You’re welcome. I was looking for the same features you want, and I didn’t want to completely bypass the existing chime, especially since I was installing this for my mom. A doorbell should sound like a doorbell—and continue to get the pets’ attention! I also wanted something that I expected to be a straightforward integration since other Wyze devices are already in use in the house and linked to Google Home.
Neither am I. Neither is at least one of the Wyze marketing people, according to what she said during the Wyze Week Community Fireside on Discord. I like things that I can have and use without mandatory recurring costs.
It was, especially because I like to do good work, particularly if I’m doing it for someone else, and I kept thinking, “What am I doing wrong? This thing popped right onto the Wi-Fi the first time!” Then I found an article in Arlo’s knowledge base that says, “Turn the circuit breaker off and wait until the battery dies. This will take around 10 to 15 minutes.” A’ight, I guess I’ll take this time to put away some tools and do something else for a while…
The first time I took it off the wall after I installed it, I walked into the house with it in my hand and my sister said that she’d just gotten a tamper alert on her phone, and it was still sending her a live feed, so, yeah, I can see how it could be a useful feature in the right conditions.
One thing I did like about installing the Arlo was the clear and easy installation instructions in their app (using my brother-in-law’s phone, because he’s going to manage it). When I installed the Wyze doorbell, I expected a step to select the chime type (mechanical or digital, like in the Arlo app), but that didn’t happen at all during installation. I found it in the settings myself and chose an appropriate option, and that made the ding-dong work. Much later, I’ve now seen a “Choose Your Chime Type” pop-up prompt in the Wyze app when I’ve selected the new doorbell. That’s frustrating for at least two reasons:
- The app should recognize that a chime type has already been chosen.
- This should’ve been presented as a step in the installation workflow.
It’s a new product. Clearly they have some kinks to work out, but this seems like a big step to leave out, and I wonder how many users are having problems getting their doorbells to ring during and immediately after installation because it’s missing.
I’m way off topic again. Good luck!