Hands-on Review: Aeotec Doorbell 6 (ZW162)

Hands-on Review - Aeotec Doorbell 6 Z-Wave - VueVille

What if you are not interested in a wireless video doorbell, but still want a smart doorbell? The Aeotec Doorbell 6 is one such wireless smart doorbell based on the Z-Wave standard.

This doorbell can be added to your Z-Wave network to send you push notifications whenever the bell is pressed. You can also trigger other actions such as turning on porch lights, or recording a camera that covers your porch.

Aeotec kindly provided a review sample and we tested it in our own DIY smart home.

Here’s the video review:

 

Aeotec – who are they?

Aeotec used to belong to Aeon Labs, the company founded in 2006 and based out of Silicon Valley. But that’s no longer the case. Aeotec also have another brand that’s popular in the smart home market – Popp.

They also are an OEM for Oomi.

Un-boxing

Hands-on Review - Aeotec Doorbell 6 Z-Wave - Box Contents - VueVille

The box contents are:

  • Aeotec Doorbell 6 Chime unit
  • Chime wall adapter
  • Bell push button and wall plate
  • 3M double-sided tape, screws
  • Power adapter
  • Button cell for bell push button
  • Quick start guide
  • Warranty card

Specifications

  • Product Model Number: ZW162
  • Dimensions Chime: 76*76*38.5mm Button: 85*38*14mm
  • Weight
    • Chime: 100g
    • Button: 35g
  • Operating temperature: 32° to 104° F (0° to 40° C)
  • Relative humidity: 8% to 80%
  • Wireless Technology:
    • Z-Wave (Between Chime and Gateway)
    • 433.92MHz/FSK (Between Chime and Button)
  • Z-Wave Plus: Yes
  • Z-Wave Module: ZM5101
  • Security Class: S0, S2 Unauthenticated/Authenticated
  • Over The Air (OTA) Updates: Yes, requires Z-Stick USB
  • Distance between Chime and Z-Wave Gateway: 30m (Indoor) /150m (Outdoor)
  • Button Control distance between Chime and Button: 120m (Barrier-free sight line distance)
  • Input Voltage Chime:
    • Battery, 3.7V; Power Adapter, DC 5V/2A
    • Button: Battery, 3V
  • Chime’s Battery:
    • Model: PT502035
    • Capacity: 400mAh
    • Detachable: No
    • Chargeable: Yes. Charging via Chime Power Adapter.
    • Endurance: 4 hours
  • Button’s Battery:
    • Model: CR2450
    • Capacity: 630mAh
    • Detachable: Yes
    • Chargeable: No
    • Endurance: 2 years
  • Power Consumption Chime: IWORK < 80mA, I STANDBY < 70mA
  • Button: IWORK < 20mA, I STANDBY < 0.1uA
  • Splash, Water, and Dust Resistant
  • Chime: Not Waterproof
  • Button: Rated IP55 under IEC standard 60529
  • Sensors: Vibration Sensor
  • Supported Paired Buttons Max: 3
  • Tones Storage Size 16MB
  • Supported Tones Max: 30; (No interface to replace the built-in tones. If want to change these built-in tones, you need to contact us to customize).
  • Volume Max: 105dB from 10cm away; 7 adjustable volume levels

Design and Hardware Features

The Aeotec Doorbell 6 has two halves – the chime unit and the ring button.
Hands-on Review - Aeotec Doorbell 6 Z-Wave - Chime and Button - VueVille
The chime unit unit has a premium look and feel about it. There is a white LED embedded in the front face and lights up when the chime rings. The LED in the chime unit is actually a very powerful 1000 lumens strobe light as well.

Why does a doorbell have such a powerful LED? Because the chime unit is also engineered to be a standalone siren, in fact it is the exact same thing sold as the Aeotec Siren 6.
Hands-on Review - Aeotec Doorbell 6 Z-Wave - Chime - VueVille
The chime has a 105dB speaker. You can also add up to 3 additional buttons to the same chime unit. Aeotec sells these as accessory buttons. The signal between the chime unit and the bell button is a 433MHz ultra low-power signal. This also maximises the range between the two.

The chime has a built-in rechargeable battery, but surprisingly it only has a capacity of 400mAh. Not much for a doorbell chime if you ask me. However, it is designed to be powered with the included power adaptor. So for powering the doorbell through a brief power cut, the battery seems to be fine.

What about tamper-resistance? The chime has a sensitive vibration sensor. So once you include the doorbell in your Z-Wave network, the siren will go off if you move the chime. The Z-Wave tamper device will also be triggered at your Z-Wave controller.

The chime unit is not water-proof by the way, it is intended for indoor use only.

Hands-on Review - Aeotec Doorbell 6 Z-Wave - Chime Rear - VueVille

The bell button has a tiny LED at the top that blinks twice when you push the bell. An included CR2450 3V button cell powers the button. It has a capacity of 630mAh and is rated for 2 years use.

The bell button is water-proof with an IP55 ingress rating.
Hands-on Review - Aeotec Doorbell 6 Z-Wave - Bell Button - VueVille

Software Features

The chime unit uses Z-Wave to communicate with your HA controller/hub. The chime unit has 16MB storage and comes with 30 tones pre-installed. You cannot add more unless you delete a few existing ones.

The 30 tones range from the standard ding-dong tone, a Christmas tree tone, and various alarm tones such as smoke, CO and even a tornado siren!

The doorbell has a surprising number of unusual features such as a Z-Wave signal quality tester.

You can also change the chime LED light effect. This is achieved by changing certain parameters described in the engineering document. I find the vibration sensor alarm unnecessary, and thankfully you can mute it or reduce the alarm volume by modifying parameter 0x11(17). Just like other Aeotec products, the doorbell is extremely customisable. You just need to check whether your Z-Wave controller can send parameter configuration commands.

Installation and Setup

The bell button can be easily installed beside your door with the included 3M double-sided tape or the small screws.

I plugged in the chime unit using the provided power adaptor.

My smart home automation system is built on Z-Wave using the excellent HomeSeer HS3 software. I use an Aeotec Z-Stick USB device as the Z-Wave radio, plugged into a Dell Inspiron laptop running HS3.

Pairing the Aeotec Doorbell 6 with my Z-Wave controller

  1. As per the quick start guide, I plugged in the Doorbell 6 chime unit. The front white LED started blinking in heartbeat style.
  2. I then had to set HomeSeer HS3 into ‘Inclusion mode’. For this I navigated to Plugins > Z-Wave > Controller Management. Under Actions, I selected ‘Add/Include a Node’ and clicked the Start button.
  3. I pressed the action button on the rear of the doorbell once. If your hub requires S2 security, you can enter the first 5 digits of the DSK printed on the back of the doorbell.
  4. The inclusion process finished successfully in HS3. According to the manual, doorbell’s white LED should then turn solid white for 30 seconds to indicate successful inclusion, but it didn’t. Nevertheless the doorbell was included successfully.
  5. I could then see all the different devices the doorbell created in my HS3 devices list.

Performance

Loudness

The chime can get very loud indeed. If you place it at a central location in your home, you should hear it from pretty much any room.

Wireless Range

The first thing I tested is the range between the bell and the chime. Remember this does not use Z-Wave, just a standard signal like an ordinary wireless doorbell. Aeotec claims the range between the chime and the button is up to 90 metres. I had no trouble with the chime ringing throughout my home, so the stated range sounds right.

Next up was the range between the chime and my Z-Wave controller. My home is of solid concrete construction and where I have placed the chime means that the Z-Wave signal has to penetrate at least 2 solid concrete walls. This the chime unit did with ease.

The mesh network design of Z-Wave networks allows the doorbell chime unit to act as a repeater . So the chime unit actually extended the reach of my Z-Wave network.

Responsiveness and Reliability

Whenever I pressed the button, the chime instantaneously rang. There was mo delay in the device status updating in HS3 either.

Compatibility

The Aeotec Doorbell 6 is officially compatible with Samsung SmartThings, Fibaro HomeCenter and Popp Hub. But as you can see from my review, it works with HomeSeer HS3 also.

Zack at Self-hosted Home has got it to work with HomeAssistant event though its not officially supported.

You can see the full compatibility list on the Aeotec website.

Verdict

I have been using the Aeotec Doorbell 6 for over 4 months now. A smart doorbell means that I can now trigger actions such as turning on porch lights and sending notifications to mobile devices.

8.4 Total Score
Aeotec Doorbell 6 Z-Wave

An excellent loud Z-Wave doorbell that can also double up as a siren with strobe light.

Performance
9
Features
8
Quality
9
Value for Money
7.5
PROS
  • Very loud 105dB siren
  • Bright white LED
  • Works as a siren also
  • Tamper-proof
CONS
  • Chime battery is a bit under-powered
  • Difficult to change light patterns
  • No way to activate chime LED alone
User Rating: 5 (2 votes)

Where to Buy

Buy the Aeotec Doorbell 6 from your local Amazon store.

Daniel Ross

Daniel Ross

I am Daniel and VueVille is where I document my DIY smart home journey. I focus on 100% local-processing and local-storage because that’s the only way to secure my family’s safety and privacy. Oh and I don’t like monthly subscriptions!

10 Comments
  1. Reply
    Thomas Posborg Münster December 14, 2020 at 7:16 am

    Hi Daniel
    Do it run locally or cloud?

  2. Hi, thanks for a great review. Do you know how to customize led light? Or just turning it off? I have tried to read in the manual for the parameters settings but when parameter numbers needed te be converted to hexadesimal or something like that I gave up..

  3. Have the same issue as Peter Fearnley.. Bought the doorbell today, gonna return it if i cant it to work.

    The Siren Notification device doesnt change in homeseer when i push the button.
    Cant adjust the doorbell volume, or change the sound neither.

    any suggestions?

    • Morbus, Peter Fearnley didn’t mention what his issue was, so I wouldn’t put much weight on his complaint. I had no issues whatsoever with the doorbell. Have you tried reducing the distance between the bell push button and the doorbell, to eliminate range issues?

      I assume you are using HS3? In your case, I think HS3 has not properly added the doorbell devices. Do you have all the 5 devices as shown in the video?
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=139&v=TD-jBlkaNvc&feature=emb_title

      When you added the doorbell to your network, did you see the same status messages as I got in my video? You can also try removing the doorbell and add it again while placing the doorbell right next to your HS3 device.

      Finally, try adding the doorbell to your network in non-secure mode. This has worked for me with other Z-wave products when HS3 failed to add them in secure mode.

      • Thanks for the answer Daniel.
        The range is fine, they are both just laying on my desk. The bell rings every time i push the button, so that communication is OK.

        I got all the child devices when adding the doorbell in non-secure. If I add it in secure, I get less devices. The difference seems to be that all the sound controller devices are separate devices when adding non-secure, as to be only one device when adding it secure.

        So the problem is only that the “siren notification” device is not changing when i push the button..

  4. This doesn’t work well at all with HS3. Your review glosses over the key problem that you can do almost nothing useful with this device in a straightforward manner, if at all. Happy to be proved wrong, but in the absence of more info your review is very misleading.

    • Thanks for dropping by. Please can you explain what you meant by ‘doesn’t work well with HS3’. I have absolutely no issues with it – when I push the bell button. the siren sounds and the device status changes in HS3. So I am able to use the chime ringing as a trigger for other HS3 events. So I can’t agree with your statement that you can do nothing useful with it. Have you seen my video (embedded at the top of the post)? The first 10 seconds show the siren working and then there’s a lot more info in the video (skip to 2:56): https://youtu.be/TD-jBlkaNvc?t=176

      In the video I said: The siren creates 5 devices in HS3, and one of them is the ‘Siren Notification’ device (you can see them for yourself in the video). The Siren Notification device is the one to use as a trigger for other HS3 events. For example I have one event where a bell push changes the notification of the ‘Siren Notification’ device. This is then used in an HS3 event to turn on a Z-Wave light bulb. You can use this HS3 device as a trigger in any event to do anything you want really.

      Hope this helps.

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