Video doorbell

[mushtafa]

Looking to replace an old Ring doorbell.

What's the go-to options these days?

I don't mind paying a small sub, or I could use local storage on my unraid server.

Ease of use, motion detection, and video quality is of importance.

 

[Fluffybob]

I have a ring 3 and the quality is fine.

 

[413x]

I have a Google battery.
The new one.

Didn't want to wire it and apart from feeling conned by the 3 hour free window (you can pay the sub for more) it's great.

Read a lot Of people do not like the tall aspect ratio but for me it's absolutely better.

I'd say apart from the subscription the actual product is great.
Already caught someone letting thier dog pee on my Bush.

Day and night is fine.

Some people also commented on lag. Not an issue for me

 

[thenewoc]

Nest wired here and is absolutely fine although the subscription is a bit of a pain.

Good picture quality and speed of notifications although we also opted for having a standard bell chime box too.

Low points are the AI is not capable of distinguishing movement, it only detects changes to the picture so a set of headlights coming in to shot will trigger a notification as will it's lack of distinguishing the size of the trigger so a small spider will also trigger it and the rain. The only way to alleviate this is to turn motion detection off and rely upon it detecting a person (known or not).

Loud noise detection is also unusable as it's too sensitive and not adjustable so wind will set it off.

Without the Nest Aware subscription I can't see any timeline in the web app, only on the mobile app and then only the last 3 hours. The whole 3 hour thing is totally ridiculous since 3 hours of clips from anytime in the last 24 would be no more to store than the last 3 hours. Don't know what Google was thinking when deciding this. You also loose definable zones so you either get notifications from everything the camera sees for motion and people or each of these can be fully turned off.

 

[413x]

Nest wired here and is absolutely fine although the subscription is a bit of a pain.

Good picture quality and speed of notifications although we also opted for having a standard bell chime box too.

Low points are the AI is not capable of distinguishing movement, it only detects changes to the picture so a set of headlights coming in to shot will trigger a notification as will it's lack of distinguishing the size of the trigger so a small spider will also trigger it and the rain. The only way to alleviate this is to turn motion detection off and rely upon it detecting a person (known or not).

Loud noise detection is also unusable as it's too sensitive and not adjustable so wind will set it off.

Without the Nest Aware subscription I can't see any timeline in the web app, only on the mobile app and then only the last 3 hours. The whole 3 hour thing is totally ridiculous since 3 hours of clips from anytime in the last 24 would be no more to store than the last 3 hours. Don't know what Google was thinking when deciding this. You also loose definable zones so you either get notifications from everything the camera sees for motion and people or each of these can be fully turned off.

I guess that's a plus for the battery.

I get zoning, object identification in that 3 hour window.

It's been flawless. Not missed anyone. No false detection. Only thing that sometimes confuses it is person or person with package. But generally good

Zoning is essential

 

[thenewoc]

I guess that's a plus for the battery.

I get zoning, object identification in that 3 hour window.

It's been flawless. Not missed anyone. No false detection. Only thing that sometimes confuses it is person or person with package. But generally good

Zoning is essential

Zoning seems to be better on the battery model then as it's non existent on the wired model without a subscription. The false alarms come from having motion detection enabled, I don't think we'd get them with it turned off but then we'd be relying on person detection on the drive which I don't know whether that would work if the whole person wasn't within the zone or the person deliberately tried to fool the camera by wearing a disguise for example. The battery model I guess would have a better chance of detecting being fooled as it has animal detection too whereas the wired currently does not.

I only get people or motion detection without the subscription which would then also add parcel detection.

 

[413x]

Zoning seems to be better on the battery model then as it's non existent on the wired model without a subscription. The false alarms come from having motion detection enabled, I don't think we'd get them with it turned off but then we'd be relying on person detection on the drive which I don't know whether that would work if the whole person wasn't within the zone or the person deliberately tried to fool the camera by wearing a disguise for example. The battery model I guess would have a better chance of detecting being fooled as it has animal detection too whereas the wired currently does not.

I only get people or motion detection without the subscription which would then also add parcel detection.

It's been pretty good. I'm not sure how it does it. But even if a foot appears it knows its a person.
I guess it knows there's a person in the whole FOV but only alerts if a part of that person enters the zone.

Mine has picked up such events. Like when someone's dog walks onto the path it knows its a person despite that person not entering the zone

Here's an example of someone just walking past. Their dog just crossed the line. But it identified the video as a person even though they themselves didn't cross it

 

[thenewoc]

It's been pretty good. I'm not sure how it does it. But even if a foot appears it knows its a person.
I guess it knows there's a person in the whole FOV but only alerts if a part of that person enters the zone.

Mine has picked up such events. Like when someone's dog walks onto the path it knows its a person despite that person not entering the zone

Here's an example of someone just walking past. Their dog just crossed the line. But it identified the video as a person even though they themselves didn't cross it

That's good to know since I have to zone the parking space around only part of the car otherwise I'd be including the public path and road.

I think it's rather tight of Google to only include the 24/7 video with the £10 a month plan. It makes it quite expensive when I consider the £5 a month quite a lot for what they're offering already. Would have made the £5 more palatable if they had at least included 48 hours or so of 24/7 recording on the cheaper plan.

 

[Buffman]

I have a eufy 2k wireless (although it's actually wired... Only the"wireless" offers option of using existing 8v transformer)

The quality is very good and no issues with it thus far. My front door is round a corner so no issues with false detection etc.

Main selling point to me was £0 monthly and stored locally on the homebase kit.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

When my Ring eventually breaks I will have Eufy, I've heard a lot about them and you don't have to buy a subscription (I think).

 

[413x]

That's good to know since I have to zone the parking space around only part of the car otherwise I'd be including the public path and road.

I think it's rather tight of Google to only include the 24/7 video with the £10 a month plan. It makes it quite expensive when I consider the £5 a month quite a lot for what they're offering already. Would have made the £5 more palatable if they had at least included 48 hours or so of 24/7 recording on the cheaper plan.

Quite annoyed by subscription. Almost sent it back. But the unit is so good and so little faff I decided to put up with the 3hrs.

When I asked them they said 3hrs of footage.

I clearly asked 'is it 3 hours of saved video footage or a 3 hour time window (eg 1200 to 1459). The reply was "3hrs of footage"
3 hours is obviously useless if you want to capture night time stuff. Which is a selling point.

 

[thenewoc]

Quite annoyed by subscription. Almost sent it back. But the unit is so good and so little faff I decided to put up with the 3hrs.

When I asked them they said 3hrs of footage.

I clearly asked 'is it 3 hours of saved video footage or a 3 hour time window (eg 1200 to 1459). The reply was "3hrs of footage"
3 hours is obviously useless if you want to capture night time stuff. Which is a selling point.

Agreed, it's so badly worded that their own staff don't understand.

I guess if you had a suitable NAS setup you could probably share a feed to it and record locally but its less faff to do it in the cloud. I just think their pricing model is a bit punitive not to have included any 24/7 recording in the lowest sub option. I think a couple of quid a month would be more realistic for what their offering.

 

[413x]

Agreed, it's so badly worded that their own staff don't understand.

I guess if you had a suitable NAS setup you could probably share a feed to it and record locally but its less faff to do it in the cloud. I just think their pricing model is a bit punitive not to have included any 24/7 recording in the lowest sub option. I think a couple of quid a month would be more realistic for what their offering.

It's so poorly worded. I've seen reviewera say both options too.
Better to say you get access to the recordings for 3 hours.

 

[thenewoc]

It's so poorly worded. I've seen reviewera say both options too.
Better to say you get access to the recordings for 3 hours.

Very confusing I agree, especially since when on the subscription you can create 3 hours worth of clips without them obviously having to be consecutive, although restricted in total to 3 hours or less. Don't get the option to create clips on the wired doorbell without the subscription though as I've now discovered. However I can still access some clips that were somehow created and it shows I'm not using the full 3 hours. Since the notification clips are no different to manually created clips it's very odd the way they've restricted the notification clips to only those that have occurred in the last 3 hours.

 

[robj20]

I'd love one but no chance I'm paying a subscription.

 

[VigiFlyer]

I have a Netatmo Doorbell. Overall I am OK with it. The one pain is the recording in that it doesn't pre-record and then snip the video. Most of the video recordings are after the person has walked past. Not a problem for those people who are knocking on my door. If you are like the ring owners on my estate FB group, they like nothing better than reviewing everyone else's business walking past their house.

The video quality is OK. You do need an 8V supply to the camera but it is a subscription fee and can upload to dropbox.

 

[thenewoc]

They really ought to do a subscription for owners that just have the doorbell which I think is how it was with Nest before Google decided to make the package subscription tiers that cover multiple cameras in the same home.

I really went for the Nest because we have other Nest items although not other Nest cameras.

I wouldn't have paid £200+ for one but got this one as an open box deal from Currys.

 

[Moley]

I have a Ring doorbell and while it's quite good, the one thing that annoys me is the time it take the app to connect to the doorbell when it rings. Bell goes, open app, click on doorbell, wait 10 secs or so. That's too long, it should be instant. Do any of the other ones perform better?

 

[thenewoc]

I have a Ring doorbell and while it's quite good, the one thing that annoys me is the time it take the app to connect to the doorbell when it rings. Bell goes, open app, click on doorbell, wait 10 secs or so. That's too long, it should be instant. Do any of the other ones perform better?

I had heard this about the Ring ones but the Nest one is instant for me. It pops a notification the moment the bell rings so you can just tap the notification to open the app.

 

[413x]

I have a Ring doorbell and while it's quite good, the one thing that annoys me is the time it take the app to connect to the doorbell when it rings. Bell goes, open app, click on doorbell, wait 10 secs or so. That's too long, it should be instant. Do any of the other ones perform better?

Mines much quicker than that. 2 seconds for a chime? I'll test

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I have a Ring doorbell and while it's quite good, the one thing that annoys me is the time it take the app to connect to the doorbell when it rings. Bell goes, open app, click on doorbell, wait 10 secs or so. That's too long, it should be instant. Do any of the other ones perform better?

You need the APP Rapid Ring