Wired/Wireless Doorbell

Hey everyone,

I have a problem that I need to resolve.

There are two businesses being run out of my house and we currently have no doorbell. For the first business on the main floor that doesn't pose a huge problem, so we haven't bothered to fix it in the last few years.

Now that I'm starting up my business again on the second floor I have clients coming to the front door. I can't hear them from where I'm at and don't much enjoy sitting in the front room waiting for them (much like I'm doing right now...).

I like the idea of a wireless one, but I'm having troubles finding any that score a good review (mostly from lack of knowing where to look I'm sure). I know I want one with good range, as a receiver will need to be in the back of the second floor. Good frequency filtering would also be useful as I know a lot of people on my street have automatic locks on their cars and I don't want to be running across the house for false rings.

So, I'm looking for opinions and suggestions. Should I spend the time and money on a wired doorbell? Or should I buy a wireless one instead? If wireless, what make and model would you suggest and why?

Thanks very much for any information you can give me.

Ynothna

The wireless ones I used did not have much loudness at the chime.
The rate of false alarms for wired bells is probably 0.000% and there are some tricks for running the wires.

I've had success with wireless doorbells. However, for your instance I would buy a system that is a cut or two above the basic ones such as you'll find in Home Depot, etc. They all are coded much like garage door openers, so chances of spurious interference is virtually non-existant. Edwards and Trine are ones I've used. I found that even the cheapest Edwards give a loud tone that is quite audible throughout my house. The better ones are as loud as any direct-wired types. Battery life is essentially equal to shelf life in household usage.

locknut said:

They all are coded much like garage door openers, so chances of spurious interference is virtually non-existant.

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For binary coded [on/off] switches, for 4 switches the likelihood is 1 in 2^4 = 16 that someone will hit upon your combination at random. 8 switches, 1 in 256.
How many houses are within 150' of your house?

By comparison, the chances of my/your house burning down, per year in the US, is probably 1 in 1000.

Regardless of the math, I have yet to hear any complaints of false ringing from any of my installations. None of them are in isolated areas; there is plenty of electronic activity around where I've used them with no problems.

locknut said:

Regardless of the math, I have yet to hear any complaints of false ringing from any of my installations. None of them are in isolated areas; there is plenty of electronic activity around where I've used them with no problems.

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I couldn't find any patent applications for eliminating false alarms for wireless doorbells so it may not be a problem.
But, speaking of RFI/EMI, patents to eliminate nuisance tripping for AFCIs run into the hundreds, or thousands.

IMO, wireless doorbells suck. Do whatever you can to get a hardwire bell.

If you lose even one client because your doorbell does not work, it will negate any savings from going cheap.

ohmy said:

Do whatever you can to get a hardwire bell.

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And for short distances in visible places you can use #30 wire wrap wire from Radio Shack; it is so thin a bead of caulk will hide it and the insulation is good for 100v.
10' of this wire gives you one ohm but in this application it doesn't matter.

I would suggest that you use the wireless one initially, because even it it doesn't work you'll know in less than a week. Most hardware stores will take stuff like that back from up to a month from the purchase date. If it doesn't bother you enough in the first week to return it you should be good. That way it'll save you time and hopefully some money.

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