A long time ago, in a smart home far, far away....I installed an Insteon doorbell kit. It was kind of a Rube Goldberg thing, but it worked. In a nutshell, pressing the doorbell would trigger the sensor on one IOLinc in the laundry room, which would transmit an "ON" to another IOLinc in the living room. The second IOLinc would then send a MOMENTARY ON to a doorbell chime TRANSMITTER right next to it, which would then transmit a code to a doorbell chime RECEIVER on our back porch, which would then ring out one of 5 or 6 tunes. The idea is that we can't hear the regular doorbell when sitting on the back porch, so we needed a remote chime.
Well, about 6 months ago, the chime RECEIVER stopped chiming. It's just DOA. So I spent the next 6 months (in my spare time, which was minimal) looking for a replacement. I've checked everywhere, apparently it just doesn't exist.
Right now, we have a workaround using HomeSeer on the back porch computer. When the doorbell is pressed, the HomeSeer Speaker Client says, and I quote, "Ding-Dong." Works fine....until the HS Server goes down, which it does from time to time.
So my next plan is to find something that will accomplish the same thing. Anything that might be compatible with the IOLinc. I know my best bet is to yank it all out and go with a RING or AUGUST or something from this century that can send to a remote chimer, but I just worked so damn hard on the Rube Goldberg solution, I hate to abandon it altogether....
Well, about 6 months ago, the chime RECEIVER stopped chiming. It's just DOA. So I spent the next 6 months (in my spare time, which was minimal) looking for a replacement. I've checked everywhere, apparently it just doesn't exist.
Right now, we have a workaround using HomeSeer on the back porch computer. When the doorbell is pressed, the HomeSeer Speaker Client says, and I quote, "Ding-Dong." Works fine....until the HS Server goes down, which it does from time to time.
So my next plan is to find something that will accomplish the same thing. Anything that might be compatible with the IOLinc. I know my best bet is to yank it all out and go with a RING or AUGUST or something from this century that can send to a remote chimer, but I just worked so damn hard on the Rube Goldberg solution, I hate to abandon it altogether....
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