Amcrest Smart Doorbell Smarthome Integration (HomeKit)

[Robamus]

So, I have been on a mission to integrate my doorbell with my smart home system, and for a variety of reasons I wanted my Amcrest doorbell... But I am a HomeKit guy, and I very much wanted to integrate doorbell press notifications specifically.

I imagine this will help others out, I know I came across a variety of things but this worked for me. Cost about $40.

There is a unit called a VDBI, you can google it and its $18 or so. Wire this in line with your doorbell power supply and/or chime. I then got a Shelly 1 and wires them together, so the VDBI would trigger the switch input on my shelly. Shelly does a lot, so for me, I have it run web command that triggers my home bridge system and the plug in for that gives me a HomeKit notification which I have configured to stream video and a photo from one of my Amcrest cameras. I actually use a camera that has a side view of my door, but I imagine you can use the doorbell camera itself for the feed as well. You could also use the shelly to trigger other Smart home stuff for whatever you're into.

The AD110 being among the very few RTSP doorbells, this solved my needs. So I thought I would share and save someone else the two months of trying to cobble up something for a similar result. Hope it helps, as I found myself in this forum without a solution a number of times. To be fair, I did discover the VDBI from some other guy online who had a similar need and adapted it for myself.

In short, I now have a HomeKit rich notification when my AD110 is pressed, and its nifty as well as rock solid reliable.

[Dlewczyk]

Can you go into more detail about how you have this setup? I have ordered a VDBI. I am new to Shelly. I am thinking I can use this to bypass the Amcrest program which is very quirky and unreliable. Thanks for your help.

[elvisimprsntr]

@Robamus @Revo2Maxx

BACKGROUND

I have the Lorex B451AJ, which is the same as the Amcrest AD410, but perhaps slightly different firmware. I am running a Ubuntu Server VM and homebridge-camera-ffmpeg v3.1.4 plugin to allow me to view the RTSP stream on my Apple devices (iPhone, ATV, AW, Mac) via the Apple Home app. Works amazingly well.

phone

45220129-7BFC-44B0-ADF6-ABB7EA137B02.png (2.79 MiB) Viewed 1716 times

atv

4BCC5B83-858F-4090-8283-92557C24095D_1_105_c.jpeg (230.77 KiB) Viewed 1716 times

watch

E08D1EF4-24F9-4C8B-9066-D033A4C8935B.png (310.57 KiB) Viewed 1716 times

HOMEKIT INTEGRATION

I would like to receive notifications when my doorbell is pressed and answer the doorbell from my iPhone or Apple Watch via HomeKit. I already have an adjustable current sense relay in series with my transformer that triggers when the solenoid on the mechanical chime actuates, which is monitored by my home security panel and lighting controller.




QUESTIONS

1. How does one trigger Homebridge when the doorbell is pressed?
2. The homebridge-camera-ffmpeg v3.1.4 plugin has an experimental advanced option to allow return audio to be sent to a camera/doorbell with two-way audio, but there does not seem to be any documentation on audio back to the Amcrest/Lorex/Dahua version of the same doorbell. Does anyone have the documentation what protocol and/or how to configure Homebridge to send two-way audio?




Thanks in advance,


Elvis

[elvisimprsntr]

UPDATE

OK. I was able to figure how to to send a HTTP command to Homebridge to trigger the notification

Code: Select all

curl -v vm-us22:8080/doorbell?Porch

Now just how to implement the command into my lighting controller.

Other question still stands.

How to implement two-way audio?

[elvisimprsntr]

Bump