Last updated 2026-08-28
Fixes
Is your chime mechanical or digital?
Every camera setup asks this, most people guess, and a wrong guess is behind a large share of chimes that went quiet. You can settle it by listening, and confirm it by looking.
Listen first
Press the button and listen to the old chime, or think about what it sounded like before the camera went in.
A mechanical chime makes a physical two-note ding-dong, and it is a real impact: a small hammer striking metal bars. It sounds like an object being hit, because it is. A digital chime plays a recording through a small speaker, so it can be a tune, a series of notes, or a synthesised bell, and it often has a volume control or a way to choose the sound.
A chime you can choose a tune for is digital. That single test settles most cases without opening anything.
Then open the cover and look
The cover usually pulls straight off, or comes away with one screw. There is nothing dangerous behind it at the chime end, though the terminals are live when the circuit is powered, so treat them as live.
A mechanical chime has two metal bars or tubes and a visible plunger between them, wound with a coil. A digital chime has a circuit board and a speaker, and often a small battery compartment for a backup cell.
Why it matters more than it should
The camera drives the two types differently. Told the wrong type, it may leave the chime silent, buzz continuously, or ring once and never again.
It also decides whether older hardware needs a diode fitted across the chime, which is advice that circulates far beyond the models it applies to.
Set the type correctly in the app before changing any wiring. It is free, instant, and reversible, which is more than can be said for the alternatives.
Related
- The chime went silent after installing the camera — the full checklist
- Why your transformer keeps burning out — if the chime is weak instead of silent