Ring doorbell, or alternatives

[C5_Steve]

Byker28i said:

Anyone got any thoughts on the Eufy cameras being pushed on Amazon etc.

£95 with doorbell chimer for indoors, 16Gb storage local so no monthly fee

Bought my Mum one when she was looking into getting a camera-type doorbell, have to say I'm impressed with it. She's gone with the rechargeable option so installation was easy and the installation instructions were so simple a child could do it. Set up was also just as easy with the base actually talking to you as you go and the app having very helpful videos at certain points.

We even had cause to get hold of a new base unit when her cats mullered the antennas on hers, pleasingly you can get pretty much every part off their website individually and a new base/chime thing was surprisingly cheap (about £25-£30 from memory).

[Swervin_Mervin]

8bit said:

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 st. 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've been looking at this issue myself, since we got an Arlo a few months ago. Is the issue that you don't see the video when the doorbell is rung - just a grey screen instead? If so then from what I can gather, that seems to be the norm. Which is a bit st. However, it still seems to be quick enough that I'll have already got the alert that someone is at the door and I can see who it is.

Generally I'm still happy with ours for the cost, as it's still one of the cheapest subscription doorbells out there. And if you're wearing a tin foil hat is one of the few that isn't Chinese.

[epom]

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!!

I used to feel similar. Then I realised it made very little difference, they will still know.

[Anastie]

A nest doorbell user here (Hard wired in) having previously used a Hikvision doorbell which was appallingly bad,

The video quality of the Nest doorbell is excellent. However, the notifications are about 15-20 s delayed so when it rings they have usually gone. Looking for a replacement so the comments on this thread are helpful.

[8bit]

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.

Good to know, thanks - I'd been holding out on switching my Fitbit across to Google (in vain really, I know). I'll have a look though.

Byker28i said:

Anyone got any thoughts on the Eufy cameras being pushed on Amazon etc.

£95 with doorbell chimer for indoors, 16Gb storage local so no monthly fee

Also keen to hear about that if anyone has one of these.

Swervin_Mervin said:

I've been looking at this issue myself, since we got an Arlo a few months ago. Is the issue that you don't see the video when the doorbell is rung - just a grey screen instead? If so then from what I can gather, that seems to be the norm. Which is a bit st. However, it still seems to be quick enough that I'll have already got the alert that someone is at the door and I can see who it is.

Generally I'm still happy with ours for the cost, as it's still one of the cheapest subscription doorbells out there. And if you're wearing a tin foil hat is one of the few that isn't Chinese.

On my phone (Pixel 7a, Android 14) when the doorbell is pressed about 75% of the time I just get a popup notification saying someone has pressed the doorbell. Tapping that does absolutely nothing. What's supposed to happen is a video call comes to the phone, this happens about 20% of the time. Remaining 5%, nothing happens at all. When the video call does come through and I answer it, I get the audio OK but just a black screen with a never-ending spinning circle like it's trying but unable to connect the video.

The same thing happened on the app on my wife's iPhone until quite recently, but that seems to work OK now. Arlo are claiming it's a firmware issue, which I suspect is bks because otherwise it would affect both devices. At one point they blamed our wifi, until I took the device into the same room as the router and it behaved exactly the same way.

Their tech support is extremely slow and not very good at all. Besides the above issues, the app is flaky, unintuitive and does almost nothing without a paid subscription. Whole thing has just been a stshow really, first and definitely last purchase from Arlo.

[Swervin_Mervin]

8bit said:

Swervin_Mervin said:

I've been looking at this issue myself, since we got an Arlo a few months ago. Is the issue that you don't see the video when the doorbell is rung - just a grey screen instead? If so then from what I can gather, that seems to be the norm. Which is a bit st. However, it still seems to be quick enough that I'll have already got the alert that someone is at the door and I can see who it is.

Generally I'm still happy with ours for the cost, as it's still one of the cheapest subscription doorbells out there. And if you're wearing a tin foil hat is one of the few that isn't Chinese.

On my phone (Pixel 7a, Android 14) when the doorbell is pressed about 75% of the time I just get a popup notification saying someone has pressed the doorbell. Tapping that does absolutely nothing. What's supposed to happen is a video call comes to the phone, this happens about 20% of the time. Remaining 5%, nothing happens at all. When the video call does come through and I answer it, I get the audio OK but just a black screen with a never-ending spinning circle like it's trying but unable to connect the video.

The same thing happened on the app on my wife's iPhone until quite recently, but that seems to work OK now. Arlo are claiming it's a firmware issue, which I suspect is bks because otherwise it would affect both devices. At one point they blamed our wifi, until I took the device into the same room as the router and it behaved exactly the same way.

Their tech support is extremely slow and not very good at all. Besides the above issues, the app is flaky, unintuitive and does almost nothing without a paid subscription. Whole thing has just been a stshow really, first and definitely last purchase from Arlo.

Ahh right. Can't say as I've had any of those issues tbh. I'm on a Pixel 7Pro on Android 14.

[8bit]

Those who have Nest wireless doorbells connected to a wired chime - does the wiring from the chime provide the power for the Nest or do you still need battery for that?

I'm planning on having a chime and transformer installed specifically for this, if it's a case of "some do but some don't" then that will influence what chime/transformer I buy.

[JimbobVFR]

8bit said:

Those who have Nest wireless doorbells connected to a wired chime - does the wiring from the chime provide the power for the Nest or do you still need battery for that?

I'm planning on having a chime and transformer installed specifically for this, if it's a case of "some do but some don't" then that will influence what chime/transformer I buy.

You buy a specific hardwired version of the Nest which is indeed powered by the transformer of your wired chime.

[8bit]

I thought the wired Nest doorbell was being discontinued? There are also features you get with the wireless version that I want, these are not available with the wired model.

[JimbobVFR]

Yes the one I have is being discontinued. The new one will be powered by the transformer and has battery management to keep the battery at about 80% to prolong the battery life. However po nice the temperature gets below freezing it stops charging and runs just on the battery.

[Puzzles]

I also find with the eufy I get a notification instantly but by the time the video feed has been loaded the delivery driver has gone.

It’s a bit poor but there doesn’t seem to be one stand out option, even if you spend a lot more.

[8bit]

JimbobVFR said:

Yes the one I have is being discontinued. The new one will be powered by the transformer and has battery management to keep the battery at about 80% to prolong the battery life. However po nice the temperature gets below freezing it stops charging and runs just on the battery.

Thanks, that's very helpful. Did you install your Nest with an existing chime and transformer or did you have something installed specifically?

[Byker28i]

C5_Steve said:

Byker28i said:

Anyone got any thoughts on the Eufy cameras being pushed on Amazon etc.

£95 with doorbell chimer for indoors, 16Gb storage local so no monthly fee

Bought my Mum one when she was looking into getting a camera-type doorbell, have to say I'm impressed with it. She's gone with the rechargeable option so installation was easy and the installation instructions were so simple a child could do it. Set up was also just as easy with the base actually talking to you as you go and the app having very helpful videos at certain points.

We even had cause to get hold of a new base unit when her cats mullered the antennas on hers, pleasingly you can get pretty much every part off their website individually and a new base/chime thing was surprisingly cheap (about £25-£30 from memory).

I bought one of these. It's been brilliant. Battery lasts a surprisingly long time. Picture quality is very good and we've actually used it a couple of times to talk to delivery people when out.

[Uncle Meat]

8bit said:

JimbobVFR said:

Yes the one I have is being discontinued. The new one will be powered by the transformer and has battery management to keep the battery at about 80% to prolong the battery life. However po nice the temperature gets below freezing it stops charging and runs just on the battery.

Thanks, that's very helpful. Did you install your Nest with an existing chime and transformer or did you have something installed specifically?

Not specifically answering your question but my Nest came with a Nest mini speaker which, amongst other things, can state the name of the person who rang the doorbell (or just ring normally).