Eliminate Old Doorbell Chime

[mpaquette70]

I am going to be replacing my original doorbell and chime with a new Arlo Essential wired doorbell and Arlo 2 Chime.

My existing transformer and chime has two wires.  Do I just disconnect those two wires from the chime and cap them off separately or do I connect them together?

Thanks!

[StephenB]

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@mpaquette70 wrote:

My existing transformer and chime has two wires.  Do I just disconnect those two wires from the chime and cap them off separately or do I connect them together?

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Note you can continue to use the existing chime with the Arlo doorbell if you want.

The wired doorbell comes with a power kit that you connect across the wires at the chime.  There is a bypass switch on the power kit that would prevent the chime from ringing.

You could also try connecting the wires together, though I'd suggest connecting the wires to the power kit instead (assuming you really want to take down the chime).

[mpaquette70]

Thank you for the reply.

I wish to eliminate the old doorbell chime, as the title says.  Meaning I want to remove it from the wall and never use it again.

I don't know if I should cap the wires off individually or splice them together.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@mpaquette70 wrote:

I don't know if I should cap the wires off individually or splice them together.

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If you cap them individually, then the doorbell can't get any power because the wires are needed to complete the circuit.

So as I tried to say above, you need to splice them together.

The other option is to connect the leads to the (very small) power kit that comes with the doorbell.  That might provide some overload protection (acting as a fuse if too much power goes through the circuit when you press the doorbell).  Not sure if it would provide overload protection or not, but it would do no harm.

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@mpaquette70 wrote:

I wish to eliminate the old doorbell chime, as the title says.  Meaning I want to remove it from the wall and never use it again.

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Personally I'd start by just installing the doorbell, but leaving the chime in place.   Set up the doorbell to use a traditional chime, but put the power kit into bypass mode after the install to prevent the chime from ringing.

Then use the doorbell that way for a couple of months, to make sure you like that operating mode. 

• If it works well for you, then remove the chime.  At that point, also remove the doorbell from the account, and onboard it again, but set it up for no chime.
• If it doesn't work for you, you can just change the switch on the power kit, and the chime will ring.  Of course you'd continue to get the other features of the doorbell.

[mpaquette70]

Looks like you have to use the power kit, appears to be required.  New video doorbell and Chime 2 do not work without this device connected to the old doorbell chime.  I currently have it in the 'O' position.  I will just hide all of this in the basement ceiling and call it a day.

Thanks for your help on this.  On to the next issue...

[StephenB]

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@mpaquette70 wrote:

Looks like you have to use the power kit, appears to be required. 

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The power kit is required for the AVD1001 (original "wired" doorbell).  The other doorbell models don't have it or need it.  That is because they only trickle-charge their battery from the doorbell circuit, and don't draw enough power to create a problem for the chime.  (Note the purpose of the power kit is to divert power around the chime until the doorbell button is pressed).

As I said before, it should work if power kit is removed and the two wires at the chime are simply wired together.  The puzzle there is that if the doorbell is configured for a traditional chime, then pressing the doorbell potentially  creates a short circuit that could trip the breaker or damage the transformer.  That is exactly what would happen if you were using an ordinary doorbell (which is just a switch).

The Arlo doorbell should be designed so that is not possible (that is, the doorbell circuitry itself should prevent that short circuit from happening).  But just in case, it would be prudent to wire the two chime wires to the power kit, and set the bypass mode on the kit.  When the kit is in bypass mode, no power ever flows through the chime, so removing the chime doesn't change anything on the circuit.

BTW, all the Arlo doorbell models are compatible with most traditional chimes