Ring Doorbell

charlie b

charlie b

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Lockport, IL
Occupation
Semi-Retired Electrical Engineer
Rather than sidetrack an existing thread on doorbell transformer location, I'll start a new one.

My wife mentioned yesterday that she is interested in getting one of these things. We have lived for 2 years in a 5-year old townhouse with an unfinished basement. The doorbell button outside the front door has a battery that needs occasional replacement. I don't know whether the doorbell itself is hard-wired to a transformer, but I think it likely. I have never looked for it, but my guess is it's in the fully visible basement ceiling.

Questions:
  1. Does this mean that I would have to have someone run wires from the transformer, through walls, to just outside the front door?
  2. If so, how easy or hard is that task?
  3. Would an electrician likely need an hour or two, or a half day, or longer?
I had a great experience with a local electrical installation company for our lighted pot rack, and would certainly call them first. What I am hoping to learn is whether such a project would be prohibitively expensive, especially since we are likely to go for a doorbell kit under $250.
 
charlie b said:
Rather than sidetrack an existing thread on doorbell transformer location, I'll start a new one.

My wife mentioned yesterday that she is interested in getting one of these things. We have lived for 2 years in a 5-year old townhouse with an unfinished basement. The doorbell button outside the front door has a battery that needs occasional replacement. I don't know whether the doorbell itself is hard-wired to a transformer, but I think it likely. I have never looked for it, but my guess is it's in the fully visible basement ceiling.

Questions:
  1. Does this mean that I would have to have someone run wires from the transformer, through walls, to just outside the front door?
  2. If so, how easy or hard is that task?
  3. Would an electrician likely need an hour or two, or a half day, or longer?
I had a great experience with a local electrical installation company for our lighted pot rack, and would certainly call them first. What I am hoping to learn is whether such a project would be prohibitively expensive, especially since we are likely to go for a doorbell kit under $250.
Click to expand...
 
If it’s wired it’s a matter of replacing existing button and installing a resistor at doorbell chime, then adding to your WiFi. The ring door bell comes with tools and is well thought out. It’s $3 or so a month for the monitoring plan for one device. The $10 for unlimited devices. No batteries in wired doorbell
And ring has great tech support, give them a call to sort thru what to get
 
Charlie, with a wireless button, it's likely that the receiver/chime is plugged in like a baby monitor.

There are a couple of non-wired ways to use a Ring doorbell. Otherwise, yes, you will need wires.

I can't say what it might take to wire it without seeing it. The hard part is rom outside to basement.
 
charlie b said:
Rather than sidetrack an existing thread on doorbell transformer location, I'll start a new one.

My wife mentioned yesterday that she is interested in getting one of these things. We have lived for 2 years in a 5-year old townhouse with an unfinished basement. The doorbell button outside the front door has a battery that needs occasional replacement. I don't know whether the doorbell itself is hard-wired to a transformer, but I think it likely. I have never looked for it, but my guess is it's in the fully visible basement ceiling.

Questions:
  1. Does this mean that I would have to have someone run wires from the transformer, through walls, to just outside the front door?
  2. If so, how easy or hard is that task?
  3. Would an electrician likely need an hour or two, or a half day, or longer?
I had a great experience with a local electrical installation company for our lighted pot rack, and would certainly call them first. What I am hoping to learn is whether such a project would be prohibitively expensive, especially since we are likely to go for a doorbell kit under $250.
Click to expand...
Our door bell is battery operated on the front door. Then we have a proper battery inside the house. No wiring required. And they last for about four years.
 
tom baker said:
If it’s wired it’s a matter of replacing existing button and installing a resistor at doorbell chime, then adding to your WiFi. The ring door bell comes with tools and is well thought out. It’s $3 or so a month for the monitoring plan for one device. The $10 for unlimited devices. No batteries in wired doorbell
And ring has great tech support, give them a call to sort thru what to get
Click to expand...

When I installed my Ring doorbell, I don’t recall needing to add a resistor.
 
retirede said:
When I installed my Ring doorbell, I don’t recall needing to add a resistor.
Click to expand...
If there is an existing doorbell/chime, then you don't need the resistor. If you're connecting a Ring straight to a transformer, then a resistor is needed. The transformer just charges the battery in the Ring. Existing chimes act as a resistor. Without it, the Ring could be damaged from over voltage.
I do think there are newer Ring models that don't need the resistor, but don't know the details.
 
Little Bill said:
If there is an existing doorbell/chime, then you don't need the resistor. If you're connecting a Ring straight to a transformer, then a resistor is needed. The transformer just charges the battery in the Ring. Existing chimes act as a resistor. Without it, the Ring could be damaged from over voltage.
I do think there are newer Ring models that don't need the resistor, but don't know the details.
Click to expand...
I needed one on mine when I connected it to an existing door chime.
 
LarryFine said:
Are you sure it wasn't a diode? Some chimes need one.

You can also use a specific power supply or a solar panel.
Click to expand...
Probably not a resistor. It connects between the transformer and the front terminal in the chime if you are replacing the front button with the ring. I think it bleeds power so the ring button can work.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
Probably not a resistor. It connects between the transformer and the front terminal in the chime if you are replacing the front button with the ring. I think it bleeds power so the ring button can work.
Click to expand...
I put one in for a customer a while back that had the piece to put in the chime. I know it wasn't a resistor, but didn't investigate since the instructions said to install it. There are several different models now that have different requirements.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
Probably not a resistor. It connects between the transformer and the front terminal in the chime if you are replacing the front button with the ring. I think it bleeds power so the ring button can work.
Click to expand...
Little Bill said:
I put one in for a customer a while back that had the piece to put in the chime. I know it wasn't a resistor, but didn't investigate since the instructions said to install it. There are several different models now that have different requirements.
Click to expand...
Mine, I hate the thing but wife thought we needed it, just had a jumper wire included to place between the transformer and front terminal. Effectively shunting across the chime coil and sending full transformer voltage to the button unit.

I did not install any app on my phone. Wife has app installed on her phone and constantly receives motion at the door notifications on her phone.

I don't know what she did or if she did it right. She supposedly set it for lesser sensitivity, no luck. installed a new door unit got better for a while but back to too sensitive. The first one did work well for some time though.

Not impressed with the Google nest thermostats ive been around either. Wife wanted one of those. I ended up getting some other wifi capable thermostat. OK with it so far. Though I seldom ever use the mobile features and eventually placed it in hold mode so it won't run programmed settings. Makes no sense to me to turn a heat pump down several degrees over night every night then have it kick on the resistance heat when it is scheduled to go to a higher temp, and no apparent way to get around running the back up heat in such situation.
 
The Ring is a 2-terminal device. When the button is pressed, it shorts the two terminals (like a regular doorbell button). When not pressed, it draws a little current between the two terminals to charge the battery, but not enough to ring the bell. If you hook it directly across a transformer, pressing the button will short the transformer. Therefore, you need something in series (a resistor, doorbell, or relay) to limit the current
 
kwired said:
Mine, I hate the thing but wife thought we needed it, just had a jumper wire included to place between the transformer and front terminal. Effectively shunting across the chime coil and sending full transformer voltage to the button unit.

I did not install any app on my phone. Wife has app installed on her phone and constantly receives motion at the door notifications on her phone.

I don't know what she did or if she did it right. She supposedly set it for lesser sensitivity, no luck. installed a new door unit got better for a while but back to too sensitive. The first one did work well for some time though.

Not impressed with the Google nest thermostats ive been around either. Wife wanted one of those. I ended up getting some other wifi capable thermostat. OK with it so far. Though I seldom ever use the mobile features and eventually placed it in hold mode so it won't run programmed settings. Makes no sense to me to turn a heat pump down several degrees over night every night then have it kick on the resistance heat when it is scheduled to go to a higher temp, and no apparent way to get around running the back up heat in such situation.
Click to expand...
You can also adjust the area that it looks at for motion alarms.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
You can also adjust the area that it looks at for motion alarms.
Click to expand...
I never even looked at the app, but wouldn't be surprised if she missed something that would fix her problems. I try to stay out of her phone or computer as much as possible. She has different ideas of how to manage things and things are best if I stay out until it gets to a point where it doesn't work at all, then I'm a hero if I make it work again. Otherwise if I try to clean things up to make it work better or more efficient, I just get in trouble if something doesn't work like it did before.
 
n1ist said:
The Ring is a 2-terminal device. When the button is pressed, it shorts the two terminals (like a regular doorbell button). When not pressed, it draws a little current between the two terminals to charge the battery, but not enough to ring the bell. If you hook it directly across a transformer, pressing the button will short the transformer. Therefore, you need something in series (a resistor, doorbell, or relay) to limit the current
Click to expand...
Mine is like I described earlier. I know there are wireless ones that have a battery in the door button module, though I haven't messed with them at all other than to press the button at someone else's place. There likely ones like you described as well. Mine doesn't ring any bell. Existing chime does nothing but provide a splice point in wiring. We do have a plug in device for a chime that is signaled via wifi but powered by any receptacle you plug it into within range of wifi it is using. Then of course you are notified on your mobile device if you have the app installed and setup with it.
 
Charlie,

If the stud bay is accessible in the unfinished basement and if the outside wall has fiberglass insulation, it should take a good electrician and helper about 15 minutes to fish a wire in to the doorbell. But there can be a few other issues. Is there any blocking in the wall? (Unlikely between floor and doorbell height) Is the insulation spray foam? But then where will you locate the wired chime? (assuming your current chime is wireless) Will you fish that to an interior wall? Where will you put the transformer? Is the loadcenter in the basement? That's the common spot around here to mount the chime. It's a 2 hour job for a decent crew, not setting any speed records, setup and clean up included. Under an hour for many.
 
The only thing I don't like about Ring & others is that, usually, everything is stored up on the cloud. Something happens on your property the police, lawyers etc. can file a request. Sounds fine, unless they represent someone else and then your Ring is a 'Snitch' (and a liability).
Used to be easy for Police to use the 'Request for Assistance' tool but they finally put a stop to that. But it doesn't mean they still can't request and get footage and audio for other reasons.
I much prefer the IP cam record directly to an onsite NVR (with months of storage). Now you have control. You can say hard drive stopped working long ago, swap out drive, destroy, whatever.
 
TwistLock said:
The only thing I don't like about Ring & others is that, usually, everything is stored up on the cloud. Something happens on your property the police, lawyers etc. can file a request. Sounds fine, unless they represent someone else and then your Ring is a 'Snitch' (and a liability).
Used to be easy for Police to use the 'Request for Assistance' tool but they finally put a stop to that. But it doesn't mean they still can't request and get footage and audio for other reasons.
I much prefer the IP cam record directly to an onsite NVR (with months of storage). Now you have control. You can say hard drive stopped working long ago, swap out drive, destroy, whatever.
Click to expand...
Why can't you just as easily forget what the username/password to your cloud storage is or move/delete that information as well?

We don't pay any subscription for storage for our ring doorbell so it doesn't record anything anyway. Wouldn't even need to lie about anything if asked to see footage as there is none.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top