After a few neighborhood incidents we’ve decided that we want to get a doorbell camera just to keep an eye on things in front of our house. I’d like to avoid a subscription service, and I have several large capacity microSD cards for local storage so that should work. I should be able to wire it into the existing doorbell so what other features should I be looking for?
There have been a few threads on the topic but the most recent was back in 2018 so I suspect the options have changed.
We have a Blink system we’re pretty happy with, that includes several cameras around our house, including a doorbell camera. Each individual camera is fairly inexpensive and modular (so you can add and subtract cameras as you like). The cameras, including the doorbell camera, are wireless and battery-powered so no need for doing any wiring. The batteries in each camera last a long time, like a year or even two.
You view the cameras through an app, either live, or it saves brief video clips when motion sets it off. I’m 99% sure the online service does not require a monthly subscription cost, though I’ll have to ask my wife to make sure of that. We got Blink before they were bought out by Amazon though, so we may be ‘grandfathered in’ on the lack of monthly subscription costs.
Be prepared for lots of false positives on motion detection. Wind, rain, blown leaves, critters walking past…
Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.
Our Wyze doorbell cam is kinda janky, but it does have the ability to continuously record on a loop to a local SD card.
There is a wireless version too, but I much prefer the wired version so you can record 24/7 at high quality and never have to worry about motion detection missing footage or changing the batteries.
It also has an optional paid subscription that has AI summaries of events, which I find very helpful (for improving the signal to noise ratio vs bare motion detection). But that’s optional.
The wiring installation took me about 30 min with no prior experience. Maybe another 20 min and another $30 in parts if you’re in an older home and have to upgrade your 12V transformer too. All instructions are included, along with helpful how to videos.
I got the budget AOSU camera from Amazon. After using it as a doorbell for a while, I remounted it about 8 feet out and 8 feet up from my apartment door. I was dissatisfied with its field of view. Now facing the front of my apartment, I also see the front doors of neighbors on either side. Good for porch pirates. I can still interact with anyone at my door, but they have to actually knock.
I recently installed this smart lock on our front door. It has a motor-driven deadbolt, keypad, camera, fingerprint reader, doorbell, etc. Has worked flawlessly.