What makes consumer-grage RF doorbells so crappy?

[VinzC]

Hi.

So far I've known many people (myself included) who've had but troubles with consumer-grade RF doorbells. They start by working fine, then progressively fail to a point even changing the batteries (*both* devices) does nothing. Give them all between six weeks and six months to fail irremediably. I've had two of them, not even from the same manufacturer. They lived 3 months. Then I gave up buying these. In comparison I bought my calculator (a Sharp EL-556) when I was a student, i.e. more than 30 years ago and I don't remember the last time I changed the battery. Maybe I never did. (I know you don't compare a calculator with a doorbell remote but you get the idea, right?)

On the other hand I have a remote for my garage door that, I believe, emits @ 433MHz and that has *never*, *never*, *ever* failed on me. It's been more than 3 years the remote runs with its battery — it's a specially packed, small form factor, non-rechargeable battery from Varta, IIRC.

What the heck makes these F**** RF doorbell remotes that crappy? What do they suffer from? Local oscillator drift? Can't their designers inspire their concepts from working devices instead?

I'm just curious.

[Marco]

Basically there's Honeywell and maybe Grothe ... and everything else is trash. I don't know why, LoRa and TI/SigFox modules are cheap, microcontrollers are cheap. There's no reason why there aren't more devices using a sane RF protocol and implementation, but there aren't.

The rest are just Chinese copy'ing each other's decade old designs, throwing it in a new housing and calling it a day. They spend a ton of money on fancy new injection moulds, but won't spend anything on electronics. I guess that says something about the consumers :/

[Dataforensics]

YMMV I bought a fairly low cost Byron battery wireless doorbell in 2005 and apart from the colour fading from sunlight it is still working well.

[tooki]

I guess that says something about the consumers :/

What? That they:

• aren't engineers?
• have no knowledge about what would make a quality product?
  
• can't disassemble the products for quality evaluation before purchase anyway, even if they are engineers?

I'm shocked, truly. 
Let's be honest, we cannot expect people to be experts on everything.

I think it says a lot more about the vendors who take absolutely no pride in their products, only in making a quick buck.

[SeanB]

Just take a regular cheap RF garage door remote, put it in the fancier doorbell case if it will fit, and put the appropriate decoder and power supply in the house, perhaps using the existing chime decoder to get the ding dong sound. I would guess the doorbells are just an old design, not using the modern advances like SAW transmitter filters, receivers with similar SAW input filters and better designed decoders that do a much better job. All the RF doorbells i have looked at as old and busted invariably use a very outdated RF transmitter, with either a SRBP board with cheap hand wound coils on it, or slightly better FR4 board with similar cheap junky hand assembled coils and adjustments, and using the cheapest of components and no decoupling at all.

Modern remote receivers and transmitters are also available with better code algorithms, though it is not too bad to just have a single repeating code system instead of a rolling code, as you are not going to be overly concerned too much with false triggers providing they do not occur too much, and even there the decoders only respond after receiving 3 or more good data frames immediately after the other.

[Zero999]

YMMV I bought a fairly low cost Byron battery wireless doorbell in 2005 and apart from the colour fading from sunlight it is still working well.

My parents bought a Byron wireless doorbell around a year ago and it's still going strong. It looks like they've made the right choice.

[Teledog]

Consumer grade anything lately is cr*p.
Government insists that the boards use unleaded solder..
theory being, that the minute amounts of terrible toxic lead won't go into a dump..yet the electronics are sorted anyway.
We pay an eco-recycling fee for that here.
The manufacturers don't give a rat's *ss if it lasts a day beyond warranty.
Had an interview with an electronics Mfr. ..they used unleaded in their production line..I asked about whiskers, etc.
They actually said.."we don't give a sh*t, if it lasts a year, then who cares after that?..We'll sell more!"
Be nice if the gov actually made the manufacturers pay the recycling fees or guarantee a unit to last X years..but methinks there's a wee bit of collusion ?
/end bitch

[BrianHG]

Be nice if the gov actually made the manufacturers pay the recycling fees or guarantee a unit to last X years..but methinks there's a wee bit of collusion ?
/end bitch

There is no consumer protection agency in Canada with any real power like in the US.  Us Canadians, particularly those who are left purchasing economic electronics can get completely hosed.

[tooki]

Consumer protection? USA? Wuh? 

The only real consumer advocates in USA are the credit card companies and the threat of lawsuits.

[VinzC]

I would guess the doorbells are just an old design, not using the modern advances like SAW transmitter filters, receivers with similar SAW input filters and better designed decoders that do a much better job. All the RF doorbells i have looked at as old and busted invariably use a very outdated RF transmitter, with either a SRBP board with cheap hand wound coils on it, or slightly better FR4 board with similar cheap junky hand assembled coils and adjustments, and using the cheapest of components and no decoupling at all.

Well, first off, thanks for the suggestion  — though I didn't ask for it and I think that's pretty much what I thought I'd do if I'd want to fancy something like this ;-) . *cough* Great spirits think alike  ... *cough*

Joke apart... SAW like in Surface Acoustic Wave? Would you like to care developing? You poke my interest.

BTW is it possible to "fix" those remotes? I'm referring to the lack of decoupling you've just mentioned. I guess that's not the only one point left to enhance or am I too optimistic?