[Closed] What doorbell?

I went for a Eufy pretty high quality recording, stores footage local, alerts your phone and Alexa. It’s on the slower side for the Alexa. Pretty pleased with it.

Ring works well for us. Solar charger to back up the battery. Separate chime for the east wing and also goes off on the phone. Does require sub if you want to store footage but pretty cheap if you have a few cameras (single sub covers everything). Needs decent wifi in the location where it will be placed. Connects to Alexa if you want to.

Maybe I missing something, but what situations are these remote access video doorbells actually for?

You are either at home and can answer the door, or you are not.

If not, then whoever is trying to find you unannounced can call/text you. If they don't have your number then you probably don't want to speak to them on the doorstep via a little camera and speaker anyway if you are not home.

If it is a delivery driver, then they will just leave the parcel on the doorstep as usual, or leave a card regardless of the doorbell.

I'll probably change my mind on how useful there are in a couple of posts when someone explains how they use theirs, and impulse buy one.

We've got a perfectly good doorbell, but for some reason delivery drivers prefer to knock, which is annoying as we can't always hear knocking, which is why we got a doorbell. I asked a driver once he said 'well they don't always work' then why not ring and knock?

All do the same thing so just get one that fits in with whatever other smart home ecosystem you have. We had a Nest Thermometer so got a Nest Hello...just before we started working from home so its effectively been redundant as we've been in for all the daytime deliveries. But it also acts as a CCTV so useful for that if nothing else. Also when we get to the point we go away on holiday or a break.

You are either at home and can answer the door, or you are not.

I can be nights so lying in bed so won’t make the door ask the visitor to hold on, leave the parcel somewhere safe as I can’t be just now or to ignore as it’s no one important so didn’t need to get up to answer.

it also a security device as it picks up motion, mine is pointed towards the car and garage door.

I had an email recently to say a parcel had been delivered, no card and no parcel. Playing the footage back showed the delivery driver putting it behind the wheeling bin.

Of course you can pretend your in too for any dodgy callers but not able to get to the door.

Oh and if also just goes ding dong like a normal bell (other sounds are available).

Yep, they're no longer just doorbells just as a mobile phone is no longer just a mobile phone. In fact the ability to have voice calls is now a minor feature/function of a mobile phone just as the use as a doorbell is with these new smart doorbells.

Even if a delivery person refuses to use it and knocks on the door it will notify you that someone is at the door and you can still speak with them so the fact they don't press the doorbell button is irrelevant.

Maybe I missing something, but what situations are these remote access video doorbells actually for?

We have a three storey house. People don't often wait long enough for me to come down from the top floor, if I even hear it. Also, the kids are often knocking for my kids, who are in their room, so I have to go down and answer the door, come back up and get my daughter who has to then come down, talk to them and optionally go back up again. Ring systems (so I've read) will connect straight to my echo device so I can talk to whoever's there immediately.

The wife insisted on a Ring .... £180 bloody quid for a door bell (bought just before black friday when is was 50 quid off.... grrr nad double grr)

It a waste of time .... the bell isn't currently working as the battery is charging... and it's the worst battery of all time.... takes an age to charge and last about a month.

Utter bobbins

My disgust at the bell (and wife) couldn't be higher.

Exacty as Molgrips says above. We too have a 3 storey house and my home office space is a spare room at the top.

I like to have music on and the door shut so a normal bell / knock can't be heard. The ring flashes on my phone before the button is pressed so at least I am half way down the steps before the delivery driver has legged it instead of not knowing there is an expensive thing sat for all to see.

The ring system does indeed connect to Alexa but tbh it is becoming a pain with 5 devices all announcing rings and presence. The wife likes to have control of Alexa for some reason, so I just have my phone on mute and see notifications instead.

Good system all in all, bar a few quirks.

It'd be nice if the doorbell asked who you wanted to talk to and put you through to the appropriate room. Does it just tannoy on all the devices?

You can get a plug-in version, I think I can wire it up.

there is an expensive thing sat for all to see.

like a doorbell? 😀

Unless I’m missing something obvious, it does indeed just announce it on all Amazon devices.

Some of ours are hard wired into amps so their not heard all the time but it is annoying.

Also a bit rubbish is that every time the wife or I go out the front or back door, it goes off. There is a geofencing setting in the app but that doesn’t seem to work well if at all.

Still a good system, just needs a few tweaks in the software.

Our door video is linked to the cable that came off the original door bell as it carried voltage from the main box.

Seems to charge the ring ok as the battery hasn’t been out since t was installed 8 months ago. Sits about 90% charged or more all the time although it took about 2 days to realise it was connected to power before registering it in the app.

My office is in the loft, getting down involves the ladder which is not quick. Getting advanced warning (person detection) means I'm often already on the landing by the time the bell rings. Same for deliveries when I'm in the garden. Without the phone notification I'd miss loads of deliveries. Nest doorbell here, it's not perfect (2.4/5g issues) but works well enough. We have it wired into the original house call bell system which is quite cool.

Some of ours are hard wired into amps so their not heard all the time but it is annoying.

Ah yeah this was really annoying for us in the living room til we got an Echo Link (not Plus) which integrates seamlessly as a streaming device. All the normal Alexa voice traffic comes via the Echo Dot but when you ask for music it comes out of the hifi. And the music streams fades in and out whenever Alexa says stuff, it's quite cool.

I have my eufy setup so it only alerts rings to the Alexas but my phone and magic iPad get movement alerts. It also allows you to add additional cameras to the hub to act as a mini cctv system.

We’ve got a perfectly good doorbell, but for some reason delivery drivers prefer to knock, which is annoying as we can’t always hear knocking, which is why we got a doorbell. I asked a driver once he said ‘well they don’t always work’ then why not ring and knock?

Same here, I deliberately put the bell push on the door frame at eye level, but people still bang on the bloody door!
As things stand now, nobody at all is in the house between 07.15 and 18.15, I’m 15 miles away, and not always able to answer my phone to a delivery driver, so a smart bell with camera wouldn’t be much help, and the front door is set back from the side of the house, so wouldn’t show where someone had placed an item.

I fitted a ring doorbell to my mums house. She is on her own and was burgled a few years ago. Lots of burglaries are chancers ringing a doorbell to see if anyone answers, if not, in they go. Apparently being videoed on the doorbell acts as a deterrent to them. It also picks up any motion in the driveway so If it helps give my mum peace of mind then fine. As a doorbell for dealing with callers it’s a bit crap, if someone rings the doorbell it takes a couple of seconds to connect to the phone and by the time you grab your phone and access the app the delivery drive has gone. It is wired in to her old doorbell and gets a charge from that and has the built in battery as backup so never really needs charging.

I can be nights so lying in bed so won’t make the door ask the visitor to hold on, leave the parcel somewhere safe as I can’t be just now or to ignore as it’s no one important so didn’t need to get up to answer.

If I’m on nights I peek out the bedroom window like some kind of weird curtain twitcher before deciding whether to run downstairs or ignore them. I feel very old fashioned now!

That would involve getting out of bed and going in another room, I’m normally vegetated with barely the energy to lift my phone.

I’ve half a grand’s worth of ring tat adorning our house. Seriously,
the best bit about it all is the unboxing experience.

I despise the whole ecosystem, it’s slow, buggy and needs an £80 a year subscription to store anything. The topology means every single request goes via AWS servers, even the frikkin PIR activated lights send a check to ring before they turn on. There’s no local cache so if they do spot something and Wi-fi is down then that footage is lost.

The “privacy” is a joke and the worst bit of all is none of the communication with ring is not secured. That’s right, it streams your house live over the internet unencrypted using a regular SIP call. Utter cr@p.

That’s right, it streams your house live

Surely it's only streaming your street?

In my case it streams the street and my back garden/driveway. But they sell an “indoor” cam that uses the same junk protocols.

*this should have read “none of the communication with ring is secured”
<rantyManIsRanty>