Arlo Doorbell No Announcement With Alexa

[Jocasa]

Can you set the doorbell to "chime" on all Alexa devices. This include the original alexa and dot.

[GimmeCoffee]

Checking the Amazon app both for the PC and my tablet, there is no "toggle on Doorbell Press under announcements" setting in the Alexa apps that I'm using.  The Doorbell is there as an active device under the "Smart Home" installed devices, but the settings screen for the Arlo doorbell only has a slide object titled "Enabled".  All of the Arlo camera products have the same limited device screen setting of "Enabled" within the Amazon app.  There is no "toggle setting" for "announcements" on my copy of the Alexa app that is part of this doorbell control.  I have also crawled over every screen of the Alexa app (including the Arlo Skill for Alexa) and don't see anything about telling the Echo Show to behave in the way that you are describing.

I would think that Arlo would have taken the time to document this whole thing themselves (somewhere) for the Doorbell product which I still find odd.  My impression is that they assumed it would be automatically installed as a Amazon device (which it was). Getting it to behave with the Amazon Echo Show has shown to be as problematic as it is to get the Arlo cameras to reliably display on the Echo Show.  Had I known that the Arlo products would be this flakey with the Amazon Alexa products, I would have certainly looked for other solutions.  If the customer is OK with solely connecting to Arlo products from the Arlo phone app, they are good to go.  But once they move into using these products with other Smart Home devices (like Alexa), it is mostly a fail from my and many other Echo Show users perspectives.

[JamesC]

Jocasa,

This should work with any Alexa device.

[girish133]

I followed the instructions from another thread, but I don't get any notifications via my Echo or my Echo Dots.  Any ideas what else I need to do to enable this?

From another thread:

1.  Open the Alexa App and discover new devices.  I tried this a couple times and alexa reported that it did not discover any new devices but it in fact did.

2.  Find the new doorbell under All Devices in the alexa app, open the settings and toggle on Doorbell Press under announcements.

[pbarham]

I have tried getting Alexa to discover devices both via the iPhone App, and via the alexa.amazon.com web site with no success.

Does the 'chime setting' switch need to be in a specific position for this to work?  (e.g. does this only work if you have configured the doorbell for a 'digital chime' ?) 

[TheMOLE]

having the same issues. Doorbell does not connect/work with echo!

[salacy]

Has anyone been able to use the doorbell on Alexa? Alexa shows it as connected and doorbell announcements are turned on, but I get no announcements when the doorbell is used.

[salacy]

I have enabled doorbell announcements on Alexa, but it does nothing. Anyone gotten past this yet?

Alexa

[ShayneS]

@salacy

Have you tried to reboot your alexa device & test again?

[salacy]

How do you "reboot" an Alexa device?

[salacy]

BTW, I have opened a ticket with Arlo support for this issue. First level support was clueless, but they have escalated. I'll keep the group posted if anything is resolved.

[Terminal3]

It works for me.  I enabled the function in the Alexa app and all my echos and show announce someone is at the door.  If I had known it would do that when I bought the doorbell I would not have bought the chime.

[salacy]

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@Terminal3 wrote:

It works for me.  I enabled the function in the Alexa app and all my echos and show announce someone is at the door.  If I had known it would do that when I bought the doorbell I would not have bought the chime.

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Can you share what you did to make it work? Also, what is the announcement? Is it a sound? A voice announcement?

[pbarham]

... and how long does it take from pressing the doorbell button to getting an announcement?    Is it 100% reliable?  (i.e. if you didn't have a chime, could you miss somebody at the door)

[adammiarka]

I would say it's about 2-3 seconds from when someone presses the doorbell to an announcement on the Echoes.   When the doorbell senses motion, it will "warm up" connecting to the base station by flashing the led ring.  That's the key to getting a faster notification.   If someone wasn't detected and pushed the doorbell, it would be a longer delay.   For our house, the walkway is straight up to the door so the doorbell senses motion each time.     

[salacy]

I've tried everything to make the doorbell work with my Alexa device. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting my Arlo devices, both from my network and in the Alexa app. I even added a routine in the Alexa app that is set to make an announcement when the doorbell is pressed. Nothing.

It's been 2 days and still no response from Arlo support. I'm begining to regret my Arlo purchase. I might end up with a Ring. At least Amazon has some incentive to make sure it works with all of their devices.

[girish133]

I wonder if it requires having at least one Echo Show for this to work, perhaps because integrating Arlo cameras requires something with a screen.  I hope this is not the case.

Obviously with the doorbell, it makes sense that it should work with all Echo devices.  Hopefully you will get a response from support soon and can post the solution here.

[Terminal3]

All I did to make it work was go to the doorbell device in the Alexa app under all devices and turn on the slider under announcements next to the Doorbell Press.

As far as the delay it goes off about the same time as the chime, 2 to 3 seconds as someone else mentioned.  Also my doorbell is in a position that it will sense someone coming up to the door and wake up before they get there, so as mentioned that probably speeds up the delay from press to announcement.  It's a tone which sounds like a doorbell and then Alexa says someone is at the doorbell.   

[salacy]

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@Terminal3 wrote:

All I did to make it work was go to the doorbell device in the Alexa app under all devices and turn on the slider under announcements next to the Doorbell Press.

As far as the delay it goes off about the same time as the chime, 2 to 3 seconds as someone else mentioned.  Also my doorbell is in a position that it will sense someone coming up to the door and wake up before they get there, so as mentioned that probably speeds up the delay from press to announcement.  It's a tone which sounds like a doorbell and then Alexa says someone is at the doorbell.   

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What Echo device do you have? It appears that the doorbell only works on a Echo device that has video (the Show or the Spot).

[Terminal3]

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@salacy wrote:

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@Terminal3 wrote:

All I did to make it work was go to the doorbell device in the Alexa app under all devices and turn on the slider under announcements next to the Doorbell Press.

As far as the delay it goes off about the same time as the chime, 2 to 3 seconds as someone else mentioned.  Also my doorbell is in a position that it will sense someone coming up to the door and wake up before they get there, so as mentioned that probably speeds up the delay from press to announcement.  It's a tone which sounds like a doorbell and then Alexa says someone is at the doorbell.   

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What Echo device do you have? It appears that the doorbell only works on a Echo device that has video (the Show or the Spot).

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I do have one Show but the rest are dots.  It works on all of them.

[cyberr8der]

I haven't been able to get it to work either.  I have it linked to Alexa and toggled it on in the app.  I have echo shows, an original echo and a dot.  It simply doesn't work on any device.  It's unfortunate that these companies rush things to market even when they don't work.

[pbarham]

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@cyberr8der wrote:

I haven't been able to get it to work either.  I have it linked to Alexa and toggled it on in the app.  I have echo shows, an original echo and a dot.  It simply doesn't work on any device.  It's unfortunate that these companies rush things to market even when they don't work.

What's even more unfortunate is that there are dozens of tech savvy people on these forums expericiencing serious technical problems and who are clearly willing to spend time trying to debug this hardware/system that they are now invested in. 

BUT so far I've never seen anybody get asked to "try this experiment an collect these log files and we will analyze them."   By far the most common suggestions I've seen are "try rebooting every piece of equipment one by one, try uninstalling the app and reinstalling it, try randomly exploring all of the config options, use a different phone."   

This is *not* how you debug and fix a system in my extensive experince.  You design a system up front to have the diagnostics and logs you need to get to the bottom of problems like this. 

[skingspan]

I have been able to set up my Alexa show with my two doorbells.  When someone presses the doorbell, Alexa announces that someone is at the front or side door.

There is another thread on this and the commonality for the people who could not get Alexa to work with the doorbell was that they were using android phones.  I am using an iphone.   I think the issue may be that the alexa app for android did not have the toggle for enabling the doorbell for alexa. 

[cyberr8der]

It appears you're correct. I was trying to use an Android phone for setup. I just removed the skill, deleted all devices then added the skill and discovered the devices again from a fire tablet. Then went in and enabled the doorbell press from the tablet. Not it's working.

Thanks for the suggestion. Thank goodness for users here as Arlo peeps are no help.

[pbarham]

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@skingspan wrote:

There is another thread on this and the commonality for the people who could not get Alexa to work with the doorbell was that they were using android phones.  I am using an iphone.   I think the issue may be that the alexa app for android did not have the toggle for enabling the doorbell for alexa.  

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I don't think so.  I have an iPhone and have not been able to make this work as advertised.  

I did work out that the Alexa iPhone app couldn't see the doorbell until I enabled the 'Alexa Arlo Skill' (this seems to allow Amazon to log into your Arlo account!)   After doing this, the Alexa app could discover the devices (camera and doorbell) and the button to 'enable notificaitons' appeared.

However .... I have still never received an announcement on my Amazon Echo.  I have power cycled it and all the usual nonsense that tech support suggest, but no joy.

This really is a bit of an 'internet of things' train wreck IMHO.