Doorbell Site – An Introduction to Doorbells


Welcome to the Doorbell Site. Doorbells serve a very practical function and yet there is a lot of variety in the types of doorbells that you will see today. They have evolved from simple mechanical systems to sometimes very sophisticated wireless doorbell intercom systems. We’ll start by digging into the various types of door bells available.

Types of Doorbells

  • Standard Doorbells – Nothing unexpected here. There is a button at the front door, wiring to the bell or chime unit and the actual “bells”. The standard door bell system requires electricity to allow the doorbell button to activate the relays that turn on the doorbells.
  • Wireless doorbells – Wireless doorbells are a great invention for anybody that wants to replace or remodel the area where their current doorbell system resides. They are also an easy way to add a door bell to a door that doesn’t currently have a door bell. Wireless doorbells typically have a range of about 100 feet.
  • Doorbell intercom – Easily answer your door without opening it! Doorbell intercom systems can be found in wireless models and you can even expand some systems to include multiple intercoms and make a whole house system.
  • Mechanical doorbell – Mechanical doorbells require no electricity and they are just bells attached on the inside of the door with the level on the outside. When a visitor turns the level the bells ring on the inside. They are most often mounted at mid-door height they come with different types of twist levers. Mechanical doorbells are often called mechanical twist doorbells due to the twisting motion you make to use them.
  • Driveway doorbells – Driveway door bells (also called driveway alarms) have a sensor that you place at the front of your driveway to detect vehicles and the doorbell chime unit in your house. Many detectors are passive infrared sensors, some are motion detectors and others use a rubber hose so that they trigger only when a vehicle drives over them (the others will trigger for people and pets). Almost all of the driveway doorbell systems are wireless these days.

Parts of a Doorbell System

  • The bell or chime system. These can be actual bells are a speaker system that plays pre-recorded chime sounds.
  • Wiring (or wireless) connection from the button to the chime unit.
  • The doorbell button or level. It all begins here with the push of a button or a twist of a lever.

I hope that you can see that there is more to doorbells than most people realize. I hope to explore more of the doorbell world with future articles.