My doorbell, which is just the same one from the 1980’s, has broken. Probably just wiring or I should get a new one, but I thought I should get a camera one since those are all the rage.
I would like a doorbell that:
Doesn’t chime every time someone moves or drives past my house. My dad’s does that, but I am guessing he just has his notifications all on? It’s crazy how often he gets a chime on his phone.
If someone actually rings the bell, it rings on my phone.
It should have motion detector so I can see if any motion happens out there. If they all offer this, where does it store the video? How do I view it? On an app?
I presume these just plug in to your regular doorbell spot using the wiring inside?
Anyway, I’m kind of clueless, but would appreciate the recommendations. I do not have Alexa or any smart home thing. Just an Android phone.
Mahaloth - all the features you want are available on a Ring door bell, available at most retailers like costco and amazon
It sounds to me that you are not very tech savvy, if that is the case, go to a facebook group near where you live or your church group (if you are religious) - and offer a few dollars to a teenager who will install it for you.
You have to buy a subscription for the videos to be available forever.
Many video doorbells are hard wired using your existing doorbell wiring powered by your doorbell transformer, often located in the attic. Be sure to have it checked out as well to verify it’s working properly.
I am also against subscription but in Ring’s case there is value for the $40 you shell out for a year. It lets you share videos and stores them for 180days.
It does work without the subscription but the videos are quickly deleted
They usually come with 1 year or free subscription to the Ring Protect plan and it works seamlessly
Also note that if your existing doorbell is wired NOT facing the street, you likely won’t be able to use the existing wiring. No points for guessing why I’m sensitive to this.
The good news is that the Ring can use a battery, which is NOT a big pain, as I’d feared. It lasts months and gives you warning via a phone notification when it gets down to like 30%. I bought two, keep one charged as a spare, so when it whines, I swap and move on.
We bought a second, camera-only for the deck (weirdly called a “stick-up camera”, which makes me think of commiting robberies) that uses the same battery, so with a third battery, I’m now ready for either to alert me to low battery and, again, I swap it in seconds.
I was skeptical about Ring, because it’s “so easy”, which made me think it was also probably pretty crappy. But I’ve been happy with it. The one glitch I see is that occasionally–like once a month–it seems to forget that I’ve set the alert zones and triggers on something outside them. But that’s tolerable.
We’ve had deer approach the front garden at night and alert my wife (who is often up); I have a great Ring video of a very confused deer wondering where this voice is coming from that’s saying “SHOO!!!”
You can get brackets to mount them so they’re pointed in a different direction. In fact, I think some of them include one. I found 3D files and printed one that worked for me. Mounted ‘straight’ everything to the right was just some bushes next to the door. Angled to the left removed the bushes and gave me a good shot of my driveway on the other side of the house.
No doubt. Ours is 90 degrees from forward and inside the protected well of the sidelights, so a bracket would, I suspect, have looked terrible. I just left the old doorbell alone, mounted the Ring externally.
It also comes with two shims to allow it to point up/down/left/right, if it’s just minor adjustment needed, e.g., if you have steep steps up to your front door, like some townhouses.
That’s almost exactly how my parents is, with the (important) exception that there’s is mounted on the frame of the side light, not in it.
I don’t recall if the lens was wide enough that it worked, but I know we at least discussed using the brackets to angle it towards the street a bit more.
Luckily, they were more concerned about stuff get stolen from the porch (again), so this worked for them.
On mine I used the bracket to angle it a bit more away from the bushes and towards the driveway and I 3D printed another bracket to give me a flat spot on the aluminum siding so it wouldn’t be angled up. The two of them together worked perfectly.