Ring doorbell, or alternatives
Discussion
Byker28i said:
How do the Nest doorbells ring - can they ring though an Alexa device or mobile only?
The original Nest can also be wired to a standard doorbell and transformer if you still want a traditional doorbell.Personally I have a Nest Hub and that chimes as a doorbell and will automatically display the camera image when the doorbell rings.
8bit said:
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.
So six months in and this post has not aged well. The Arlo is a flaky piece of sUndecided on the base station, will weigh the features and cost up against just using their cloud subscription.
t. When the doorbell is pressed, it's supposed to come through to the phone as a video call. This mostly does happen but sometimes not until several minutes later. Regardless of when it does come through the video never works, only sound. I've tried Arlo tech support umpteen times now and the best I got was a canned autoresponse email telling me to try a factory reset on the doorbell, but not explaining how. I figured it out and it made bugger all difference. The support case I opened and was told I'd hear from an agent within 1 to 2 business days remains unanswered three weeks later.Anyone managed to get this thing to work properly? Failing that, any trick to getting support from Arlo?
I am on our second Arlo bell cam, and can ageee with the above.
I only really want it as a cam, and for the most part, it does that ok….
I have other Arlo cams that are rock solid and can be accessed when ever and however , it’s only the bell that plays hard to get…..
TBF, 99.9 delivery drones don’t even bother knocking or ringing anymore either…..
I only really want it as a cam, and for the most part, it does that ok….
I have other Arlo cams that are rock solid and can be accessed when ever and however , it’s only the bell that plays hard to get…..
TBF, 99.9 delivery drones don’t even bother knocking or ringing anymore either…..
I have yet to find anything "better" than the hello. I think its a combination of bad wifi design in the doorbells themselves and server loads.
I guess the nest servers are in the US? So there is always a lag there. But I have noticed in the afternoons is when the delays are the worst, which is when the US is waking up.
I think what it needs is someone who can write an app that works locally thus everything is on the same network when you are at home.
Its not just ours either my in laws have the same doorbell and theirs is probably worse than ours, you can press the button 2 or 3 times and eventually after knocking (what am I a savage?) they let you in then 10 minutes later you are stood in their kitchen and the notifications come through!
I guess the nest servers are in the US? So there is always a lag there. But I have noticed in the afternoons is when the delays are the worst, which is when the US is waking up.
I think what it needs is someone who can write an app that works locally thus everything is on the same network when you are at home.
Its not just ours either my in laws have the same doorbell and theirs is probably worse than ours, you can press the button 2 or 3 times and eventually after knocking (what am I a savage?) they let you in then 10 minutes later you are stood in their kitchen and the notifications come through!
Thanks for the input. Sounds like all of these things are fairly similarly flaky, possible exception of Ring?
We haven't subscribed for the premium features, we did get a trial of that for a few months as part of the purchase and it dawned on me that maybe the video feed was yet another thing you have to subscribe for? Based on the general disappointment with the thing and the complete lack of tech support for it I'm not convinced that the subscription wouldn't be throwing good money away after bad.
We haven't subscribed for the premium features, we did get a trial of that for a few months as part of the purchase and it dawned on me that maybe the video feed was yet another thing you have to subscribe for? Based on the general disappointment with the thing and the complete lack of tech support for it I'm not convinced that the subscription wouldn't be throwing good money away after bad.
I’ve just switched to a Blink battery doorbell after having Nest and Ring (wired) doorbells, and a Blink camera system for years.
Very very impressive and integrates seamlessly into the Blink app in case you need motion-activated CCTV at any point in the future.
About £35 on Amazon at the mo I think.
A
Very very impressive and integrates seamlessly into the Blink app in case you need motion-activated CCTV at any point in the future.
About £35 on Amazon at the mo I think.
A
I’m after something to replace the Ring. Iffy quality meant that the anodised finish has gone after a couple of years and the subscription hike irked me! I’ve since put in some cctv so looking for something with a wireless doorbell but that also outputs a rtsp from the camera. Any options apart from reolink?
I'm late to this one.. but I've had a hardwired Ring Pro 2 for the last 3 years and it has been totally and utterly faultless. Superb audio and video capability, huge field of view, and excellent motion detection. I really like the app as well.
Absolutely zero complaints from me. Rarely have I been so impressed with a piece of tech. The installation and setup was truly 'fit and forget' and worked perfect ever since.
£220 very well spent.
Absolutely zero complaints from me. Rarely have I been so impressed with a piece of tech. The installation and setup was truly 'fit and forget' and worked perfect ever since.
£220 very well spent.
We've had a hard wired Ring for several years along with 6 chimes/chime pros. We have a pretty solid wifi network at home with gigabit internet, 6 wifi Ubiquiti Unifi access points on a Cat5e/Cat6 backbone and a gigabit switch, so connection and notifications should be pretty much instant. They aren't. There's always at least one chime that shows up as offline. The phone app is often quicker to ring than the chimes, if we're out of the house, the connection feels really flaky, late and often the person who's rung the door has buggered off by the time you're able to talk to them. Finally, in the last few months, the doorbell itself seems to have been dropping its connection for some unbeknown reason, and about 1/3rd of the time, there's no video recorded, and for a while it just wasn't connecting at all. It's a right royal PITA.
I just want it to work like it's supposed to, and for the money it costs both in purchase and subscription, it's gone from acceptable to piss poor.
I just want it to work like it's supposed to, and for the money it costs both in purchase and subscription, it's gone from acceptable to piss poor.
Questions for those with the Reolink doorbells - I take it they can only record to their own brand NVRs, i.e. not to any old home NAS or similar? Regards Reolink Cloud, I presume the doorbell can integrate with that, record there etc. and still send notification to your phone when someone presses the doorbell?
Arlo support are just about useless, they've still not replaced the device (as promised weeks ago) and are now claiming it's a firmware issue that engineering are "aware of but have no ETA for any possible fix". I'm about to start pushing for a refund as it's basically never worked as promised since we bought it.
Arlo support are just about useless, they've still not replaced the device (as promised weeks ago) and are now claiming it's a firmware issue that engineering are "aware of but have no ETA for any possible fix". I'm about to start pushing for a refund as it's basically never worked as promised since we bought it.
JimbobVFR said:
The original Nest can also be wired to a standard doorbell and transformer if you still want a traditional doorbell.
Personally I have a Nest Hub and that chimes as a doorbell and will automatically display the camera image when the doorbell rings.
Apologies if I'm suggesting anyone suck eggs - but for Nest users, Google have rolled Nest Aware (and Fitbit Premium) into one of the Google One packages, so you get Nest, Fitbit and some extra storage with Google for 7.99 a month. Personally I have a Nest Hub and that chimes as a doorbell and will automatically display the camera image when the doorbell rings.
Still a subscription but remarkably good value considering how much the various bits are on their own.
bodhi said:
Apologies if I'm suggesting anyone suck eggs - but for Nest users, Google have rolled Nest Aware (and Fitbit Premium) into one of the Google One packages, so you get Nest, Fitbit and some extra storage with Google for 7.99 a month.
Still a subscription but remarkably good value considering how much the various bits are on their own.
That is interesting - part of what put me off the Google and Amazon doorbells were the subscription fees. I already have Fitbit Premium, does that mean I will already be able to use Nest and the extra storage?Still a subscription but remarkably good value considering how much the various bits are on their own.
8bit said:
bodhi said:
Apologies if I'm suggesting anyone suck eggs - but for Nest users, Google have rolled Nest Aware (and Fitbit Premium) into one of the Google One packages, so you get Nest, Fitbit and some extra storage with Google for 7.99 a month.
Still a subscription but remarkably good value considering how much the various bits are on their own.
That is interesting - part of what put me off the Google and Amazon doorbells were the subscription fees. I already have Fitbit Premium, does that mean I will already be able to use Nest and the extra storage?Still a subscription but remarkably good value considering how much the various bits are on their own.
bodhi said:
You'll just have to migrate the account over to Google One. I did it all through the One app - signed up for the 2Tb deal, then got notifications saying Nest and Fitbit were covered and got credits for any unused subscriptions. No issues with either app as part of the migration either.
Only gripe with that is that Google One doesnt support the legacy "own domain name" accounts. BastidsGassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff