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Which doorbell for home use?

Jobos

By Jobos
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Jobos

Jobos

Posted
Posted (edited)

Last weekend my car was broken into so I thought I would look at getting a camera doorbell.

 

There seems two makes that are popular, Ring and Blink, and both owed by Amazon. The reviews for Blink are mixed whereas the only bad reviews for Ring are about the ongoing subscription costs.

 

Of course I want to spend as little as possible but after the initial purchase the subscription costs could mount up if I’m not careful.

 

Would you recommend one over the other and why.

 

Thanks.

 

I should add I have a old fashioned doorbell at the moment so power is already there.

Edited by Jobos
howartp

howartp

Posted
Posted

I bought Blink in the autumn, thinking i'd power it off the existing doorbell - unfortunately it can only be powered by battery so I made a false move on that part. It uses the wire to ring the existing bell, not to draw power.

 

I have three doorbells, a fixed indoor camera and a PTZ indoor camera on the system with local USB storage and cloud backup.

 

Make sure you get the right batteries - I can't remember if it's alkaline or NiMH off top of my head but the system for monitoring battery health can only read one type, so they show dead within 2 days of replacing. Equally if you're up for a bit of mcgivery, there are couple of options for hard-wiring AA battery packs into the battery compartment.

 

My technician swears by https://uk.eufy.com/ which I did look at, but misunderstood the Blink wiring so went down the wrong rabbit hole. I'd probably go Eufy if I was starting again.

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synaesthesia

synaesthesia

Posted
Posted
Got rid of my Ring in favour of Eufy earlier in the year, not looked back. Just had to buy a micro SD for local storage, works just as well if not slightly better than the Ring did and no ongoing costs - but if you want fully cloud then the subscriptions are vastly cheaper.
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Rob_D

Rob_D

Posted
Posted

What kind of doorbell do you have at the moment?

Most of the systems we looked at are designed to interface with and/or be powered by the "ringer" unit from a conventional wired doorbell. If you don't have one, then you need to think about how you're going to make the doorbell chime in your house and how it's going to be powered.

 

Having a (or multiple) chimes independent from our phones (which might be left on silent on in another room) was a must for us and we don't have a wired ringer/bell and didn't wand the fuss of installing one. So we went with the Ring so we can use the Alexas as chimes and it was battery powered (USB Charging every 6-8 months), we thought about the solar booster addon, but didn't go for it as our front door is in shade most of the day). It is worth noting that there is enough lag between the bell being pressed and the Alexas/phones going off for the posty to scarper.

 

If you want another contender, nest do a nice doorbell camera that you can make record to your own networked storage so no subscription required, but as far as we could see they don't do a battery powered one.

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Jobos

Jobos

Posted
  • Author
Posted

The current doorbell we have was here when we brought the house and is a classic 70s style with two vertical hanging pipes. It has a mains transformer under the stairs and makes a mellow ding-dong sound.

 

Had a quick look at Swann and Eufy but both look good although Eufy is more advanced.

 

Thanks for the recommendations I will definitely be looking more closely at all of them because deciding.

 

Finely, as said earlier my car was broken into over the weekend. They took a multimeter from the glovebox and a few pound of change from the centre console but they didn’t think to eject the CD from the radio otherwise they would have made off with my ABBA gold CD [emoji3]

DalekSec

DalekSec

Posted
Posted
Finely, as said earlier my car was broken into over the weekend. They took a multimeter from the glovebox and a few pound of change from the centre console but they didn’t think to eject the CD from the radio otherwise they would have made off with my ABBA gold CD [emoji3]

 

Mammia Mia! They must of been like Gimme gimme gimme! when they took your money money money....

 

Sorry i'll stop!

XiJ

XiJ

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Posted

Eufy here and had it for a while. I wired mine in using the existing doorbell wires so no need to mess about with charging.

 

Got my mother a wireless one at Christmas with a large SD card. Ita okay and does the job.

 

I wish it had better home assistant integration but there doesn’t seem a who lot of choice. on the market

mikeprice

mikeprice

Posted
Posted

I would prefer to get a light with an integral camera - as we already have power to the light

 

Also - would prefer to have one that doesn;t store the files "in the cloud"

because that means some company has control over it and will, one way or another, want you to pay for it

 

If it connects to the home wifi but stores the video on an integral SD card (probably microSD) then you have control over it

 

If I need to look at it from a foreign country then I can log into my home computer from abroad using various systems if I need to - but I can;t see why I would need to

 

 

In any case - everyone I know that has a Ring doorbell never answers the damn thing - especially if they are IN!!!!!!

I always have to bang on the damn door!

 

 

 

maybe just me

 

(i.e. grumpy old git who has spent too much time looking at IT security!)

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TheHyperTechie

TheHyperTechie

Posted
Posted

I use a Blink doorbell. I managed to pick one up for £35 in the sales after Christmas. For the money, I think it's great. Mine isn't hardwired, as I just wanted a cheap solution without the added stress. I also have mine connected to Amazon Echo devices around the house, which act as 'chimes' when someone presses it. Picture quality is good (for £35!!), the battery has been going for a few months now, and motion detection is pretty good too.

 

If you aren't on a budget, I would probably recommend a reolink, eufy, tapo.

XiJ

XiJ

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Gotta say we really use it to see who’s been to the door. I rarely answer via the app or echo.

 

The Eufy ones are on ‘offer’ at the moment on Amazon (they sell through there anyway). They do frequently have offers and at the moment it’s what I would expect to pay for the base model

HarryMonkey

HarryMonkey

Posted
Posted
I went for a Tapo smart hub and smart button. I also have a wireless Ring camera but we only seem to use that in the garden for watching the comings and goings of the moggie and a hedgehog that is a regular visitor.
ITGURU

ITGURU

Posted
Posted (edited)
Eufy with the basestation - excellent quality and battery life! unit charges from the basestation when needed. Highly reliable specially when out and about. app is quick to notify button pressed and speak to visitor Edited by ITGURU

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