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s13n

35 Messages

Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 9:20 AM

How to determine doorbell battery level?

Is there a way to determine the battery level for the doorbell pro?

I installed one in June and it just died - I got a notification that battery level was at 30% and then it went off line.  I suspect it was never charging from the doorbell wires - the voltage seemed to be at 7 VAC.  Or maybe 7V was enough to keep to going for much longer than from battery alone?  

Either way until I can fix my doorbell transformer voltage issue (I haven't located it in my house yet, I suspect it is hiding in the attic, probably buried by insulation) I'd like to know where I stand with battery level.  However I don't seem to be able to find anything that displays it like other products (Ring, Eufy, etc.) Surely a battery % isn't that hard to add?

I do see in the web app that the devices list https://webapp.simplisafe.com/#/devices has a "Battery" column but that is empty for all my devices so I'm unsure if that is at all helpful.

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3 years ago

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captain11

Captain

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6.3K Messages

3 years ago

@s13n other than the "low battery warning" from the SS3 base, I think you are out of luck. The battery field on the web dashboard is  currently there for the outdoor cameras and SS is still working on that to be in the phone app. The "low battery warning" is there but how well it works in reality is suspect. In fact, I just had 5 sensors of all different types go off line last night at one time and then 3 came back on line, then the other two separately about 2 hours later.  I am thinking weak batteries but have called into support last night to file an incident and ask for followup.  You may want to do the same with your doorbell and, possibly, Davey will post something in the interim.

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s13n

35 Messages

Thanks for the reply.  For me it could also be that the doorbell transformer has slowly being dying with lower and lower voltage (not sure why - they are just coils of wire but for sure it is 60 years old at this point) and suddenly leaving the doorbell on battery power only which was already depleted by insufficient charging and crapped out very quickly.

Now that I recall there have been some odd loss of WiFi or interrupted streaming events - probably low voltage.

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3 years ago

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s13n

35 Messages

3 years ago

I was thinking the doorbell has a decent sized battery but I plugged it into a USB charger over night and although it worked without power for a bit a couple of hours later it seems to be dead again.  

Maybe the USB port is not for charging and it only charges via AC?  Or perhaps it only has a very small battery that is not designed to power it long term?

I have a Ring 2 doorbell and that has a battery that powers it for months on a charge.  If they didn't want $2 a month to store the images I'd be using that.

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worthing

754 Messages

3 years ago

I installed one in June and it just died - I got a notification that battery level was at 30% and then it went off line. I suspect it was never charging from the doorbell wires


I'm betting the battery in the doorbell is sized to run for a few hours or maybe half a day max so the unit operates during power outages. There's no way it lasted since June w/o getting external power. No way at all. There's a photo of what I presume is the battery at https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?calledFromFrame=Y&id=4014344 but I can't make out the text to determine its capacity.

the voltage seemed to be at 7 VAC. Or maybe 7V was enough to keep to going for much longer than from battery alone?


This is below the minimum system requirements for the doorbell so yes, it's possible that it was able to limp along for a while. Regardless of whether the problem is the doorbell itself or not you should see about upgrading your transformer to power the unit appropriately.

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