A New Wireless Doorbell

I've been writing about some of the gifts we received for Christmas and another one of the gifts we received was a new wireless doorbell. I must say, this wireless doorbell is good enough to have put together a short video and write about here!

Our old wireless doorbell was not all that appealing. The quality of the sound was rather poor. It sounded more like a child's toy than a real doorbell. Every time the doorbell rang, the quality of the sound really bothered me. Of course, those who know me probably aren't surprised by this since everyone knows I probably pay far too much attention to the tiniest of details and I'm a hopeless perfectionist. The sound of that old doorbell was really lousy though. I knew that if I was going to replace our doorbell I wanted one with better sound.

The other problem we had with the old doorbell is that whenever the temperatures plunged below zero (which is often during six months out of the year), the doorbell button contacts contracted enough to randomly complete the circuit telling the chime to sound... we'd go to the door... nobody was there. Or, sometimes the cold would cause the doorbell button to not work at all. To say that old doorbell worked only intermittently would be an accurate statement. This, too, was frustrating.

Before Christmas, I started doing some research online to find a much better solution to our doorbell problems. I quickly found a Honeywell doorbell which seemed like a huge improvement over our old doorbell. For what it's worth, I chose the Honeywell Wireless Doorbell, #RDWL917AX. I think this is their fifth generation of this product and it is impressive.

From reviews on YouTube, I was able to hear the sounds... now, even I'll admit that the sound quality on YouTube is often lousy so it might not be a good place to hear 'accurate' sound but this doorbell sounded pretty good even on YouTube! (Especially when compared to other brands on YouTube.) That was a plus!

Then, I found that I could upload any sound file I wanted (in mp3 format) and I could program the newly uploaded mp3 file to play for a specific event. Hmmm... this was even better! I could actually pick sound files that I liked and have it play for only a specific thing!

This Honeywell doorbell has a 450 foot range... adjustable volume... even a mute button and a mute timer... it comes preloaded with eight chimes... it flashes light as well as sound... I could download any mp3 (of less than 15 seconds in length)... and, I could add up to six accessories such as a second doorbell button (which I did add), motion detectors (which I plan to add), door alarms, etc. I knew this doorbell was the one to get!

Below is a video of the doorbell in action. What you can't see in this particular video (and it wasn't worth creating a second video to add it) is that there are two flashlight-type lights on the top of the unit that flash as well. 

I have this doorbell programmed so that the backdoor plays a custom "jingle bells" tune (only for Christmas... the kids use this door more than anyone else) and flashes a blue light... the front door plays a nice Westminister chime sound file (although, I'd like to find an even better one online and upload it) and flashes green. There are other colors available and I can choose a different color and different sound for each accessory.

We like it and I highly recommend it!