Ezviz DB1 Video Doorbell with Z-Wave Vera Controller and Imperihome app

I recently purchased an Ezviz DB1 video doorbell. Ezviz is made by Hikvision a leading global CCTV manufacturer.

Main reason I purchased the DB1 was the price at £120 and the fact that is has a local SD Memory card slot for cards up to 128GB, so I wont be paying a monthly subscription. You can also connect the DB1 to CCTV NVR's like Hikvision's own NVRs or to a software system like Blue Iris as the doorbell has a RTSP video stream.
Also you can subscribe to the Ezviz cloud storage package if you wish as well, so plenty of options there.

I bought a Kingston 128GB SD card for about £14 from Mymemory.co.uk as I don't currently have an NVR. I don't recommend you ever by SD cards from Ebay or Amazon as in my personal experience they are all fake cards that gave me problems.

I purchased the DB1 doorbell and a mechanical chime and doorbell transformer kit from a company called Connectec.uk as they even sold the bell cable and clips, everything I need to install the doorbell.

My existing doorbell chime was just battery operated, so I had to do a little bit of wiring in the house to replace it with the new chime and get the 12V DC cable in to my porch and the area where the chime is located.

Nothing too difficult, I just connected a plug on to the doorbell transformer for the 240V AC in and a 12V DC bell wire going out to the chime / video doorbell.

This is the standard wiring diagram without any Z-Wave stuff added yet.

I also watched this Youtube video here which was helpful with the wiring and setup.

The chime and transformer kit I bought from the Connectec website, obviously they don't advertise the make and models numbers as they don't want you to source it from else where.

I had read on the Ezviz website on this page here that only certain chimes were compatible, so I was a little cautious and decided to buy the whole kit from Connectec as they had tested their particular chime and doorbell transformer with the Ezviz DB1 and if I had any problems then I would have one supplier to deal with etc.

For the record the doorbell chime is a Eterna Model number DC1WH and the doorbell transformer is also an Eterna model number BT4812.

Here are the instructions / wiring diagram that came with the Eterna chime, I ignored them! and just followed the wiring diagram for the DB1 video doorbell as it is different.

Also the chime does say max 8V DC which was a little concerning as I am running the DB1 video doorbell on 12V DC, however its all working fine and this is what Connectec and also Dynamic-cctv.com recommend as they also sell the same DB1 kit.

First I tested everything on my living room floor wiring everything up as per the DB1 video doorbell wiring diagram. 

In the Ezviz mobile app you have to specify in the settings that you are using the DB1 with a mechanical chime, if you don't set that the chime won't work and make a sound. 

Once I was happy I had it wired up correctly as per the standard DB1 wiring diagram I then investigated how to add Z-Wave and integrate the DB1 video doorbell in to my Z-Wave network and my Vera Plus controller hub. 

The solenoid on the chime works across terminals numbered 2 and 3.

I used a battery operated Everspring SM103 Z-Wave door / window contact sensor as it also has a handy dry contact input on it. 

I also need to add a 12V DC mini coil relay, I used this one here. 

G5V-1 12DC -  Signal Relay, 12 VDC, SPDT, 1 A, G5V-1 Series, Through Hole, Non Latching.

Here is the pin out diagram. Pins 2 & 9 on the coil relay (no polarity) connect to terminals 2 & 3 on the chime. 

Then pins 1 & 5 on the coil relay (no polarity) connect to the dry contact inputs on the Everspring SM103 door contact sensor. 

My wiring diagram for the Z-Wave integration:

When the Everspring SM103 door contact sensor is included on your Z-Wave controller in my case my Vera Plus, when the DB1 doorbell is not pressed the sensor should be not tripped. 

And when the DB1 doorbell is pressed then the Everspring SM103 door contact sensor should change to a tripped state and then shortly after return back to a none tripped state. 

You can then use that as a trigger on your Z-Wave controller hub to carry out whatever automations you wish. 

I have the DB1 doorbell camera automatically come up on my wall mounted Imperhome Android tablets, make TTS announcements to Alexa and flash some lights etc. 

Note for Vera and TTS announcements to Alexa I am using this new plug-in here.

Now the DB1 doorbell camera is decent for the money, however it has one major drawback there are no accessible mjpg and jpg snapshot streams only RTSP video stream. 

Vera doesn't support RTSP cameras and the Imperihome control app only supports RTSP streams with no authentication. However I was unable to even get any IP camera into Imperihome without RTSP authentication. It just doesn't seem to work. 

So I had a problem how to get a mjpg and jpg snapshot URL from the DB1 camera ? 

I tried two options.

1. TinyCam Pro Android app running on one of my wall mounted tablets, TinyCam Pro has an inbuilt Web Server function. But I found it a little temperamental and wasn't that happy with it. 

2. Blue Iris software. I installed a copy on to my WHS Windows file server and added the DB1 camera using its native RTSP stream. I found the resulting Blue Iris mjpg and jpg snapshot streams to be a bit more stable so currently I am sticking with it. 

In either software you first add the DB1 doorbell camera in to it using its RTSP stream URL

Native RTSP video streams on the DB1 doorbell camera, some examples. 

Where IP 192.168.1.101 is the IP address of the Ezviz DB1 doorbell camera.

Main

rtsp://192.168.1.101:554/user=admin_password=****_channel=0_stream=0.sdp

rtsp://192.168.1.101:554/Streaming/Channels/101

rtsp://admin:****@192.168.1.101:554/ch1/main/av_stream

Sub

rtsp://admin:****@192.168.1.101:554/Streaming/Channels/102

rtsp://admin:****@192.168.1.101:554/ch1/sub/av_stream

rtsp://192.168.1.101:554/h264_stream

Then you should be able to access the mjpg and jpg snapshot URLs. 

Some TinyCam Pro Web Server example URL's for mjpg and jpg snapshot.

Where IP address 192.168.1.102 is the IP address of the Android tablet / device running the TinyCam Pro app. The port number you can change and specify what you want it to be. 

The camera ID is specific to each IP camera in the TinyCam Pro app, sorry I can't recall now where I found the camera IDs. 

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?cameraId=1256066005

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?cameraId=1256066005&resolution=640x480

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?cameraId=1256066005

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?cameraId=1256066005&resolution=640x480

TinyCam User and password in URL

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?cameraId=1256066005&user=admin&pwd=****

http://192.168.1.102:8080/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?cameraId=1256066005&user=admin&pwd=****

Blue Iris Web Server example URL's for mjpg and jpg snapshot.

Where IP address 192.168.0.103 is the PC where you have Blue Iris installed and the port number 8081 is the port number you specified in the Blue Iris web server settings. Cam1 is the first camera added to Blue Iris, Cam2 is camera 2 etc.

http://192.168.1.103:8081/image/Cam1?user=admin&pw=****

http://192.168.1.103:8081/mjpg/Cam1/video.mjpg?user=admin&pw=****

http://192.168.1.103:8081/image/Cam1?h=480&w=640&user=admin&pw=****

http://192.168.1.103:8081/mjpg/Cam1/video.mjpg?h=480&w=640&user=admin&pw=****

Another advantage of using the Blue Iris software on my Windows file server, is that I can now record motion detection events on to the file server itself, so I now have video clips on there as well as on the local SD memory card in the DB1.

Also Blue Iris can send out HTTP commands when motion detection is triggered and when motion detection trigger is reset.

I created a Virtual Motion Sensor device in Vera, instructions here.

And then using these two HTTP JSON commands in Blue Iris to set if the virtual motion sensor device in Vera should be tripped or not?

IP 192.168.1.100 is the IP address of Vera and DeviceNum 403 should be the device number of your virtual motion sensor device in Vera.

Tripped Command:

192.168.1.100/port_3480/data_request?id=lu_variableset&DeviceNum=403&serviceId=urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SecuritySensor1&Variable=Tripped&Value=1

NOT Tripped Command:

192.168.1.100/port_3480/data_request?id=lu_variableset&DeviceNum=403&serviceId=urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SecuritySensor1&Variable=Tripped&Value=0

Here are some screen shots of the Imperihome Android app.

Ezviz DB1 Doorbell added in to Imperihome app using their IP camera object and the mjpg / jpg streams from Blue Iris.

And here is the Vera virtual motion sensor device added in to the Imperihome control app. 

I've also integrated the DB1 camera using a mixture of the native DB1 RTSP video stream and also using the Blue Iris mjpg and jpg snapshot URLs in to Kodi media center using the Security Cam Overlay add-on and in to my Fire TV stick using a free IP camera app I found in their app store. 

One other current issue I have is that I cannot stream the DB1 camera image to my ChromeCast video devices connected to my TV sets. I believe this should work and I have added my Ezviz account in to the Google Home app and the Doorbell device is showing up OK in the Home app, but when I ask the Google Home Mini to "Show doorbell" it says OK and looks like its about to start playing on the TV / ChromeCast but I just get a black screen and a progress bar at the bottom and a spinning circle, the camera image never loads. 

I had initially connected the DB1 to my 5GHZ WIFI network and then I reset it and switched it on to the 2.4GHZ WIFI network instead, but its the same problem on both. I have a good solid WIFI signal on my mobile phone outside where the doorbell is located, so I am not sure what this problem is. I have emailed Ezviz UK support for comment.  

Summary

Overall I am so far pleased with my purchase of the Ezviz DB1 doorbell the image quality at day and night time is good and the motion detection works well as does the phone calls to the Ezviz app on my mobile phone when someone presses the doorbell, I can talk to them if I am in the house or out and about. I have also shared the DB1 device in the Ezviz app, so my daughter also has the Ezviz app on her mobile phone and access to the video doorbell functions. 

Only downside I can see to the DB1 is no native mjpg or jpg snapshot support and no Onvif support. 

But the big upside is a local SD memory card slot and no monthly subscriptions for cloud storage if you don't want. 

Also the DB1 comes with three different coloured face places, black, white and brown. I used the black one to make it stand out a bit more against the white door frame, there is also a blue circle that lights up around the doorbell button.

UPDATE

EZVIZ support suggested the following and I can now stream the DB1 camera image on my TV / Chromecast.

"For the streaming issue, please go to the Live view page on EZVIZ APP to reduce the resolution to Hi-Def then try it again. During this setup, it would be better if you could use the same wifi frequency."

My DB1 is still configured for the 2.4ghz WiFi and my Chromecast is on 5ghz WiFi but it seems to stream now anyway with the lower video resolution.