Why buy a Smart Doorbell when you can do it yourself with a Raspberry Pi.
The concept is pretty simple. When the button is pressed, a notification is sent to your smart phone and the doorbell rings.

1. Requirements
2. Installation
3. Run it
4. Issues
5. Miscellaneous
6. ToDo

Requirements

Software:

• A Telegram API Token

Hardware:

• RaspberryPi (Models 3 or 4 are recommended for motion detection and recordings. Mine is 3B+)
• Camera
• Electronic components to connect existing doorbell

If you want 2-ways communication, you also need:

• Speaker
• Microphone

After many tries/errors, I decided to use a USB Camera instead of RPi Camera because:

• The USB cable is easier to bend than the ribbon of the RPi Camera
• You can find USB Cameras with microphone on-board. Easier to fit in the doorbell enclosure than an extra USB microphone

I also decided to use a 3.5 jack speaker instead of USB speakers. I could not make the 2-ways communication work with the USB speakers I had.

Installation

• Dependencies

  pi@pi:~ $ sudo apt-get update
  pi@pi:~ $ sudo apt-get install python3-pip git vim
  pi@pi:~ $ sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python-dev
  pi@pi:~ $ sudo apt-get install python3-rpi.gpio
  pi@pi:~ $ pip3 install pipenv --user
  pi@pi:~ $ git clone https://github.com/noliveleger/raspberrypi-doorbell.git
  pi@pi:~ $ cd raspberrypi-doorbell
  pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell $ pipenv install
  

• Motion detection and recordings

  The project relies on MotionEye project. Follow instructions.
  If you want to activate hardware encoding, read this.

  If you don't want to use MotionEye, do not forget to change USE_MOTION to False in app/config/production.py.
  You will also need this other dependency:

  pi@pi:~ $ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install fswebcam
  

  ToDo support RaspberryPi Cam and raspistill

• Create .env file

  Copy .env.sample to .env and update settings to match your environment.

• Change production.py file

  Update app/config/production.py to match your production environment.

• Create DB

  pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell $ /bin/bash scripts/create_db.bash
  

• Install web app (Only needed if you want to use 2-ways communication)

  pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell $ sudo apt-get update
  pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell $ sudo apt-get install nginx
  

  For Stretch, https://stackoverflow.com/a/53366419

  Install NVM https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm

  pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell $ nvm install node
  pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell $ cd app/www/mobile
  pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell/app/www/mobile $ npm install
  pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell/app/www/mobile $ npm run build
  

  Follow these instructions to setup NGINX as a reverse proxy for Flask with HTTPS.

• Install UV4L (Only needed if you want to use 2-ways communication)

  This project relies on UV4L server to establish two-ways audio communication with WebRTC.
  Please visit https://www.linux-projects.org/uv4l/installation/ for installation.
  For Buster users, follow instructions for Stretch but also these ones. Stretch openssl.conf is available here

  If you are using an USB camera, please read issues section below.

Run it

1. Daemon

   pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell $ pipenv shell
   (raspberrypi-doorbell) pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell $ flask commands daemon
   

   Create a service to start at boot.

   [Unit]
   Description=DoorBell daemon
   After=network.target
   StartLimitIntervalSec=30
   [Service]
   WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/raspberrypi-doorbell
   Environment="PATH=/home/pi/.local/bin:/home/pi/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:"
   # Uncomment the line below if you want to use `uv4l_uvc` driver.
   # Environment="LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/uv4l/uv4lext/armv6l/libuv4lext.so"
   Type=simple
   Restart=on-failure
   RestartSec=1
   User=pi
   ExecStart=/home/pi/.local/bin/pipenv run flask commands daemon
       
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   

2. Web App

   pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell $ pipenv shell
   (raspberrypi-doorbell) pi@pi:~/raspberrypi-doorbell $ flask run
   

   Create a service to start at boot.

   [Unit]
   Description=DoorBell Web App
   After=network.target
   StartLimitIntervalSec=30
   [Service]
   WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/raspberrypi-doorbell
   Environment="PATH=/home/pi/.local/bin:/home/pi/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:"
   Type=simple
   Restart=on-failure
   RestartSec=1
   User=pi
   ExecStart=/home/pi/.local/bin/pipenv run flask run
       
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   

Issues

This list is based on issues I faced.

• Almost no image controls with uv4l-uvc driver.

Solved by using uvcvideo driver

• It often crashed when streaming with uv4l-uvc. Raspberry Pi needs to be restarted, USB port needs to be power cycled or restart driver

Solved by using using uvcvideo driver

• Picture became B&W after few hours IR Cut-Off was off. I needed to power recycle USB port or restart driver

Solved by using using uvcvideo driver

B&W picture still occur sometime with uvc_video driver but a lot less

• USB Camera with night vision does not return to day mode

Solved by using a home-made circuit controlled by GPIO

• The light sensor is not enough sensible and cannot be trigger manually.

The light sensor that comes with the IR-LEDs board cannot be adjusted. I need to find a way to either switch the IR LEDs on programmatically (and to bypass the sensor) or try to put a tinted plastic film on the sensor to make it more sensible.

Using uvcvideo driver

• Remove uvcvideo from modprobe blacklist.

  Comment out blacklist uvcvideo in /etc/modprobe.d/uvcvideo-blacklist.conf

• Tell uv4l-uvc to use external driver

  1. Edit /etc/init.d/uv4l_uvc, replace driver=uvc with --external-driver=yes
     Before:
     $UV4L -k --sched-rr --mem-lock --config-file=$CONFIGFILE --external-driver=yes --driver-config-file=$CONFIGFILE --server-option=--editable-config-file=$CONFIGFILE --device-id $2
     After:
     $UV4L -k --sched-rr --mem-lock --config-file=$CONFIGFILE --external-driver=yes --driver-config-file=$CONFIGFILE --server-option=--editable-config-file=$CONFIGFILE --device-id $2
  2. Edit /etc/uv4l/uv4l-uvc.conf, replace

  driver = uvc  
  video_nr = 0
  auto-video_nr = yes
  

  with

  # driver = uvc  
  # video_nr = 0
  # auto-video_nr = yes
  external-driver = yes
  device-name = video0
  

Miscellaneous

Power Cycle USB Camera

One of the workaround is to power cycle USB port to avoid rebooting the RaspberryPI.
Thanks to this utility: uhubctl, it is possible.

Usage:

$> sudo uhubctl -a <action> -p <port_number> -l <hub_location>

On RaspberryPI 3B+ and USB Port 3

$> sudo uhubctl -a off -p 3 -l 1-1

TO-DO Complete documentation

Using Amazon Dash Button as a back doorbell

Thanks to Amazon Dash service. It triggers a signal to the daemon which make the bell rings twice (instead once at front-door)

TO-DO Complete documentation

ToDo

• Complete documentation
  1. nginx
  2. uv4l configuration
  3. readme
  4. development
• Secure websocket
• Finish HTML templates for 404, 403 and 423 errors