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The original was posted on /r/homeassistant by /u/RemoteSojourner on 2026-06-01 12:51:43+00:00.
Last year, I replaced my Nest doorbell with a Reolink one. I am pretty happy with it, but I ran into a bottleneck when it came to getting remote notifications and 2-way communication while away from home. I essentially had two options:
- Rely on the Home Assistant UI. The dashboards within the companion app are essentially webpages, which means they aren't quick enough to load, and people often leave before I can even answer.
- Use the Reolink app. This requires allowing internet access to my doorbell and routing traffic through Reolink's UID servers, which I wanted to avoid.
Last week, I came across this post (https://www.naps62.com/posts/custom-doorbell-app-with-homeassistant), which looked like a much better solution that I could adapt for my own Reolink and Frigate setup, alongside my Switchbot lock.
I ended up using Gemini to build a custom Android app. It works well enough and gives me an instant connection to my doorbell, complete with 2-way communication, quick replies, and the ability to unlock my door. It works with both Frigate and AlexxIT/webrtc integrations.
I mostly deal with C# in my day job and have never written an Android app before, so I apologize if the code has turned out to be utter slop. That being said, I have been daily driving it over the past few days and it has worked pretty well for me.
I have put the code and the APK up on GitHub in case it ends up helping someone else with a similar setup: https://github.com/remotesojourner/ha-doorbell