I've been asked to install one of these at an ex-inlaw's home this summer. Running power is no big deal, a plug-in transformer and discrete low voltage wiring along baseboard and door trim.

Honeywell offers free cloud viewing, presumably of stored video. Google seems the best, with 30 days continuous video storage.

I'm guessing all three offer review of triggered events, with subscription from two and free from the third.

The receiver wants to be able to see who is at their door before answering. That is all the information I have.

Question:
Preferences? Comments? Criticisms?

Choices:
Honeywell Skybell
Google Nest Hello
Amazon Ring
Other

 

I wasn’t satisfied with the “original” Ring model due to the delay between sensing motion and starting to record/connect to wi-if. By the time it was “live” a person dropping off a package (or stealing one) was already turned around and heading away.

The “Ring Pro” model fixed that (but does require wired power via transformer). It is always recording and has a buffer so once it triggers, you have the 8-10 seconds of video before the trigger to see the approach.

It has good adjustability to set up multiple “motion zones” and customize the size to avoid alerts for things like a flag or plants waving in the wind.

As for actual doorbell rings, it has decent audio and I have used it while in Hawaii to answer our door in the Seattle area. As long as you have cellular or wi-if connection where ever you are, it should work.

I also like the “live view” feature where I can go to the app and trigger the camera on to see what is going on.

I use a Simplisafe Doorbell Camera. It’s integrsted with my alarm system. I haven’t used anything else but I do like it.

I had Ring now for three years with an upgrade to the Ring 2 last year for battery charging ease. I keep a recharged battery and just swap them when needed. Even though mine is powered by battery which last about 3 mos I've no problems with Live View with a concrete block house, all metal front door and about 35' to my wifi router, Live View from my phone takes about 2sec or less to activate. I hardly use this feature but always activate the camera with motion or door bell alerts and/or notifications. Two way talk works perfectly when away from home by phone. On an average day I receive about 10-14 notifications mostly the wife and the usual mailman. My wife goes on her walks every day and is always out and about. Rechargeable battery lasts about 3mos. Night vision is great also. $30 a year for cloud storage is fine with me. I've made that back with one delivery mix-up that they marked "delivered" and with the video back up the company apologized and sent me a free product in place of the one that was never delivered. Mine works like a charm. I receive a motion alert on my phone as the front door is first opened before the wife even crosses the threshold, maybe I got lucky but thats my experience so far.

Just an FYI... Google is changing their API's to make it harder for other smart home vendors to interoperate and communicate with any of Google's stuff like Nest. If that's important to you, avoid Google products and thwart their attempt to control the market.

quote:

The “Ring Pro” model fixed that (but does require wired power via transformer). It is always recording and has a buffer so once it triggers, you have the 8-10 seconds of video before the trigger to see the approach.

Damn, that's a lot more expensive! I thought I had read here that then Ring 2 improved this performance as well. Is that accurate, or is the only option for truly good performance the Pro model at $250? Their site doesn't seem to address this functionality on either device, hard to sort out which "upgrade" would be needed, or original purchase for the OP to have this level of performance.

I don't care about it working with Alexa, just want a little improvement over my original Ring doorbell from 2015.

We have the Ring Pro as well.. integrates with our Ring alarm obviously. It’s much improved over the regular Ring models.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:

quote:

The “Ring Pro” model fixed that (but does require wired power via transformer). It is always recording and has a buffer so once it triggers, you have the 8-10 seconds of video before the trigger to see the approach.

Damn, that's a lot more expensive! I thought I had read here that then Ring 2 improved this performance as well. Is that accurate, or is the only option for truly good performance the Pro model at $250? Their site doesn't seem to address this functionality on either device, hard to sort out which "upgrade" would be needed, or original purchase for the OP to have this level of performance.

I don't care about it working with Alexa, just want a little improvement over my original Ring doorbell from 2015.

George, I phoned up Ring and spoke with a representative, excellent customer support btw, and I had the original Ring doorbell. Ring offered to exchange my original Ring doorbell plus $20 for the upgrade to the Ring 2. In fact, they sent the Ring 2 out to my home even before I sent the original Ring doorbell back to them. The main improvement between the original Ring and the Ring 2 obviously is better video quality, but mainly I purchased it because you could just open the doorbell on the wall and swap the battery with a newly charged one without having to take the doorbell off the wall to charge it.

Give them a call and discuss it, they're very flexible and want to satisfy the customer, as they did in my case. Good luck!

Hearing about the Nest thermostat from you guys all the time, I thought there's be more hits on the Hello.

The Ring Video Doorbell 2 was my first choice because I found that site first. And I'm definitely wiring it, which I cannot do with the previous generation. Mrs Ex- probably wants to go cheap and claims she does not need video access, but if that was the case, I'd be installing a $10 thrift store surplus CCTV. Heck, I'm leaning towards the Pro only for the nicer styling.

https://shop.ring.com/collecti...s/video-doorbell-pro

quote:

Originally posted by zoom6zoom:
Just an FYI... Google is changing their API's to make it harder for other smart home vendors to interoperate and communicate with any of Google's stuff like Nest. If that's important to you, avoid Google products and thwart their attempt to control the market.

I already avoid Google/Alphabet products to the extent I can, anyway.

This kind of thing is why I'm using a non-vendor-specific NVR, cameras known to work with pretty much anything, and not using anybody's cloud services for storage.

I have whatever Guardian Protection uses. You might survey the group and see how well the doorbell cameras work. If I'm not on a wifi (with strength to the signal) I generally can't see who's at the door. (Access via my iPhone). I mention this so expectations are set correctly. I expected it to be more reliable.

Does anyone have privacy concerns regarding these? As in the company you choose for the product selling off the video/data to marketing firms?

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
Does anyone have privacy concerns regarding these? As in the company you choose for the product selling off the video/data to marketing firms?

It's a view of my front walkway. I can twist all the foil in my house into an incredibly tight cap nearly 16 inches thick and still not give a single crap about that view.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
Does anyone have privacy concerns regarding these? As in the company you choose for the product selling off the video/data to marketing firms?

Not certain what they'd do with video of front door visitors.

My bigger concern would be the general concern there is with all IoT devices: Back doors or firmware vulnerabilities allowing access to my LAN or allowing the device to be co-opted to attack other Internet-connected devices or networks. This is another reason I shun such devices. My cameras do not have access to the Internet. Eventually they'll also be completely sandboxed via a VLAN.

Have the Ring Wireless since we don't have a hard wired doorbell, house was setup with an intercom system originally.

You will never see anyone approach early, there will be no advance notice, everything will be post occurrence unless you have the pro which is always recording.

The big issue besides you internal wifi access and then your upload speed to the internet will be the response time delay from Rings servers.

We've pretty much accepted that the delays in the Ring system are victims of the network traffic after several calls, get the pro, skip the base models.

Best would be a full time recording camera system that has an app where she could see who it is at the door after they ring her normal door bell or if it allows some advanced notice and is only working on her internal network, not some off site server based system.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
It's a view of my front walkway. I can twist all the foil in my house into an incredibly tight cap nearly 16 inches thick and still not give a single crap about that view.

Except that they could watch your Historical Ring Activity to see you leaving the driveway, every day, at 7 am and not returning to 6PM, and that M-F nobody is home because all delivery attempts are left packages. Point being some third world country thief could sell off information to allow theft, IE when you are not home, tie it to your Digital IT thermostat reporting is time frame when you set it to "away" mode.

Shit now I have to go back to costco for the larger roll of foil

good info on what's going on with Google and their war on other home automation vendors.
Informative and actually quite funny.

I have a Ring Pro and it works well

did not subscribe to get video stored anywhere

I had to recently adjust motion depth as my camera was sending alerts to my phone while the lawn crew were passing by in front of my wood bench out front. I set the depth zone a little closer to the door. This is my mailman today at my box, and this guy is usually moving fast everyday anyway so he's always a bit of a blur, but it is clear enough to recognize features. My Ring is battery powered and on my wifi and in my area I get very quick notifications, usually at about normal approach 5' and very clear.



This image is from activating Live View with my iPhone, activates at about 1-2sec..

She loses her ding-dong wall-mount bell, it appears, with the Ring video doorbells.

Maybe what she needs is a simple wifi camera on the adjacent wall with clear view of the front door.

quote:

Originally posted by zoom6zoom:
good info on what's going on with Google and their war on other home automation vendors.

The writing was on the wall back in 2015: New Google Parent Company Drops 'Don't Be Evil' Motto

I still have a Google account, but I don't use it for much of anything. A couple of Android TV devices--which I expect to eventually replace with Apple TV devices. That's it.