This has nothing really to do with HE, but most people around here are really helpful so...
I'm looking for a replacement for my Ring Doorbell Pro. I have one at home and one at my old house which will be a vacation rental.
I curse myself every time I try to use one of these wretched things and it doesn't work, and tonight was the final straw. A newly installed CO detector at the rental property false alarmed. I cancelled the alarm and told the monitoring service, but the fire dept. showed up anyhow. Tried to talk to the fire fighters thru the doorbell but they couldn't understand what I was saying. Then the app disconnected from live view and by the time I got connected again, they were too far away. I have never been able to initiate a voice communication with either doorbell before whoever was at the door gave up and walked away. I'm done with Ring.
I'm thinking about the Alarm.com ADC-VDB770 as it would integrate with the alarm.com app we already use, and everything about alarm.com has, in my experience, worked flawlessly.
But I'm open to any other suggestions. I do not have HE hub at the rental property, and have no plans for one at least until they fix the broken z-wave secondary controller issue. But I would be open to getting a hub if there was some compelling reason to use a doorbell that had useful HE integration. I DO have a SmartThings hub there.
Only thing I like about the Ring doorbell is that we can see the video feed at our home on our Alexa devices (when it works). That's a big plus.
Thanks, I saw that thread. Understood, and that's why I may ultimately go with the alarm.com doorbell, despite its somewhat closed system. Their stuff has been rock solid for me.
The Eufy does look interesting, esp the wired version which is only $129. The battery version has more storage and a separate hub ("homebase") where the video is stored, but not sure it's worth the extra $70, unless I buy into their cameras.
I also just installed my first video doorbell, picked the Eufy for that. It is really not bad for the price and not much concern since it's facing outward, curious people can look at my neighbors all they want
Interesting conversation on the security breech issue. At least Eufy doesn’t store the video in the cloud. Any security issue is a concern but I guess my stance on it is that Google and Amazon/Alexa are much more concerning than an outdoor camera that doesn’t even stores video in the cloud.
It is a pretty bad ■■■ camera though. Kicks Rings butt. LOL
One feature Ring has that neither Eufy or Arlo has is continuous recording. Well, not exactly continuous but it does take a picture about every 30 seconds or so. It's come in handy a few times.
Like Ring, Arlo also needs a subscription. I'm tired of subscriptions. A few dollars here, a few dollars there, it's like death by a thousand cuts.
One thing to consider is if you're buying a single device or going to expand into the platform.
I'm using Amcrest branded Dahua Doorbell, the reason is it's integrated and recorded to my Dahua OEM NVR with other advanced features. Powered by existing doorbell wires and can be connected to activate existing chime, the only thing I wish is it could have ethernet port (and POE) rather than wifi.
Use Amcrest app to answer ringing or watch realtime video anywhere through its cloud or watch realtime or recorded video from NVR on LAN or through VPN from Internet.
Just an option, not that I recommend it. While it's still good when as standalone (Dahua camera has good image quality), its main advantages rely on the whole platform (or to be used with Blue Iris)
IPcamtalk guys prefers Hikvision OEM doorbell, again it depends on the platform.
A dedicated thread group about doorbell here Doorbells | IP Cam Talk
