And, An Item That Should be Way More Common And Readily Available!

Modern doorbells are badly engineered, over complicated and many are an info-sec problem due to being hackable. Hackable in ways where you will never know until you come home and find your place burgled because the theives were told you were out. The available products range from simple, cheap and unreliable to overly complex, expensive, unreliable and a way for people to know you're not at home. then there are all the doorbells that use batteries. Expensive disposable battteries. Cue U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." But wait, what?! There is a solution!!!

Wireless doorbell set with batteryless button.

There's a thing in electrical engineering called piezo-electric effect. If you apply a bending pressure to a quartz crystal, it generates an electric charge across its opposite faces that are perpendicular to the bending force. These devices are used as contact microphones, wind energy harvesters for remote microelectronic sensors intended for use in places where solar isn't an option, such as deep ravines, and for many other uses, besides. One of these uses is the button unit of a doorbell system. There is a patent for it.

However, until today, searches have failed to show me an Australian retailer who has even heard of the idea. I can honestly forgive "cookers" who fall for conspiracy theories because the idea of a powered doorbell button has two disadvantages, either disposal of single-use batteries or really long wiring runs, needing a day's work to install. One is expensive over time, for one's wallet and the planet, the other is potentially beyond even super handyman level, like at my place, mid-century double brick walls with a mighty cavity between. It takes a mining industry rock drill to get through that much masonary. But there is, finally available to me, here in Australia, a piezo-electrically self-powered doorbell button!

So, needless-to-say, the "better half" and I purchased one. This unit has 2 chimes and one button, a chime for in the house and one for the "girl cave" for when the missus is pottering and I'm not home. (My workshop is in the garage.) Delivery and installation in a few days. Exciting! 😀

And, thinking about this idea, other ways to do this come to mind. Essentially the same principle, but electromagnetic and possibly with even longer reliability. One could push a button, which operates a cam to rapidly strick a steel bell. The bell's vibrations provide feedback to the visitor outside the gate. It also has an electromagnetic pickup, which converts the bell's vibrations into electrical energy, which can charge a capacitor, triggering a transmitter that sends a "ding-dong" signal to the chime unit. The visitor knows they've properly rung the bell, the resident gets the message somebody's at the gate, even if they can't here the bell at the gate. Also useful for the resident if they're in the front garden, behind their high fence.

Seriously, so many engineers are heavily bound to some businessman's scope that bad products dominate the market and good products a murdered by Scott Adams' "Pointy Haired Boss" character. (Yeah, I know, Adams has become a bit of a, well... But the character is a good analogy for 21st Century consumer capitalism. Nothing ever quite works the way it should because, "We can help our suppliers out, too, by selling loads of batteries." This is bad engineering at it's worst.