{"id":135951,"date":"2022-02-22T18:22:17","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T02:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/02\/minimalistic-doorbell-doesnt-need-an-internet-connection-or-even-a-power-supply"},"modified":"2022-02-22T18:22:17","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T02:22:17","slug":"minimalistic-doorbell-doesnt-need-an-internet-connection-or-even-a-power-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/02\/minimalistic-doorbell-doesnt-need-an-internet-connection-or-even-a-power-supply","title":{"rendered":"Minimalistic Doorbell Doesn\u2019t Need An Internet Connection \u2014 Or Even A Power Supply"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/minimalistic-doorbell-doesnt-need-an-internet-connection-or-even-a-power-supply2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Doorbells are among those everyday objects that started out simple but picked up an immense amount of complexity over the years. What began as a mechanism to bang two pieces of metal together evolved into all kinds of wired and wireless electric bells, finally culminating in today\u2019s smart doorbells that beam a live video feed to their owners even if they\u2019re half a world away.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/t_rXvGx3hEI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But sometimes, less is more. [Low tech obsession] <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=t_rXvGx3hEI\" target=\"_blank\">built a doorbell out of spare components<\/a> that doesn\u2019t require Internet connectivity or even a power supply. But it\u2019s not a purely mechanical device either: the visitor turns a knob mounted on a stepper motor, generating pulses of alternating current. These pulses are then fed into the voice coil of an old hard drive, causing its arm to vibrate and strike a bell, mounted where the platters used to be.<\/p>\n<p>Besides being a great piece of minimalistic design, the doorbell is also a neat demonstration of Faraday\u2019s law of induction. The stepper motor is apparently robust enough to withstand vandalism, although we can imagine that the doorbell\u2019s odd shape might confuse some well-meaning visitors too. If you\u2019re into unusual doorbells, you might want to check out <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2018\/11\/20\/retro-wall-phone-becomes-a-doorbell-and-so-much-more\/\">this one made from an old wall phone<\/a>, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2013\/03\/05\/viscerally-pleasing-electromechanical-doorbell\/\">this electromechanical contraption<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Doorbells are among those everyday objects that started out simple but picked up an immense amount of complexity over the years. What began as a mechanism to bang two pieces of metal together evolved into all kinds of wired and wireless electric bells, finally culminating in today\u2019s smart doorbells that beam a live video feed [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,1512],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-mobile-phones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}