Knock knock...

For the first post on my blog, I thought I'd revisit a project that I started quite a long time ago and still haven't finished (that doesn't narrow it down much to be honest).

Back in late 2022, I found an old bakelite doorbell button in an antique shop. I thought it looked pretty cool so I bought it without much idea of how I would use it. Around the same time, it seemed like every house in the area was getting a smart doorbell, which gave me an idea. As much as I like the concept of a smart doorbell; being able to take a delivery from anywhere in the world and acting as a security camera, none of the options on the market look very interesting or unique. They also often require a subscription to make recordings or enable features like motion detection. My idea was to build a custom smart doorbell using the button I'd bought and make it look a bit more fancy than the average device.

Initially, the plan was to just disassemble a cheap Blink doorbell and stick it in a wooden case with the camera sticking through the front, and then wire the button up to the contacts on the circuit board. This version 1 of the doorbell worked but had a key flaw.

The problem with the Blink doorbell was the circuit board design. It's split into two separate PCBs that are stacked on top of each other using a fairly tall connector. This meant that my wooden box had to be quite deep to accommodate the whole thing, making it look a bit strange mounted to a wall.

This is where things got a bit more interesting. I scrapped the idea of cannibalising an existing doorbell and decided to go the custom route. I chose the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W as my starting point (I also did some experiments with ESP32-based cameras, but they are severely limited by their processing power). The Pi is perfect for this project thanks to the built-in WiFi, camera connector, plenty of power, and the ultra-small form factor. I also found a nice brass box that I decided to use instead of the wooden case.

With the key components in place, I was able to get an idea of what the finished product would look like on the outside. Pretty good I think!

The next part of the project was to get some software on the Pi to make this an actual doorbell. Unfortunately, this is where progress stalled and brings us up to its current state. I'm going to leave the software for part 2, because it's not like procrastinating a bit longer is going to hurt...