Do Self Powered/No Battery Wireless Doorbells work?

August 3, 2018 5:39 AM

There are a number of seller on amazon and other sites offering "No Battery" or "Self Powered" wireless doorbells. Do you have any experience with them? Do they work?
posted by samhyland to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

This one has 80 reviews and none of them are complaining about the transmitter.

The speaker does get plugged into the wall though, if that wasn't clear!
posted by bbqturtle at 5:51 AM on August 3, 2018

We have wireless doorbells with plug-in transmitters at work, and they work fine. Ours sees fairly heavy daily use and has held up for almost a year at this point. I'd say that any well-reviewed ones should be fine (although if you can avoid Amazon, you should do so - their warehouse policies kill and disable workers).

Ours can be set to a variety of mostly annoying chimes, including "Memory" from the musical Cats. If you can get one which allows you to upload a chime of your own, get that one.
posted by Frowner at 6:36 AM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

They could be meaning that you would wire them onto existing door bell wiring. Alot of homes 20+ years old have a weird 16volt pair of wires that power the tiny light in the doorbell hardwired to the doorbell inside your house. Many of the latest doorbell 'cameras' have terminals that allow you to hook those old wires to the doorbell-camera, so that you don't need to charge or change the internal battery periodically. I have that setup in my home, and its great.
posted by edman at 12:23 PM on August 3, 2018