Wyze Video Doorbell Cam V2 not working with house chime

Not sure if this is going to help anyone or not. I saw all the threads about eating a different transformer. I have an old house and an old transformer so it seemed logical to me. I replaced it and it still would not work. Someone in another post mentioned making sure the do not disturb setting was not on. When I went into the app to check that, I found that when i did the install and said i had an existing chime, it did not add that. It essentially said I had no chime. Once I set it to mechanical chime it worked. Just putting this out there in case the same thing happens somebody else. I felt kind of foolish.

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Thank you for sharing this. I don’t think there’s any reason to feel foolish, though. As I mentioned in another topic, this (prompting the user to select the chime type) seems to be a step missing from the installation workflow in the Wyze app. Hopefully that will be corrected in a future update.

Had the same issue and used the alternate wiring instructions which worked for me. Not sure if I had selected mechanical chime before trying this though which I think I might try now.

The chime works without the controller but I think it says somewhere that the controller is still required as it performs a surge protection function or something like that for the doorbell.

I have 2 doorbells, front equals 2 dongs, rear equals 1 dong. I first did the typical wiring that the Wyze apps tells you with the 3 wires with the chime controller. First result equals front chime works as expected. However, rear chime (1 dong) does not. Removed the chime controller and put all wiring back to original setup. Second result equals front chime works and rear chime works (2 dongs and 1 dong). Now, I am concerned that the Wyze doorbell v2 will eventually start doing wonky things without the chime controller because of the surges it will have to endure every time either doorbell is pressed. I tested the voltage on the doorbell wires and it registered as having approximately 19 volts. The alternate wiring method will not work for me since I want to be able to still distinguish between the front and rear dong sounds. Any advice will be helpful, thanks.

Not sure if you meant that you own two Wyze Video Doorbell V2, but I do, and my original doorbell was like yours (ding dong for front door, just dong for rear door). I was able to follow the instructions to wire both the front and the rear cameras, with the included chime controllers, and everything works like it should.

I just did the re-wire trick and only got the one hammer ring. I thought about removing the wyze controller but do not want to damage anything. It is past the 30 days to return my unit. Any other fix updates?

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Not sure if this is related to your issue or not, but many traditional doorbells have terminals for a FRONT and a REAR door, and, by design, they will “ding-dong” for the FRONT but only “DING” for the REAR. This is done on purpose, so you can distinguish which door is being rung. This could be related to people getting just half the chime.

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i have the three, front /rear/trans. When putting the red wire on rear and Front I only get the ding. and leaving the white disconnected as per the alt wiring instructions. I saw that for this doorbell you can use the wyze OG cam to act as a chime too. I am going to try that and set the volume up loud and see how it does.

I just came across this thread after several Google searches came up empty.
I just got a new, more powerful, transformer for under $20 from Amazon and now my mechanical chime works with the Wyze doorbell.
Thank you for posting this information.

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Welcome to the Forum, @kabal, and thank you for sharing your experience! I’m glad it’s working for you.

Jason,

It’s been almost a year with no follow up. I just finally installed a V2 doorbell I got my father for Christmas, 2023. Same issue. Mechanical bell worked before. Transformer is in the required spec. Wired per directions and the camera works - but the bell does not chime.

What’s going on?

Have you read and tried the alternate wiring instructions?

I don’t see any mention of that in your post history, and that’s something that I imagine Jason and/or Wyze Support would be likely to ask/suggest. :man_shrugging:

Hi, I’m new here to the Wyze forums. I just purchased my wired camera a few nights ago, and installed yesterday. I started to come up with this problem everyone is discussing where no matter how I wired the actual chime box in my house, I could not get it to ring when the doorbell camera was pushed. I rent, so I really didn’t want to get super complicated and update the transformer. It’s an understandable workaround for a homeowner but I am not that lucky contestant lol.

I was pretty ready to give up and go return the thing or just live with no doorbell chime. On a whim, I tried wiring the Wyze Doorbell V2 one last time, and in doing so I flipped my trans red wire and the white front wire on the actual camera itself…

and magically my chime started to work! WITHOUT the Wyze chime converter connected

This may be something that everyone here has already tried, but I only wanted to post about it because

  1. I researched online for a while trying to find a fix, and everything lead to instructions on rewiring the chime box/chime converter in different ways - not advising anywhere to try flipping the wires connected to the doorbell
  2. It isn’t in the simple packaging instructions either to attempt to flip those wires.

Simple fix? Yes. Will it work for everyone? I don’t know, but I see this is obviously a struggle for some people with no real solution. I do hope this could be the answer for some.

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Welcome to the Forum, @andria.emily5, and thanks for posting! :wave:

I believe that a situation similar to what you describe was mentioned in a separate topic just recently, though in that case the wires going into the chime box were apparently both red (not red and white), and that user didn’t say whether or not the Chime Controller was installed.

Last year, in that same topic, someone else mentioned that installing the Chime Controller but reversing the wire connections in the instructions solved the problem, and apparently that has worked for other users.

I think it’s helpful to have your note as another possible remedy, because there are several topics discussing this issue, and it’s something I didn’t actually try when I had an issue with my own Video Doorbell v2 recently. I was able to get my in-house chime working again after using the alternate wiring instructions for the Chime Controller, but now the chime sometimes buzzes, rattles, or hums in addition to giving the ding-dong!, so Wyze sent a replacement, which I received just today. This was after months of successful operation using the standard wiring instructions at the time of initial installation and no other changes on my part; something just failed, and for some reason switching to the alternate wiring method worked, but no one at Wyze has explained why. :man_shrugging:

I guess if it fails again, I’ll have your suggestion to try! Thanks!

I tried everything short of replacing the transformer as I have NO idea where it is. Tried every possible wiring combination with and without the controller. Tried the different chime settings. Finally gave up and bypassed the mechanical chime and setup my two inside cameras to work as bells. I live out in the sticks and it’s very rare to get any doorbell action. It’s more of a camera than a doorbell. Love the local storage option.

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That can definitely be a challenge, depending on the home. I’ve read some users’ posts here about their doorbell transformers being in the attic! Fortunately mine’s easily accessible in the basement.

Prior to getting my Video Doorbell v2 and installing that, I installed an Arlo at my sister’s house because that’s what my brother-in-law had bought, and that installation succeeded without my messing with their transformer. I think I might’ve actually found their transformer once when I wasn’t looking for it but was doing some other electrical work for them, but I don’t remember where in their house that was. :man_shrugging:

Anyway, I have seen YouTube videos that offer helpful advice about locating the transformer if you ever decide to tackle it again.

I’ve tried to collect several of those in another topic, but what has ultimately worked out the best for me was discovering that my doorbell chime had been wired incorrectly (probably at the time the home was built) and then remediating that.

You can expand this to read what I did, if you're 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:

  1. Tested the voltage at my 10VA/16V transformer and read 18.5 V AC.
  2. Turned off power to my doorbell.
  3. 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.)
  4. Untwisted the white wires in the chime box that have been twisted together and capped with electrical tape.
  5. Clipped a test lead to the red and white wires at my transformer, effectively shorting across them (probably unnecessary).
  6. 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. :negative_squared_cross_mark:
  7. 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! :white_check_mark:
  8. 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. :white_check_mark:
  9. 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. :white_check_mark:
  10. Turned off doorbell power again.
  11. Reattached and remounted Video Doorbell v2 outside.
  12. Rewired my chime box:
    1. Twisted the two white wires back together, taped the exposed conductors to insulate them, and tucked them out of the way.
    2. Attached my known transformer red wire to the TRANS terminal along with the red wire from the Chime Controller.
    3. Attached the white Chime Controller wire to the FRONT terminal.
    4. 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.
  13. 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. :white_check_mark::white_check_mark:

That might be worth looking into if you want to be able to use your mechanical chime and have a little time, patience, and a multimeter.

For sure. That and the ability to use the mechanical chime were my two main motivators for purchase.

It’s not so much that the controller provides a surge protection. On a post on Reddit, a poster explains that:
“That chime controller is just a capacitor. So how it works is when you press the button on your doorbell it’ll make a full electrical connection and energize the solenoid which will move the plunger to hit the gong to make the chime sound. Most houses with door chime will run off of a 16 volt AC transformer and when you press the button there will be a voltage drop. The voltage may drop down to 12 volt and at that voltage the camera door bell will shutoff because remember the operating voltage is 16-24 volts AC. To mitigate the voltage drop below 16 volts, that is where the Chime Controller comes in. The chime controller is just a capacitor and will temporarily hold that 16 volt for when the button is pressed and still maintain power to the camera door bell. So there are two ways to help with this voltage drop, 1) install that chime controller (capacitor) or 2) upgrade your transformer to 24 volts AC. It’s also OK to install the chime controller with a 24 volt transformer. It’ll help maintain the power to the camera door bell and also other stuff that is connected to that transformer. For example, I also have my house address number lights lit up by the same transformer.”

Like most, doing the above alternate wiring method makes the wall chime work, but a slight buzzing sound. I had picked up a 24V transformer at Home Depot prior to do this, anticipating the buzz, so just took 20 minutes to remove old 16V transformer and install the new one. $22CAD and problem solved properly, with white and red wires attached back again per original instructions. I think people should just get the higher powered transformer and be done with it.

I considered stepping up to a 24 V transformer when my Video Doorbell v2 developed issues—and then when it had that buzz/rattle/hum when I switched to the alternate wiring method—but I think the doing the work to determine that the wrong wire was connected to the TRANS terminal for years (prior to my moving into this home) and then returning my Chime Controller to the standard wiring method is the real solution, at least for me. Since I did that, my doorbell and mechanical chime have been working as expected for several weeks.

That may not be the solution for everyone, though, and the extra juice from a newer, beefier transformer may be just as easy or easier a remedy for some.

That’s at least part of Wyze’s rationale for its use, though, even if a home’s mechanical chime doesn’t work.

I don’t think this answer is complete, because it’s not “just a capacitor”, as illustrated in an enlightening teardown video. Some of the quote from the Reddit post makes sense, and there is a capacitor in the Chime Controller itself, but there’s also a significantly larger capacitor within the doorbell camera unit, and it’s likely that capacitor that allows the Video Doorbell v2 to remain online and functional during a doorbell button press voltage drop, where the button press essentially closes the electrical circuit to provide power to the chime’s solenoid. At least as I understand it, that part of the setup accounts for the user reports of success with chimes without using the Chime Controller.

Not sure if this helps or just add to the confusion. My video doorbell was working and then stopped. Fortunately my brother-in-law is a contractor. He took a look for me and shared a few things. First, video doorbells for the most part need a higher capacity transformer. Most new houses are now being built with one. Second, we have an older house (1950s). Houses built even into the early 70s used different wiring. This wiring also affects things. The older wiring is also tasty to mice. In my case, the larger transformer I had installed blew due to a short. We installed a new one, and also ran updated wiring to the doorbell itself. We left the older wiring to the chime as-is to see if we needed to go that far, and did not.

Just thought I’d share the info and our experience

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