Any recommendations on doorbell cameras? I used to have Ring and it was ok. Moved and got Blink- sucks, didn’t realize it was battery only, constantly dead. Looking at Eufy from Costco- hardwired and no subscription because it uses local storage. Thoughts?
I got a jeatone for the peephole
Advantages:
- It can work 100% offline because it has a 5" screen inside the door so I can see who’s outside
- It can record 100% offline because it has a 128gb microSD (located inside the door so it can’t be stolen without breaking&entering)
- It has a PIR sensor in front so it only activates when someone is in front, so cars passing on the road don’t activate a recording
- It has a removable battery
- The battery is 5000 mAh so it lasts months and months
- It charges via USB c
- Bidirectional microphone and if someone rings the bell (and I gave it wifi access) first I get a notification “someone is in front of the door” when the pir sensor detected movement, then when he rings the bell I get a video call
- No subscription required
- App UI to see recordings is decent, thanks to the dedicated movement sensor it highlights times with recordings without using AI detection or something like that
- IR floodlights to see everything clearly in night time (although in pitch black can see faint dark red lights from the LEDs)
- It costs half price than the ring and doesn’t come with the mandatory privacy intrusion
- Doesn’t require screws or vhb tape, once inserted in the peephole it has hooks for a toolless install of the inside vision LCD screen
- Maybe because it’s based on tuya it can be possible to integrate it with home assistant? I didn’t try it, I didn’t trust it so I placed it on a “no LAN access” WLAN
Disadvantages:
- It doesn’t support onvif or other standard protocol so if someone wants an automatic backup of recordings off-site, the only option is to pay a cloud recording subscription
- Fucking tuya
- Technically, it can be removed without tools to charge at an outlet once a few months, but then you need to insert again the flat cable from the camera on the motherboard, not something that can last hundreds of insertions, I had to buy a very long out of spec USB cable to charge it (temporarily for 2 hours every few months, then remove it)
From your OP it sounds like you want something that’s plug and play with an easy to use app. Personally I don’t recommend any cloud connected cameras. Blink, eufy, ring, they’re all hot trash and sell your data and the feeds to anyone and everything. On top of that you have no guarantee that one day they won’t just like, shut down your doorbell cloud, man. Happens all the time.
I use a reolink WiFi wired 2k camera. Drop in replacement to a normal doorbell (doesn’t need Ethernet or a neutral wire) and I have it set to connect locally.
You can use their app if you like.
Quality is great, day or night. Connects to Wi-Fi really well even though my AP is on the other side of the house. No problems with weather.
I have an Arlo, and it gets the job done. Local SD card storage (you have to buy the hub for this), HomeKit integration. No complaints.
I have three Reolinks. One doorbell, and two of the cheaper wireless with a solar hookup. All three have the max SD memory card they’ll take. As with any product, you’ll get lots of variation, but so far all of them have done well enough for me.
Issues:
They aren’t the highest res (newer models are better)
We had to get a wireless extender to reach the farthest one, and there still can be some stutter for the higher bitrate
For one solar panel it took a year and some drop in charging to realize the first spot wasn’t the best for all seasons, but now they stay 100%
Caveat is that batteries and solar do have a lifetime, but going on 4-5 years now and no notice of difference yet
The app/client is okay, could be better, and doesn’t have the greatest support, but it works ok for my basic needs. I’ve heard you can use other ways to get the signal, but haven’t tried.
I’d buy them again. Can’t speak for the higher end ones if they’re worth the extra features.
I imagine you’re aware of this but Ring have a deal with police where they can view your doorbell’s footage without a warrant. Idk if this is the case for other brands but certainly worth keeping in mind
I have a Eufy. The only good thing about it, IMO, is the local storage and no required subscription. That’s exactly why I bought it. Aside from that, I find it’s incredibly unreliable and frustrating to use and configure. I also have the Smart Display, which is supposed to integrate seamlessly and turn on automatically when someone rings the doorbell, and it simply doesn’t. It often turns on minutes later, if at all, well after the person left.
The doorbell’s video quality, while supposed to be 2K, is crap. It’s completely jittery, not smooth at all - which means I’ll see a person approach my door, start walking away, and then they’ll simply disappear because of how inconsistent and jittery the stream is. Useless if you care about actually seeing what’s going on outside.
When someone presses the button to ring the doorbell, it rings maybe 50% of the time. The other times it doesn’t make a sound, but still registers the person in the log. Which is completely useless for a doorbell.
On paper, Eufy checks all the boxes. In practice, I’ve been entirely unhappy with it.
Would you trust Eufy? A few years ago, they got in trouble because their cameras might only store footage locally but they stream to the cloud. They claim to have fixed the issue, but it is unclear if they mean that the footage is no longer being sent or if they just tightened security so that only they (and trusted partners) can watch it.
See: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/more-eufy-camera-flaws-found-including-remote-unencrypted-feed-viewing/ https://www.cnet.com/home/security/eufy-says-software-bug-that-exposed-users-video-footage-to-strangers-has-been-fixed/
It’s a good question. I’m not totally confident either way, but I remember that debacle, and bought mine after they said it was fixed. They posted somewhere that they hired an independent security researcher to audit everything and he was satisfied that it was resolved. Can we trust that? I really don’t know. I only trust them as much as I trust any tech company, which is very little, but it is was it is.
My Eufy is super reliable. I have the older doorbell and the newer basestation which I upgraded from the last generation. Is your base sation not getting a good connection? Ours is 1.5 floors up and maybe 30 feet away from the doorbell. The walls are all interior but most of what’s between the doorbell and base is stairwell. We have a security camera farther away and outside an exterior brick wall that also works reliably.
As far as the Eufy app and doorbell and camera we have, they work really well. We don’t have any other addons like the screen.
I have my mine integrated with home assistant but the integration unofficial and super hacky.
Its nice because we can have a shot from the camera pop up on our TV and smart screens (hacked echo shows running view assist) but setting that up in a way that was reliable was NOT intuitive.
I purchased this setup for the same reasons, all local.
Interesting! I’m always fascinated when people have such different experiences with the same products.
I have 4 total Eufy devices: the latest base station, a doorbell cam, a separate cam in my kitchen pointing at my cat’s food, and the smart display. They’re all connected to the base station which is hardwired to my gigabit connection. The base station is about 10 feet from the doorbell and smart display, and the kitchen cam is about 10 feet in the other direction. That standalone kitchen cam is the most reliable of my Eufy devices, and it still randomly disconnects, only works some of the time, and streams really jankily.
I wonder if I ended up with a bunch of lemons, it sure sounds like my devices are not working as intended.
Yeah, it’s weird. But there’s a lot of things that could affect these devices. Ours is Ethernet but only to our mesh point in the middle of our place so it’s not too far from either camera.
I wonder if it’s choking on the 4 devices. Never had that many connected. I do want to add more some time, but likely only one or two more cameras.
Costco had the Eufy doorbell and a solar camera on sale. Maybe I’ll try them, knowing i can return them if needed.
Just another chipping in on the Eufy solar. I’ve been pretty impressed so far with a few minor niggles.
Generally it works well, connects nicely to the repeater and rings ok. Solar works great no issues with battery power on our south facing front.
The main selling point for me was no subscription or remote server connection.
It’s annoying if it loses connection to the WiFi. I’ve actually turned the security mode (which makes it scream if taken off the wall without turning that off first in the app).
I have eufy for two doorbell cameras (since my house is technically 2 separate apartments), a garage floodlight camera, and a couple security cameras I put up in my house. I’ve never had any of the problems you mentioned. Sounds like your cameras might be too far away from your HomeBase; you’re not getting a reliable stream across your network.
I switched from Ring to eufy specifically to avoid paying for a cloud subscription, and to store all my security footage locally. I heard about Ring collaborating with police to hand over your video feed without even notifying customers and I said, “hell no!”
My only complaint about eufy is that the video stream is a bit delayed. The live feed is maybe a few seconds behind, even if I’m standing right next to the camera to stream. Which makes it a little difficult to chat with people over the camera.
Also, by the time the phone app notifies me that there’s a car in my driveway, the person is already standing at my door. Ring would ping me when a car was halfway up my long driveway, and the video feed was near instant.
eufy is terrible at determining movements too. If it’s a sunny day, I get pings constantly because the shadow of the trees swaying across my driveway set off the motion detection. I have to remember to switch it to human only detection so I’m not bombarded with notifications all day. Which just makes it less likely to notify me of someone in my driveway until they’re already gone. I’ve narrowed the detection area to keep the tree branches from pinging movement, but I can’t stop their shadows in the driveway. I need to know when there’s movement in my driveway.
The sacrifices I make to avoid a surveillance state…
I don’t know how onto look for this but one of my requirements next time will be responsiveness with the doorbell/video. I have a small front yard so already the Ring has trouble being timely
I was hoping a locally controlled doorbell would be more responsive than a cloud doorbell
I bought a Reolink a few months ago, and I quite like it.
Another here for Reolink. I have a full house setup and they’ve been rock solid.
Same. I’m happy with my Reolink. Works well. Can have local storage and integration.
It looks like Costco used to sell the Reolink but now they don’t have any on their site. I’m not tied to Costco, I just really like being able to drive over and return it if I get something I don’t like.
Eh, we don’t have Costco where I live, can’t help you with that part.
Been researching for my house and narrowed it down between Reolink and TP-Link Tapo.
What are your requirements?
I have a Ring that has served well and I believe there are newer models with a package camera. However I’m not happy about the privacy situation.
Since it’s not immediate, I’m waiting to see what Apple comes up with.
- Apple claims to be privacy focussed
- my family is all Apple already
- end-to-end encryption
- functional out of the box, not a project like self-hosting would be
- no extra subscriptions for cloud storage
- possible synergy with smart lock
That’s a lot of nice claims
I have a blink camera, not a doorbell camera, but just a regular outdoor camera that I have near the front door. The batteries in it lasted nearly a year before they needed replacing. Curious how long it was lasting in your doorbell camera? I would expect it to be similar unless it’s basically recording constantly or something.
Batteries can get quickly depleted when the wifi connection is unstable. My camera had to be recharged every month until I got a dedicated wifi extender in the hallway by the front door. Since then the battery lasts about half a year.
Mine are only lasting about 3 weeks. We live on a fairly busy street. Also, it only rings the doorbell and app if you hold the bottom for 2-3 seconds.
I’ve seen a few people recommending Aqara recently, but no personal experience myself.
Never heard of that. I will check it out.
I didnt know they had cameras now, but they’ve made smart home IoT devices like switches and sensors for years now.
I really enjoyed my Blink for the first two weeks, but I didn’t really want to buy another 24 pack of batteries to keep it running for another two weeks.
Now it just hangs out by the front door and makes people think we’re recording them.
My blink doorbell camera lasts like a year on the batteries, make sure they are non-rechargeable lithium ones. And I’m in northern Alberta, so -40 winters. I like that it has no monthly fee needed with the usb stick in the inside module thing.
I’ve been a fan of Wyze, https://www.wyze.com/products/wyze-video-doorbell-v2. Comparably inexpensive equipment. Has a micro sd card slot. Does not require a subscription. I can access recordings on the sd card through the app. They do offer a subscription, however it mostly seems tied to better auto detection of objects
