I have a bit of a strange situation where I have a mechanical doorbell chime, but the wiring to the front door has been removed (the wiring to the rear door is still there and the rear doorbell button works).
I would like to say buy a Doorbell V2 and power it via a dedicated power supply at the front door. Then ideally I would wirelessly activate my mechanical chime when the button is pushed.
By any chance does the chime adapter that comes with the V2 receive a wireless signal from the doorbell to activate the chime? Or is there a signal sent along the wiring from the doorbell to the chime adapter?
Not sure if it’s possible but it would be great if I could get it to work without running new wiring from the chime to the front door…
(also I know I could just get a doorbell that comes with a wireless chime, but I really want to keep my mechanical chime…)
I think the short answer is that you’ll need new wiring between the chime box and the doorbell’s mounting location if you want to use a wired Wyze doorbell with your home’s existing mechanical chime.
I seem to recall reading speculation about this somewhere in the Forum, but I have seen no actual evidence to this effect. Information filed with the FCC indicates that the only wireless communication this product does is the doorbell camera unit’s 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi radio; nothing from the Chime Controller itself. I haven’t seen any indication that there is other wireless communication taking place with this product.
Yes, the Chime Controller appears to be triggered over the low-voltage AC wiring between the doorbell camera unit and the chime box.
I’m 100% with you on this. I didn’t want to give up my home’s built-in mechanical chime, so I put off getting a video doorbell for a long time. When Video Doorbell v2 was released with the ability to use the mechanical chime and do local recording to microSD without the need for a subscription, that’s when I finally bit.
I wish I had a better answer for you, and maybe someone else in the community has a different solution. I don’t know how painful running new wire would (will?) be, but that’s something I’d be interested in learning about.
One other thought: Is the wiring between the chime box and the front door all completely gone? If you still have wire going to the chime box and even a little bit at the front door, then I wonder if you can reattach the FRONT wire terminal on the chime and use the extension wires that come with Video Doorbell v2 at the doorbell button’s location in order to avoid trying to pull a completely new wire run and give you enough length to install the thing.
There’s definitely some wiring attached to the FRONT terminal of the chime which then runs into the ceiling. So at some point there was a wired doorbell at the front (the rear one is still there working as I mentioned). My best guess is the wiring was abandoned at the front door when a new door was installed by the previous owner. I’ve had the trim off the interior side of the front door, but I couldn’t find any wiring. Maybe I’ll pop it off and take another look. If I can find the ends of the wire I’m sure it would be easy to extend the wiring and drill a new hole in the door frame.
My other option like you mentioned would be to run an entirely new wire, but I’m also not sure how difficult that would be (…or abandon my dream of using the mechanical chime and just use a wireless one…).
I’m sure some smart electrical engineer type could figure out how to use the chime controller at the front door to activate a wireless relay at the chime, but that’s beyond me!
You’re welcome! I’m genuinely glad you found it helpful.
I’m neither an electrician nor an electrical engineer, so I can’t speak to any more complex solution involving wireless or anything else, but I like your idea of looking for existing wiring at the door’s location if that isn’t too difficult. If the wire is still present, then you should be able to test for continuity pretty easily with a multimeter. If that’s all intact, then getting a wired doorbell connected to your chime should be pretty straightforward, I’d think.
