Ring doorbell, or alternatives
Discussion
snotrag said:
I have a full Reolink POE CCTV system round the house and recently added the doorbell but cautiously chose the Wifi version rtaher than POE as it would have been a very tricky ethernet run and the exisitng transfomer for the old door bell was ideal.
It works perfectly, qualifty is great, integrates seamlessly into the rest of the system (app, recorder etc) and requires no on going subscription, cloud services etc etc. Well pleased with all our Reolink stuff really.
Thanks for that. Can the Reolink doorbell record to third-party devices (e.g. an existing home NAS) or does it have to be something from within their ecosystem? How quick do you get the notification when someone's at the door/presses the bell?It works perfectly, qualifty is great, integrates seamlessly into the rest of the system (app, recorder etc) and requires no on going subscription, cloud services etc etc. Well pleased with all our Reolink stuff really.
mikeiow said:
We have Blink at home and also at the now-passed MIL’s home.
Great for recording to playback later, but not often fast enough on notifications to catch a delivery driver…
Sorry to hear about your MIL.Great for recording to playback later, but not often fast enough on notifications to catch a delivery driver…
Poor notification response time is a deal-breaker for us, the main driver for looking at these is because it'll take my wife a bit longer to get to the door if she's in her garden office.
Alex Z said:
My Eufy is working very nicely with local storage.
When you say local storage, do you mean an internal SD card? Some external thing like a NAS? What's the notification response time like with Eufy doorbells?Just to close this out, I went for the Arlo Essential Wireless doorbell and Chime 2. Just installed it this morning, so far so good - when the cleaner arrived the chime, my phone and my Fitbit all went bananas, little chance of missing a delivery driver now!
Undecided on the base station, will weigh the features and cost up against just using their cloud subscription.
Undecided on the base station, will weigh the features and cost up against just using their cloud subscription.
Call me paranoid, but, the idea of Amazon collecting data on whose passing the house, walking up the drive, how many Evri deliveries, how many other couriers etc tends to turn me off.....
And you have to pay a subscription to them as well..... No wonder Bezos has the world by the b
ks!!
And you have to pay a subscription to them as well..... No wonder Bezos has the world by the b
ks!!bodhi said:
We went for the Nest Wireless Doorbell as we're already pretty invested in the Nest/Google Home stuff, absolutely sero complaints so far. We're also on a main road and did get a few notifications, but you can adjust the detection area fairly easily.
Had the same for 2.5 years. Previously had a basic Ring which was rubbish. Very impressed by the Nest doorbell, particularly as our house is pretty heavily invested in the Google ecosystem.Wife didn't want ring as she doesn't have her phone with her all day so we have a hard wired version from Amazon with a screen in the hall.
Works fine, no subscription, no batteries and doesn't bother us when we are not at home.
There are a surprising number of delivery drivers who knock on the door simply because they don't want to be on video - I know they still will be but until someone tells them . . . .
Works fine, no subscription, no batteries and doesn't bother us when we are not at home.
There are a surprising number of delivery drivers who knock on the door simply because they don't want to be on video - I know they still will be but until someone tells them . . . .
I think they all have issues...
Had a couple of ring doorbells maybe 6 years ago. Notifications were slow and speaking to the postie was awful. Had decent speed internet and one just blamed the other.
Moved to Nest, generally ok but again even with super fast Virgin, talking to the postie is bad. Could be my crappy O2, Virgin or the google servers.
Now one of my Nest cams has died (they always do just outside of warranty) I'm now trying Eufy, but still finding notifications are slow.
Recently local scum got into partners car with 2 cams looking straight at them. TBH theyre bleeding pointless now we live in this lawless society! They know the police won't even bother investigating....
Had a couple of ring doorbells maybe 6 years ago. Notifications were slow and speaking to the postie was awful. Had decent speed internet and one just blamed the other.
Moved to Nest, generally ok but again even with super fast Virgin, talking to the postie is bad. Could be my crappy O2, Virgin or the google servers.
Now one of my Nest cams has died (they always do just outside of warranty) I'm now trying Eufy, but still finding notifications are slow.
Recently local scum got into partners car with 2 cams looking straight at them. TBH theyre bleeding pointless now we live in this lawless society! They know the police won't even bother investigating....
super7 said:
Call me paranoid, but, the idea of Amazon collecting data on whose passing the house, walking up the drive, how many Evri deliveries, how many other couriers etc tends to turn me off.....
And you have to pay a subscription to them as well..... No wonder Bezos has the world by the bks!!
In large part that was what put me off a Ring or Blink doorbell. Also wasn't keen on the Nest option because I'm not sure I want Google knowing even more about us either.And you have to pay a subscription to them as well..... No wonder Bezos has the world by the b
ks!!Byker28i said:
How do the Nest doorbells ring - can they ring though an Alexa device or mobile only?
They either ring through your mobile or if you have any Google Home devices it will ring through those also, and if you have the Hub it will automatically switch to a picture from the doorbell and let you answer it through that. I'd recommend the Hub Max for that tho, as it's marginal whether the basic Hubs have enough grunt to switch to the video feed and let you speak quickly enough. No issues on the Max or on the phone either.
Byker28i said:
Thanks. Mrs B fancies a Ring, I'm taking my time to look at alternatives, plus at some point I'll need to replace the Hive cameras as they fail after 2 years/aren't supported anymore very shortly.
We've got a few Nest cameras dotted about as well and I struggle to fault them from a user experience point of view. Whilst they're a bit more expensive than the others they are incredibly easy to set up and provide decent quality images - the face detection stuff in the new Wireless cams is pretty impressive too. They're perfectly useable without a subscription, but obviously much more powerful if you do sign up. We bought and quickly installed/had running an ACEBELL WiFi Video Door Phone for my 91 year old FIL who lives next door.
He sometimes takes in our packages and has home meals delivered but was more concerned that it takes him a while to get out of the chair and physically answer the door. He doesn't have a smartphone and wouldn't be able to use it anyway, but the 7" stand-alone monitor means he can see and talk to callers by just pressing one button. No subscription - the videos are stored on a card in the monitor.
The second advantage came in that there is an app my other half and her sister have on their phones, so they can also answer or monitor any calls at the door and see comings and goings where ever they are.
It's not cheap but it is good if you need the basic simple interface for one user, but extra capabilities for more competent users.
He sometimes takes in our packages and has home meals delivered but was more concerned that it takes him a while to get out of the chair and physically answer the door. He doesn't have a smartphone and wouldn't be able to use it anyway, but the 7" stand-alone monitor means he can see and talk to callers by just pressing one button. No subscription - the videos are stored on a card in the monitor.
The second advantage came in that there is an app my other half and her sister have on their phones, so they can also answer or monitor any calls at the door and see comings and goings where ever they are.
It's not cheap but it is good if you need the basic simple interface for one user, but extra capabilities for more competent users.
8bit said:
super7 said:
Call me paranoid, but, the idea of Amazon collecting data on whose passing the house, walking up the drive, how many Evri deliveries, how many other couriers etc tends to turn me off.....
And you have to pay a subscription to them as well..... No wonder Bezos has the world by the bks!!
In large part that was what put me off a Ring or Blink doorbell. Also wasn't keen on the Nest option because I'm not sure I want Google knowing even more about us either.And you have to pay a subscription to them as well..... No wonder Bezos has the world by the b
ks!!Nest Hello here. Its been reliable but notifications are slow. Picture is good and low light is good. I also think it looks good.
The 2 way is laggy so its had to have a conversation.
A lot of the time its so slow that by the time the app is open the person has just walked away.
When its a chugger its not a problem but if its a delivery its a PITA.
The 2 way is laggy so its had to have a conversation.
A lot of the time its so slow that by the time the app is open the person has just walked away.
When its a chugger its not a problem but if its a delivery its a PITA.
gotoPzero said:
Nest Hello here. Its been reliable but notifications are slow. Picture is good and low light is good. I also think it looks good.
The 2 way is laggy so its had to have a conversation.
A lot of the time its so slow that by the time the app is open the person has just walked away.
When its a chugger its not a problem but if its a delivery its a PITA.
Another Nest house here, and FWIW I'm in the process of shopping alternatives. Nest was great pre-Google, the product and app design is great and it's so simple to set up and use. But all the Nest cameras are laggy (I can relate to the issue described, of receiving an alert and then whatever/whoever triggered it being long gone before it finally shows you the feed), and are getting worse. The 2 way is laggy so its had to have a conversation.
A lot of the time its so slow that by the time the app is open the person has just walked away.
When its a chugger its not a problem but if its a delivery its a PITA.
Also, the subscription cost is about to massively increase (in our case, it's going up 57%) and it's going to be mandatory to migrate Nest accounts to Google (the Google app has a minimal feature set compared to Nest, parity has been promised two years ago but hasn't happened).
For all those reasons, I'm now looking at Apple HomeKit (obvs only really makes sense if you have apple phones, etc).
8bit said:
super7 said:
Call me paranoid, but, the idea of Amazon collecting data on whose passing the house, walking up the drive, how many Evri deliveries, how many other couriers etc tends to turn me off.....
And you have to pay a subscription to them as well..... No wonder Bezos has the world by the bks!!
In large part that was what put me off a Ring or Blink doorbell. Also wasn't keen on the Nest option because I'm not sure I want Google knowing even more about us either.And you have to pay a subscription to them as well..... No wonder Bezos has the world by the b
ks!!RizzoTheRat said:
8bit said:
super7 said:
Call me paranoid, but, the idea of Amazon collecting data on whose passing the house, walking up the drive, how many Evri deliveries, how many other couriers etc tends to turn me off.....
And you have to pay a subscription to them as well..... No wonder Bezos has the world by the bks!!
In large part that was what put me off a Ring or Blink doorbell. Also wasn't keen on the Nest option because I'm not sure I want Google knowing even more about us either.And you have to pay a subscription to them as well..... No wonder Bezos has the world by the b
ks!!Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff