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Specifically one that will show up on my Alexa Show when I'm in the garden office. But also on my phone while I'm away
What's good out there?
Guessing maybe Ring, but there seem to be loads of variations
TIA
I have exactly that. It works, but I have nothing to compare against.
I'd strongly recommend a wired install, or something with easily removable batteries. Far from the advertised battery life, I was getting about a fortnight out of a charge and taking it off the wall to recharge was a pain in the ding-dong.
Oh, and there was a thread a month or so ago. Worth a search back.
We have rings as well, sync to the echo shows/dots around the house, flashes up on the telly if we are watching the fire stick and shows on phones/watches.
We pay the annual sub to keep video
Worth a search back.
You have actually tried using the STW search function at some point I presume?
I'll get a recommendation from 2015 😉
put a blink one up end of November battery ok still, I'm always shocked when someone actually rings it and my mobile shouts 'DING DONG', Its amazon owned so should be compatible
Eufy. No subscription needed you can get a local hub to store footage and works with Alexa.
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/ring-door-bells-etc/
I already have a Blink camera set up, so may try Blink.
Surprisingly Amazon searches weren't throwing Blink up when I looked.
The frustration with the cameras though, is that when you get a notification, you can't go straight to Live View, you have to wait and then look at the clip. Or let it finish recording the clip, then go to live view. Don't really want that with a doorbell, you need to be able to see instantly
I have the ring setup with Echo Shows around the house works really well only been using for under a month.
you need to be able to see instantly
In Blink - This in settings for each camera and can be changed.
I have Blink cameras and they can be turned on to notify the Echo Show in MrsSC's garden office.
Only when I am out though because we just kept the normal door bell with a camera above the door.
Anyone not fully locked into Ring yet would do well to read this. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/3/23623523/ring-alarm-camera-features-subscription
You might argue it’s not a [i]lot[/i] of money they’re asking, it’s almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg though. And the idea that you’re paying to have your data harvested is pretty funny 😂
Wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon quietly binned off Blink at some point and tried to get all those customers on board with Ring (they’ve done that before!)
The trouble is although there are options that don’t (and will never) involve cloud services/subscriptions etc they’re just not simple like Ring/blink etc
And the less said about Eufy the better 😂 https://www.tomsguide.com/news/eufy-cameras-allegedly-uploaded-data-to-the-cloud-despite-local-storage-promises
I've got a ring doorbell.
First one died, so replaced it. I then got it working hard wired so thought I'd use it round the back.
I pay for a subscription to save my videos, turns out that's just for 1 device. If I want to add more devices price goes up.
When this one dies I won't be buying another ring door bell. Plenty of competition out there with free storage.
And the less said about Eufy the better.
So if you enable thumbnails they’re temporarily stored in the cloud but by default they’re not.
I pay for a subscription to save my videos,
With Blink you can bypass the subscription by using a USB memory stick.
We had a blink and Echo show 5 bundle off Amazon. They both got returned. By default it doesn't show live view on the Echo show when someone rings the bell. You have to set up a routine, which isn't the end of the world. But then it would start the routine and then, after what seemed like an age, decide that the doorbell must be offline and it couldn't show it. Even though it had just chimed because someone had pressed the bell!
We replaced it a few months later with a wire Ring and the same Echo Show 5. Works much better and you just have to enable the ring skill to get it to show straight away and every time without any problems. Yeah we have to pay about £30/yr to save the videos, but at least it works.
zilog6128 - Thanks was not aware of that although I am currently just using as a doorbell and not subscribing to any services, literally everything now has some kind of subscription.
looked into this in depth a few years ago and eventually went with the ring with amazon echo setup and subscription. Wired doorbell, which I've just replaced. Live view, alerts all just work. One less thing to have to program, mess about with.
We pay for the ring subscription (now 80 quid) as we have 4 ring cameras, front doorbell, side ring floodlight cam wired again and another indoor one. Paid for itself 10x over - as far as my neighbours were concerned, when I was able to share - really quickly - with local plod and the neighbour, some scrotes at 3am going into their car 🙂 and scoping out their and the house next doors driveway. Now most of my neighbours have the doorbell setup.
Been faultless so far.
My main negative for the ring cameras, is the quality of the cameras could be improved. Image quality isn't / wasn't as good as the nest kit. That may have changed now.
For balance, prior to this setup I had the Google Nest outdoor camera, which is superb and way better than ring kit; both for image quality and quality of construction. It was the ridiculously expensive subscription cost at nest that swayed my decision to go woth ring.
literally everything now has some kind of subscription.
To be fair, it's something like £2.99 a month. That gets you a front-facing CCTV camera for the price of a pint per month. I initially didn't subscribe because of pretty much exactly that reason, "yet another bloody subscription," but signed up after the neighbour had their car scraped right outside my house.