and feedback. Not a dilemma I wanted to encounter.
I have a 24v 40va transformer. The house chime is NOT in the circuit at all. The camera charged fine for 2-3 days, then it quit charging. This transformer and its wiring powered the WD Pro for about 2 years. If I completely remove / disconnect/ reset the duo cam upon connection it draws a few amps, Then drops down to to less than 1 amp. It like the charging circuit cuts out. The camera remains powered, full voltage at the terminals. I’m using 18 gauge bell wire vice the normal 20 or 22 gauge.
Thanks for clarifying. Well that doesn’t help my theory for your situation, but I think the rest of my theory mostly holds up in generalities.
It is strange it worked for a few days. Have you had the opportunity or ability to test your voltage at the mount location wiring? If it’s stronger than 24v that could indicate a self protection or possible slightly fried unit.
Or, if voltage is fine, I suppose it could be a bad battery or bad unit. Defects are possible with wyze stuff….as with anything. 
I know wyze says 16v-24v should be fine. Any positive confirmation this is true for the Duo cam Doorbell too?
Anecdotally I had read a post where someone put in a 24v xfmr but swapped it for a 16v as they noticed the 24v made the camera much warmer (temperature) than the 16v. To me that indicates a potential for things to be fried.
EDIT: sorry seeing you said the voltage is still full at camera. Is it below or above 24v?
Thank for this. It appears a lot are having the “random” doorbell mechanical chime triggered by a person or package motion. I ordered the Chime Controller to see if I can stop it from happening. It’s making this doorbell…. A not so well doorbell. If not resolved within the week or so, I, like many others will have to return it.
Something that “feels hot” has zero bearing on anything, especially the life or function of electronic or any other item. Just like “wind chill” is only applicable to human skin and -50 wind chill doesn’t make oil thicker or your dog colder or make inanimate items go below the ambient temperature
You don’t ever feel an objects temperature when you touch it. What you feel is dependent on the difference in temperature, how quickly the thing conducts heat
But is it really warm? The finger you touch with is around 33 degrees, meaning that the metal that feels hot to the touch is colder than the finger (weird thought right?)
Our concept of hot and cold are a lot closer related to how our body absorbs/emits heat, than the actual temperature of the object.
Just like nobody has a “torque wrench” calibrated arm, they don’t have a built in thermometer. On a given touch, you can’t even tell if something is hotter or colder than the last time you touched it 30 seconds ago, although you may perceive it hotter or colder especially if it’s “cooling” or “heating”. If you get burned, well it’s hotter and touching it was kinda dumb.
All said, we are sans the ugly non charging DB Duo and back to a Pro. The HD is fine and the view shows 90% of the door anyway. Now a Pro 2 in white with a 2k+ camera might tempt me. The DB Pro seems to be of a much nicer (aesthetically and feel) build quality than the Duo IMO.
I see what you’re trying to say, but in the context and spirit of trying to help solve an issue you were experiencing, in effort to potentially help another forum reader with a similar issue, you focused on one minute portion that you disagreed with, which was also a bit of a stray from topic.
I’m well aware of how thermodynamics work, and yes I agree that our perception of temperature is influenced by the prior environment. However, at the same time, we can absolutely tell if something is warmer or colder if the prior environment is constant. We’re taking in relativity, not absolute - aka “our hands are not thermometers or torque wrenches” It is not very likely the person who reported their doorbell was running warmer with a much higher voltage supply had hands that dropped in temperature or were subjected to extended chilling between tests. I’m also quoting this anecdotally, so its possible they used a thermometer. Somewhere an assumption was made they used their hands not a thermometer, but I did not state either one, nor do I recall.
I digress, - none of the discussion on perception of temperature productive to the prior discussion at hand.
The point I was trying to make is if something is taking a higher voltage, some part of it may run hotter. If that thing is hot enough, that could indicate a problematic design or early failure of it is an electronic device. Heat increases the likelihood of that item failing. Electronics don’t like heat, and neither do batteries. Perhaps they didn’t quite design it properly to run at 24v, which would be rather unfortunate.
Sounds like the DB Duo didn’t work for you and that’s totally fine, but also we have no further clues or answers to why you experienced what you did, and that doesn’t help the forum community who may be experiencing something similar.
I upgraded from a Video Doorbell v2 to the DCD. Overall, the device “works”, however, I have an intermittent problem with what appears to be phantom chimes that activate the bell/house chime every so often; maybe several times a day (usually in a short, consecutive time frame of 5-15 mins).
My best guess at this time is that the DCD is charging the battery, and when it does, it causes the doorbell chime to trigger for the duration of the battery charging cycle.
Other than that… all the other camera related functionality appears to be working properly.
Anyone else having similar issues?
I’m hoping we can get this addressed via firmware. Otherwise, I would say this is kinda annoying with the randomly triggered chimes, so I have no idea whether there’s a person actually pressing the doorbell or not. I had no such issues with the Video Doorbell v2.
Yes. checkout this post I wrote a few days ago and see if what I’m saying applies to your situation. Namely, are you using without a chime controller?
Ok
I wondered the same thing. Since it’s reportedly an upgrade from Video Doorbell v2, one would imagine that the Chime Controller was previously installed and left in place, but I think this is still a good question (and helpful to avoid assumptions).
Despite it being an upgrade from the Video Doorbell v2, I am using the DCD without the Chime Controller.
With the v2, I never needed it. It worked 100% as expected without the controller in the wiring path.
Seems that this phantom chime problem with the DCD is plaguing some/many of us…? Hopefully someone from Wyze provide some guidance on what the appropriate “fix” should be?
Did you read my very long and informative post I linked in my prior reply?
You should try it WITH your chime controller.
The phantom chime problems are plaguing people who are using the DCD without the chime controller…which includes you. The “fix” is likely to use the Chime Controller. Can you try this and report back your findings if it solves the issue?
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Looking at the diagram in your post, it looks like I would have to get closer to the wiring at the chime box in order to add the chime controller into the wiring path.
Problem is… is that the chime box is installed/mounted into the drywall. So, getting into the wiring to test this isn’t as straightforward as I would like, and may result in some minor drywall/paint damage; which I ideally would like to avoid if possible.
Hoping there is an better solution…
Are you saying that your chime box is actually inside the wall somehow? For reference, here’s what my mechanical chime box (mounted on drywall) looks like with its cover on and off:
The second photo shows the Chime Controller (which fits inside the chime box) connected using the standard wiring configuration.
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