Silent doorbell by flashing lights?

[xlurkr]

I'd like to create a silent doorbell.  My wife hates the sound of the Insteon chime, and TTS via Alexa and Yolink's speakerhub have too many limitations.

What would work great, if it's possible, would be to flash at least one light in each room.  That's easy enough to do through programs, but ideally every light would return to its previous state after flashing - and that state could be anything, because we set the levels of lights throughout the day through a combination of manual switching, scene controllers, and Alexa commands (for scenes and individual lights).

I can't think of an easy way to do this.  Can you?  And in general, this is just one use case where one might want to capture the state of every light (and maybe some other devices, too) as a global state representing a moment in time and restore that state after making arbitrary, temporary changes.  Is there any way to do that?  Is this something a plugin could be written to do?

-Tom

[atmarosi]

If you turn off/on the light does it go back to it's prior setting right now? If so it should do the same thing if you off/on the lights via a program.  

[xlurkr]

6 minutes ago, atmarosi said:

If you turn off/on the light does it go back to it's prior setting right now?

Generally speaking, no.  I have a mix of lights - mostly Insteon and Lutron, and they go to their "on level" when they are sent a command to turn on.  But they all can be controlled through other means, such as scenes and verbal commands, and less frequently through manual dimming, that might have them at some level other than the "on level" or 100% when the doorbell button is pressed.

-Tom

[atmarosi]

You could have the program capture/write out the current level in a variable; turn them off; then turn them back on via the stored state - can't say I would know how to write it but sounds do-able...

[xlurkr]

BTW, the alarm panels of the past (HAI and ELK) used to give you the option to flash lights when the alarm triggered. IIRC, they would restore the lights to the previous state when the alarm was cleared.  I want the same thing, only not all the lights - just one per room - and to restore it based on time, not on any action.

-Tom

2 minutes ago, atmarosi said:

You could have the program capture/write out the current level in a variable

This had crossed my mind, but I don't know how to do it, or if it's possible.

-Tom

[xlurkr]

I might be able to continuously track the state of a small # of lights, each in its own variable, so I can restore them after flashing them, but again, given the many ways the level can be changed, I'm not sure it won't get out of sync.  This weekend I might experiment with a single light.  I'm hoping there's an easier way that I just don't know about.

-Tom

[Guy Lavoie]

In the case of Insteon switches (and any other technology where the controller can track the status) you could create a program for each light to continually write it's status to a variable whenever the status changes. You would need to "And" the status change with a flag variable that would test false if the doorbell routine is triggered, in order to not memorize the status changes caused by the doorbell routine itself. Finally, a second program (per light) to set the light back to the last remembered status once the doorbell routine ends and the flag is cleared.

Just a bunch of little programs.

[Geddy]

@xlurkr what kind of doorbell do you have? I have a Ring doorbell and use the plugin to turn lights on. I don’t “flash” the lights, but I do turn on a light (or lights) that are not usually on. I also have a Hue bulb that will change colors (using the Hue plugin).

it’s then just a program for when there is a Ring event triggering the lights. As said above though if the light is on and you program is on/off/on/off then the light stays off. You’d need another program or maybe a variable to return it to the previous state without “manually” turning it back to the original state. That gets a little more involved and why I only use lights that are usually off.

I like the Ring ability because I also have it turn lights on if there is motion in the middle of the night. 

[xlurkr]

@Guy LavoieThanks for reminding me not to track the state during the flashing!  I'm sure I would not have thought of that myself.

@GeddyThe doorbell button is extremely old school - it's a Dakota Alert button that is linked to a Dakota Alert hub.  I bought all kinds of oddball Insteon stuff at one point, and I usually try to solve any new problem I encounter with things I already own.  It's 100% local and 0%"big brother", too, which I like.

-Tom

[Brian H]

The Dakota HUB (aka receiver) should have a dry contact relay output. Normally open, normally closed and a common for the channel relay output. You should be able to wire the NO or NC and Common. To an Insteon module with a contact type input and have it do something you desire. Old school I/OLinc or one of the wireless sensors. Like the open closed sensor. If you need the Dakota manuals I may have them in my archives. If you need one let me know and I maybe able to provide it.

If you have a different protocol like Z wave. I am sure they have similar devices.

[Guy Lavoie]

The best way to do the actual flashing would be by putting all the lights you want to flash in a scene, and have the program turn the scene on and off. However be aware the communications will be busy after a scene command (at least with Insteon) due to the "cleanup" messages that follow between the PLM and the individual lights. I would start with a 3 second wait between scene on and off commands, and try to notice if the timing is reliable or not.

[elvisimprsntr]

I have an adjustable inductive current sense relay on my doorbell transformer to detect when a video doorbell is pressed, which is wired to an Elk input zone.  Note: The ELK-930 doorbell/ring detector only works on traditional mechanical doorbell chimes and is not user adjustable.  I use the Elk zone to trigger the exterior lights on for 30 seconds when a doorbell is pressed.   I also have an ISY program to continuously flash the exterior lights if the Elk alarm is set off or one of the keypad panic buttons is pressed to help emergency responders quickly narrow down which house.  

Edited Saturday at 02:03 PM by elvisimprsntr

[Brian H]

I have also used one section of the ELK930 and the module you linked too. Both triggered an I/OLinc contact input.

Guy's method would add flashing. As I missed that point. 

[paulbates]

Would some kind of push notification to a phone be acceptable?

It could be done with the pushover app and using the priority level of the message. You can also change the sound that's used, or be silent or vibrate only... I use it for other reasons but have priority messages make sound notifications, messages of interest that vibrate only, and others (house reports) only show up in the queue but not vibrate or make noise and i review at my leisure

The messages are delivered quickly, just like the ring doorbell app, and I've not experienced the delays that email and texts can introduce

The app would be quiet, non-noticeable if not in use.

[xlurkr]

All:

Thanks for the helpful replies.  I could have mentioned a few things earlier.  I don't have an existing doorbell or wiring for one.  But the "Dakota hub" is the Dakota Alert.  Its job is to turn signals from Dakota sensors into Insteon triggers.  I have several sensors, including a battery powered button on the front door.  So I'm fully covered as to having a doorbell button that a visitor can push to trigger any Insteon activity I can think of.

At the moment it just triggers an Insteon siren.  It's plenty loud, but equally annoying.  I have already experimented with having the Dakota button set a state variable and having that variable act as a motion sensor to trigger an Alexa voice announcement.  That's less annoying, but has the typical unpredictable cloud delay, and I haven't found a way to have it always make the announcement at high volume, regardless of the current volume setting of each Echo.  And there's the 30 second debounce which ain't great.

The doorbell chime either has to be really loud (though not annoying), or visual rather than audible.  That's because my wife spends hours every day with Airpods in her ears on a videoconference.  And the phone she's on is a work phone that she (and her employer) refuse to let me set up with any kind of home automation, including alerts.

So far @Geddy's suggestion of colored Hue bulbs will probably work best.  I have some, and they are never required for any important activity in the house.  Mine are a novelty, not part of the critical lighting, and this is a good use for them.

I'll post an update if the Hue solution proves to be inadequate.  But I still think it would be very useful to have the ability to record the state of all (or selected) nodes in IoX and restore that state - mindful of security and safety issues, of course.

-Tom