‎No mechanical chime, doorbell camera appears to be working fine | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
s13n's profile

35 Messages

Thursday, October 19th, 2023 8:55 PM

No mechanical chime, doorbell camera appears to be working fine

I have an 18V 30VA class 2 doorbell transformer and I am using my SimpliSafe doorbell without a mechical chime - power just goes straight to the two connectors on the doorbell backplate.  My basestation is my chime - its plenty loud enough and the short delay in sounding is fine.

My camera seems to be working fine - other than the occasional video that's truncated which is reported by loads of other people, and its unrelated to doorbell events.

My questions - is there anything wrong with this setup? 

Doorbell chimes are just a solenoid which is a big coil of wires that creates a magnetic field when powered and repels/attracts another magnet.  It presents an inductive load of a few mH.   When present there's going to be a small current flowing through the chime circuit but does it really matter if the chime isn't there?  Perhaps a bit more surge in current when the camera h/w shorts the loop to ring the bell but would it really harm the device?

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

9 months ago

Hi @s13n, 

The Video Doorbell Pro is designed to be used with a mechanical chime. The chime acts as a bit of a resistor, so without one it could cause damage to your Video Doorbell and the transformer.

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