Heath-Zenith Wireless doorbells are garbage (2023 Update)

[maradcliff]

Heath-Zenith Wireless doorbells are garbage. In the past 3 years since I bought the first one, I have had to replace this doorbell 3 times. I bought one at Walmart for about $15. It lasted a year. I replaced the battery in the outdoor button, still it did not work. (The indoor ringer is 120V AC). I bought another complete set, and found the bell (indoor) was fine on my old one, but the outdoor button was dead. A few months later it was dead again, and a new battery did not fix it again. I was able to exchange it that time. Now, once again it's dead. It appears to be the button again. This time I contacted the manufacturer. They said that they would replace it if it was still in the one year warranty and I had the receipt. I cant find the receipt, so they refuse to assist me, even though they admit that it's probably defective.

After this much trouble, I dont even want another one, and will install a wired bell. DO NOT buy them, they are total trash. I should mention that the outdoor button is under a roof too, so it's not water getting into it. Just very poor quality (made in China) crap. The model number is SL 6151-RX-A

Mark

[nospambob]

[nospambob]

After posting this I remebered a change of doorbell transformer was needed. Old was 12V and DiMango required 16V if memory serves. I was lucky that the transformer was in the attic directly above the bell. HTH.

*********************** I bought a DiMango unit where the transmitter is wired with the doorbell transformer and receiver(s) plug >Heath-Zenith Wireless doorbells are garbage.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, For 15.00 bucks what do you expect?

[Scott en Aztlán]

Heathkit shit is still being sold?

Amazing!!

I have a H-Z remote light switch in my house. Dunno how old it is, since it came with the house when I bought it, but I bet it's at least

20 years old. Still works fine.

Sounds like it's time to go string some wire.

[PipeDown]

My how the world has changed. Heath-Zenith used be to be where you bought electronics educational kits (AKA HeathKit). You could buy a whole TV in kit form once upon a time. Now they make doorbells and outdoor lighting sold at HD. Can't even recognize that company anymore.

Nor does it seem, they even have their own website.

[hallerb]

marketing name recognition only. the company was totally shut down, name sold for marketing.:(

heatrhkit made great stuff, so sad.

[maradcliff]

A lot more than one year !!!!!!!

[ameijers]

Yeah, a favorite pet peeve of mine- the quality names from my mis-spent youth, mostly all gone belly up, but not allowed a dignified death. The quality is long gone, but the name lives on. Once in a great while, it is nice to see the pretend company go belly up or get eaten, a la Packard Bell. Seems like all the prestige stereo companies of the 60s and 70s are now just Pacific rim brand names. Tools, a similar tale. And don't get me started on bicycles (Schwinn) or computer stuff. They to give up on the 'Buy America' act at work. Nobody in N.A. makes any of that stuff any more- at most they slap the mainland China parts together.

Ah well- I suppose as long as they are making so much money off us, they won't start a war against us....

aem sends...

[AZ Nomad]

Heath used to be where you bought state of the art equipment. Heath was at one time able to offer them for less by selling them in kit form. They had only publish instructions and package all the parts.

This was before manufacturing left the US. Eventually it became cheaper to employ overseas labor then to package the kit. Who would want to pay $80 for an alarm clock kit when you could buy one already assembled for $20?

[Nonnymus]

Heath also offered a pretty decent study-at-home series of courses in electronics. The courses included building your own oscillator, power supply etc.

Nonnymus

[AZ Nomad]

That was at the time of heath's demise. It was a far cry from when heath sold tvs, stereo equipment, rc airplanes, ham radio, computers, etc. Heath's video and sound quality were far superior to anything available commercial and heath had features seen no where else such as a tv that would automatically realign a rooftop antenna when channels were changed.

[PipeDown]

Heath Kit was great but when Zenith Aquired them it started downhill. Possibly because at the time electronics was beginning a revolution that generally excluded all but the most techie of electronic hobbiests.

BTW, the TV kit was not cheaper than a TV. In most cases the extra packaging and kitting of the parts plus support fot them drove the cost higher than a production version.

[AZ Nomad]

There was a period when the heathkit prices were competitive. Even when they were a bit more expensive, they bought you features not found in any commercial product and you saved money on maintenance by doing it yourself.

Care to look up the price of a scientific calculator in 1975 with full trig and logarithmic functions? Or a FM tuner with a digital quartz synthesized phase locked loop in the same year? The heathkit examples are extreme dinosours compared to today's technology (the calculator required AC current and used 300V gas discharge displays while the tuner cost about a thousand bucks and was as big as an early VCR.) but at the time they were state of the art and unavailable elsewhere.

Obviously, by the time of heath's demise, their kits weren't cheaper. Heath's competition were building their products overseas and that was cheaper than even packaging a kit in the states. Nobody wanted to pay nearly a hundred bucks for a digital alarm clock when commercial ones were a third the price.

[hallerb]

Somehow TODAY companies like Ramsey put out nice kilts, at affordable prices.

Dont know if Ramsey is a US company?

[mm]

I bought, around 1974, a capacitive discharge ignition system kit, for my '67 Pontiac Catalina convertible. I never had any problems starting the car after that. But I bought it from Archer, which iirc is Radio Shack.

A few years later, the main board went, which had a tranformer integral with it (and other small things I soldered to it, all of which tested good.)

Radio Shack is fairly good with parts, once selling me spare suction cups for the electronic car compass they sold. (I have them somewhere, but can't find them. I have a new car and will have to gglue the old suction cup to the window if I don't find my spares. Hmmm. Maybe it's in one particular box.)

But in this case they didn't have the part, so I bought it from HeathKit. Expensive, about a third or half the price of the whole kit. But cheaper than a new kit, and the ignition system went on to work for a total of 14 years, until I got a car where electronic spark was original equipment.

Since then, I saw a guy with 20+ assembled ones, never a kit, and I bought one for a dollar. Maybe I'll have an old car some day. But I still might use the kit -- still works -- and save the new one for later.

One interesting thing. It didn't make any noise in the first car '67 Pontiac Catalina, but in the second car, '72 Buick Centurion Convertible, mounted in the same place, top of firewall just right of center, just left of heater hoses, it squealed steadily and I could hear it inside the car. Mounted it to one end of a piece of wood and mounted the other end of the wood to the same holes I had originally mounted the CD ignition to. No more audible squealing in the car.

[since67]

-------------------------------------

I have to show the current heath/Zenith a little love. I have the exact same model of chime, bought in mid 2008, and it worked, but would sometime start ringing incessantly - couldn't stop it! The battery does not seat well inthe pushbutton compartment but I could not get it to work properly, consistently. so I found Heath onthe web, they have a toll free, and got through after a little waiting and one or two hang-ups. But the person who I eventually talked to just took the date code and sent me a new push-button (SL-6190-B), no questions asked, no charge, and it's been working nicely for two weeks so far. It's the same button, but they changed the way the battery sits in this button, AND, the push-button action works better in this one, which may have been the main problem with the previous. So, in this case, Heath stood behind their product. Woo-Hoo!!

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[AZ Nomad]

That would mean something if the transmitters weren't such crap.

I've now gotten in the habbit of buying a new unit, swapping out the button inerds, and returning it. Home depot doesn't care, heath gets to repackage it with a new ten cent circuit board and still show a ten thousand percent profit.

If they were capable of outlasting the batteries in the packaging, I might feel a little guilt over the practice. So far of the last three, none have outlasted the batteries and none have lasted a whole year.

I should be charging them for the hassle.

[Greg]

Bought one, lasted 2-3 months......have never been able to repair. Crap!

[Clare Snyder]

Heath Zenith ANYTHING is CRAP. Chinese junk with a known name slapped on it.