Notifying Doorbell with PushingBox

By Clement Storck
Category: Arduino
Time Required: 1 hour
Difficulty: Moderate

This project will help you to hack your doorbell to send Push notification and an email with an attached picture when somebody’s at the door. It use the free PushingBox service to delegate all the programming part and make things easy.

Steps

Step #1:

How does it work ?
1. When the doorbell is pushed, the Arduino sends an HTTP request to the PushingBox API.
2. PushingBox launches the user's scenario and gets a picture from the web camera.
3. PushingBox sends a Push notification to the user's phone and a mail message with the picture attached.

11 Responses to Notifying Doorbell with PushingBox

Jake McMillian on May 9th, 2012 at 4:19 pm said:

The Arduino Uno should work great for this job: http://amzn.to/ItkkQT
You’ll also need an Arduino Ethernet Shield: http://amzn.to/JZxI1a
And an Internet-enabled webcam: http://amzn.to/JZxKWU

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- Rafael Gervásio on June 1st, 2013 at 11:33 am said:
  
  Ei amigo, para fazer esse projeto é necessário o Arduino Uno e o Arduino Ethernet Shield?
  
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Goli Mohammadi on May 9th, 2012 at 4:54 pm said:

We also have a great selection at the Maker Shed: http://www.makershed.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=arduino&Submit=Search

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Eric Koelle on May 9th, 2012 at 6:09 pm said:

*Update* – Figured it out. This is how you do it using a Foscam camera:

http://URL:PORT/snapshot.cgi?user=USERNAME&pwd=PASSWORD

Just replace the URL, PORT, USERNAME and PASSWORD with your own and you should be good to go.

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Brian Isenstein on May 9th, 2012 at 8:07 pm said:

Looks like it’d still ring the bell, as they didn’t disconnect any part of the doorbell circuit. Just added the 2 wires to read if the button is open (not pressed) or closed (pressed).

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Jay Bryon on May 16th, 2012 at 7:15 pm said:

For a wireless doorbell, it’s pretty much that simple, but if you’re old-school with a wired doorbell and transformer off house current, you’ll want to check voltage first. You could get away with just reading the terminals with the Arduino, but if there’s a common ground between the Arduino and the doorbell, you might get excessive voltage to the board and let out the magic smoke, so to speak. This is where I’d opto-isolate it, something as simple as a voltage-appropriate bulb facing a cds, in a tube of black heat-shrink or electrical tape, with the CDS (photoresistor) read by the Arduino. But that’s just one approach.

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Boj on May 18th, 2012 at 10:52 pm said:

Look for a WiFly shield or similar (not to advertise, but they sell it on SparkFun [only place I know of that sells one])

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Bader Rashed on May 23rd, 2012 at 12:41 pm said:

same my Question is it Ethernet or WiFi or Bluetooth to the adurino which is attached to the doorbell?

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Tommy Inglis on May 29th, 2012 at 4:35 pm said:

I bought the camera here http://amzn.to/JZxKWU and was curious if you could offer any insight into discovering the URL?

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Petar on June 11th, 2012 at 9:45 am said:

Hi Brian, i would like to talk to you about ARM, cose like you im also trying to use it instead of a micro, and have problems. btw how did you develop the knocking sensor, and what language did you use?

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Aaron Klapheck (@AaronKlapheck) on June 9th, 2013 at 5:53 pm said:

Loved this user guide, one of the best I have come across! With that being said, I am confused about one aspect of this.
Not sure why Prowl and Notify My Android (NMA) are being used in this process. These apps are completely unnecessary and complicate this process. PushingBox allows you to send emails directly to ANY email account and twitter (tested this and it works). Most people have email/twitter notification already on their phones so not sure why anyone would need a specialized notification app. Not only that, but the PushingBox Email service allows you to send a photo where Prowl and NMA do not. Also checked the user reviews for NMA and there are known issues with notifications not showing up (experienced this myself on one occasion). Whereas I have never had notification problems with my email. Simplify, simplify; best to use apps and services which are highly reliable and the user is already familiar with whenever possible.

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