Usually yes, and it is worth understanding why before you buy, because the answer depends on three things you can check in about fifteen minutes with a multimeter. Getting this wrong is the single most common cause of the "my video doorbell keeps rebooting" and "the chime makes a horrible buzzing noise" complaints.
Here is what determines it.
The first is voltage. Most existing doorbell transformers in houses put out somewhere between 8 and 24 V AC, and most video doorbells specify a range rather than a single figure — typically 16 to 24 V AC. If your existing transformer is an old 8 V or 12 V unit, that is the most likely reason a wired video doorbell will not run properly on it, and it is the one case where you genuinely may need to change the transformer. Measure it at the button, not at the transformer, and measure it with the circuit closed rather than open, because a weak transformer can read a plausible voltage with nothing drawing from it and then collapse under load.
The second is current, and it is the one people forget. Your transformer has a VA rating printed on it, often 10 VA, 20 VA or 30 VA. The chime itself draws current when it strikes, and the doorbell draws a constant standby current, plus a surge when the camera, infrared and Wi-Fi are all working at once. If the total demand exceeds what the transformer can supply, you get brownouts. Brownouts look like a software fault and are not one: the unit reboots, drops off Wi-Fi, or fails at night specifically, because that is when the infrared LEDs draw the most.
A rough rule that has served me well: if you have an old 10 VA transformer feeding a mechanical chime, assume it is marginal for a video doorbell and plan for a 16 to 24 V unit at 20 VA or more. That is not a sales pitch, it is just where the maths lands.
The third is the chime itself, and this is where "without changing the chime" gets interesting. There are two kinds.
A mechanical chime is the one with physical strikers and metal bars or tubes. A video doorbell is not a simple momentary switch like the button it replaces; it passes a small current through the circuit continuously to power itself. That trickle is usually too small to move a mechanical striker, which is why the doorbell works but the chime stays silent. The fix is the little module that ships in the box, usually a diode or a resistor in a small plastic housing, wired across the chime's terminals. It gives the doorbell's standby current somewhere to go other than through the chime coil. Skip it and you get a chime that buzzes, or one that only strikes once and then hangs.
An electronic chime — the kind that plays a tune through a small speaker — is a different problem. Its circuit expects to be energised and released, not to sit in series with a device drawing current, and the bypass module does not always solve it. Some electronic chimes work fine, some hum, some will not stop ringing. This is the case where people end up either using the plug-in wireless chime that came with the doorbell, or replacing the chime, and honestly the plug-in unit is the lower-effort answer.
There is one more thing worth checking before you start, because it changes whether the wiring job is five minutes or forty: how many buttons and how many chimes you have. A flat with a single button and a single chime is straightforward. A house with a front and back button, or two chimes on different floors, has a more complicated loop, and identifying which conductor goes where is the actual work.
On the practical side. Turn the breaker off before you touch anything, and confirm it is dead rather than assuming it — doorbell wiring is low voltage, but it is fed from a transformer that is not, and people are hurt by the mains side of that circuit, not the bell side. Photograph the existing wiring before you disconnect it. If any of this is unclear, the cost of an electrician for half an hour is far less than the cost of a transformer, a chime and a doorbell.
And the honest alternative: if you do not want to touch the wiring at all, a battery model with a plug-in wireless chime sidesteps the entire question. You give up continuous recording and you charge it every few months, and you never open the transformer. Plenty of people are happier with that trade, especially in rentals.
I work on the manufacturing side of these products, so I see the returns data rather than the marketing, and transformer capacity plus chime compatibility account for a much larger share of "faulty" units than actual faults do. If it helps to see what is available: https://xingliaoshop.com/product-category/smart-video-doorbell/
Xingliao Smart Home builds smart switches, video doorbells and security cameras on Tuya WiFi and Tuya ZigBee, and runs OEM/ODM programmes from Shenzhen. Factory and ODM capability.
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