Not against it, but I don’t see the necessity. The doorbell cameras I’ve read about on Amazon:
Can be hooked up to the doorbell wiring, but won’t adequately charge from it so you need to replace a battery or remove the doorbell cam to charge it, which means unwiring the damned thing (this was from a Ring review) every month.
Many require a subscription fee to see the front door video. I am totally not paying a subscription. $10/month was mentioned in one review. $10/month just to have a doorbell.
The well reviewed doorbell cams are expensive. $249 for the latest Ring model! For a freaking doorbell.
My ring is fully battery operated. Every couple of months or so I have to undo a single security screw at the bottom and the battery pops out. Once charged I pop it back in. I haven’t bothered to get a backup battery.
I don’t think I pay any subscription fee. Maybe I forgot I do or maybe its part of my prime subscription. Not sure.
ETA: OK. I just looked it up. Ring only needs a subscription if you want it to store recorded video. I must be paying for this somehow because I have access to the recorded videos.
Thanks @Folly. Which Ring do you have? Did it require a sync module? Did you wire it to your doorbell wiring? Are you happy with the video it shows you (some reviews complain that in full sunlight the subject is reduced to an unrecognizable silhouette)? How do you monitor the video - on a phone or PC or ?
I paid 200 bucks at the time for the Ring Video Doorbell 3. It’s slightly cheaper now. I didn’t have doorbell wiring to work with so I went with one that can operate battery only.
Our butts are owned by Amazon though. My paycheck just gets turned over to them. We have Alexas all over the place. The camera is fully integrated with them, etc.
Then it has to be motion-sensing otherwise the battery would only last a few days, or it has to be wired, in which case you’d be replacing the doorbell or running additional wiring. Flush-mount doesn’t seem to be a thing, because the ideal place would be right where the door’s peephole or door knocker is. Anywhere you mount it on the door will be conspicuous and pretty ugly, and trying to recess it would compromise the door panel and make changing the batteries very difficult if not impossible without also making the camera easy to steal. I think you’re going to have to give up on one of your criteria if you want to find anything.
This is incorrect, my Ring works on doorbell power. My MIL got a Ring that didn’t work because their bell was super old and wasn’t letting enough power through (was probably 60 years old at least) but they replaced it for like $30 and it works great. My own parents have the Amazon version and again it runs off the doorbell wires no problem.
The review you read might have been someone with a setup like my MIL’s - very old and very low electricity doorbell.
The subscription lets you look at all recorded footage for a month back while the free version lets you look at highlights when there was movement for a few days. The free version is pretty handy by itself.
Yeah exactly, it was actually inside the bell housing that hangs on the wall. They replaced it and then more power went through and the issue was fixed.
Maybe they are at the limit of their wi-fi connection. I haven’t experienced that at all. I’ve been working at home and I get the notice that someone is at my door a second or two before they reach the doorbell to ring it. (Actually, it is usually a package being delivered without the doorbell ringing. Amazon owns my butt remember?)
I think this is true. I can tell my Alexa to “show me the front door” but it shuts off after 5 minutes or so.
Personally I want it to do that since I’m running on battery power.
Curious it doesn’t have “pre-cord motion” where it’s basically always recording, but it only saves when it detects motion, and the saved recording begins 5-10 seconds before the motion event. That’s fairly standard in WiFi cameras.
I have the Wyze original doorbell. I think they only sell the Pro now. It works fine. It was cheap for these kind of things, and was pretty easy to install.
It does everything the OP wants, except that it’s also a doorbell. I can view it live, see who rang the bell, see who came to the door to drop a package, etc. I did pay $20/year to get some extra features, but that will lapse at the end of the month, as Wyze now offers more things for free. If I miss any of the features I lost, then I’ll pay again.
One important thing to remember. This is a toy, not a security camera. I think many of these doorbells fall into the “toy” category. By toy, I mean that it can’t really be relied on to provide 24/7 coverage of all events like you’d expect of a real security system. For example, just this moment I got a notification that somebody was at the door, opened my phone and saw that it was my kid coming home from school, so I turned on the mic and said “hello”, but I didn’t get any response back. Did it work? Did she ignore me? Was it too quiet? I have no idea.
Wyze also makes a battery powered outdoor camera that might better meet your needs. Put it up high, let it run, and occasionally recharge the batteries. It’s more expensive than the doorbell I got, though.
I’ve generally been happy with Wyze stuff, with the big qualification that they are toys, but not overpriced toys.
