Ring doorbell & camera alternative?

[james_TW]

Off the back of the Ring subscriptions going up and that I have an android phone which seems to intermittently receive notifications - what viable alternatives are there? Ideally I'd like one that stores locally, either to SD card or something and that works well...

Thanks

JTW

[Murph7355]

I have a Eufy doorbell (and some cameras).

Local storage. Pretty sure I can get the cameras to store to a NAS too, but haven't persevered with that yet.

Works well.

They often have discounts on their site...I'll be replacing 2x other Ring doorbells anon.

[dapprman]

Murph7355 said:

I have a Eufy doorbell (and some cameras).

Local storage. Pretty sure I can get the cameras to store to a NAS too, but haven't persevered with that yet.

Works well.

They often have discounts on their site...I'll be replacing 2x other Ring doorbells anon.

How good is the Eufy at remote alerts ? I used to find the Ring poor, but a couple of weeks back I was up north helping my mother (post a hip operation, her not me) when I was able to answer the door bell and remotely speak to the postman in time.

[troc]

Netatmo make a nice doorbell camera, unifi do one too but you kinda need to be ‘in’ the unifi hardware system to use it properly.

Both seem pretty good with alerts and neither use cloud storage.

[tangerine_sedge]

I don't want to divert the thread or come across as a luddite, but what use case does a ring doorbell/camera actually solve?

If I'm in the house and hear the doorbell, I can open the door or look out the window to see who's there, and if I'm not at home, I don't actually care if someone is at the door or not (they'll ring the doorbell, not get an answer and ps off). If I'm not at home my parcels go to one of my neighbours and vice versa. Doubly so, now that I'm working permanently from home.

I cannot think of a single point during the last 5 years that a ring doorbell/camera would be useful to me. To re-iterate I'm not a luddite (I'm currently buildng a raspberry pi / RSS feed bot for my desk, so not immune to technology for technolgies sake).

[S100HP]

tangerine_sedge said:

I don't want to divert the thread or come across as a luddite, but what use case does a ring doorbell/camera actually solve?

If I'm in the house and hear the doorbell, I can open the door or look out the window to see who's there, and if I'm not at home, I don't actually care if someone is at the door or not (they'll ring the doorbell, not get an answer and ps off). If I'm not at home my parcels go to one of my neighbours and vice versa. Doubly so, now that I'm working permanently from home.

I cannot think of a single point during the last 5 years that a ring doorbell/camera would be useful to me. To re-iterate I'm not a luddite (I'm currently buildng a raspberry pi / RSS feed bot for my desk, so not immune to technology for technolgies sake).

A deterrent for unwanted visitors

[anonymous-user]

I have had the Netatmo Presence camera for several years and generally have worked very well. Had trouble with a couple of SD cards and sometimes their sw updates can cause the odd problem but on the whole work reliably.

They store footage on an internal SD but I think rely on the internet for the fancy detection algorithm so they aren't a standalone system.

[Starfighter]

Another Eufy user. Have a single camera with a solar cell attached and the door bell. No WiFi issues and local storage is easy to manage.

[BlindedByTheLights]

I also have eufy, doorbell plus other eufy camera’s , alerts are very quick and direct to phone and iwatch with a picture. Bought as I didn’t want subscriptions and they are good value for money

[james_TW]

Thanks for the tips, I'll do some digging in to tbsei

As an aside, a ring type doorbell helps me because I can be in the garden and won't hear someone knocking at my door and a doorbell would work, but since I managed to get the ring doorbell for free, it was a no-brainer (by free, it came with an echo show which I sold which completely offset the cost of the doorbell)

[knighthawk1021]

Another thumbs up for Eufy, doorbell and 2x additional cams, all good, no issues.

[rfisher]

tangerine_sedge said:

I don't want to divert the thread or come across as a luddite, but what use case does a ring doorbell/camera actually solve?

If I'm in the house and hear the doorbell, I can open the door or look out the window to see who's there, and if I'm not at home, I don't actually care if someone is at the door or not (they'll ring the doorbell, not get an answer and ps off). If I'm not at home my parcels go to one of my neighbours and vice versa. Doubly so, now that I'm working permanently from home.

I cannot think of a single point during the last 5 years that a ring doorbell/camera would be useful to me. To re-iterate I'm not a luddite (I'm currently buildng a raspberry pi / RSS feed bot for my desk, so not immune to technology for technolgies sake).

You can set the stupid da da da ringtone to 1000000000db so that everyone in the street knows when you bell has been activated.

If you're a tt.

[tangerine_sedge]

S100HP said:

tangerine_sedge said:

I don't want to divert the thread or come across as a luddite, but what use case does a ring doorbell/camera actually solve?

If I'm in the house and hear the doorbell, I can open the door or look out the window to see who's there, and if I'm not at home, I don't actually care if someone is at the door or not (they'll ring the doorbell, not get an answer and ps off). If I'm not at home my parcels go to one of my neighbours and vice versa. Doubly so, now that I'm working permanently from home.

I cannot think of a single point during the last 5 years that a ring doorbell/camera would be useful to me. To re-iterate I'm not a luddite (I'm currently buildng a raspberry pi / RSS feed bot for my desk, so not immune to technology for technolgies sake).

A deterrent for unwanted visitors

That's not a problem where I live, so not even useful for that!

[wombleh]

We have a eufy one, seems to work fine. In terms of use cases, the only times I’ve used remote answer were for tradesmen who arrived while i was on the school run, telling them back door was open etc. Dont tend to bother normally as most couriers will just leave parcels. Got it originally as we won’t hear the door bell from out the back, now it’ll ping your phone. It faces where the cars are parked so doubles up as a security camera which is handy.

[juggsy]

Another Eufy user here, have a combination of doorbell, wireless cameras and floodlight. All work well but have their own little foibles (eg floodlight doesn’t always activate, doorbell app occasionally takes a while to open). But to be honest had little niggles when I had ring. Big benefit of local storage on the homebase. Prime sales and Costco frequently have offers on the eufy kit.

tangerine_sedge said:

I don't want to divert the thread or come across as a luddite, but what use case does a ring doorbell/camera actually solve?

For use cases, remote answering, recording where a packages has been left, Alexa announcing when doorbell rings (quite a few spots in my house doorbell wouldn’t normally be heard), knowing when someone is approaching the house, an additional security camera. If you don’t think you need one, probably not worth bothering, but I wouldn’t not be with one now I’ve had one.

[dapprman]

wombleh said:

We have a eufy one, seems to work fine. In terms of use cases, the only times I’ve used remote answer were for tradesmen who arrived while i was on the school run, telling them back door was open etc. Dont tend to bother normally as most couriers will just leave parcels. Got it originally as we won’t hear the door bell from out the back, now it’ll ping your phone. It faces where the cars are parked so doubles up as a security camera which is handy.

How well does that part work and is it an easy set up ? It's the one thing I would miss from my Ring doorbell if I stopped using it, and until the more recent hardware (Ring keep upgrading me for free as parts break) it was unreliable.

[Murph7355]

dapprman said:

How good is the Eufy at remote alerts ? I used to find the Ring poor, but a couple of weeks back I was up north helping my mother (post a hip operation, her not me) when I was able to answer the door bell and remotely speak to the postman in time.

IME much better than Ring.

I wasn't a subscriber to Ring, which may have made a difference. But sometimes I'd get no notification at all, others a long time after the event.

The Eufy set up I have is pretty much instant (to the point I need to be more selective on the alerts I get ).

tangerine_sedge said:

I don't want to divert the thread or come across as a luddite, but what use case does a ring doorbell/camera actually solve?
...

I view it more as part of an overall set up - I don't need dedicated cameras covering our entrance ways. Other benefits are then icing on cake.

I've used it when friends have arrived and I've been out (them arriving early, me being late). When they ring, I can let them know where I am (yes, I could phone them/they me).

Have also used it to give instruction to tradesmen/delivery drivers. Not used it as much for this lately as most now just leave packages by doors...but can still be handy.

The doorbell software etc is fine, but there are shortcomings with the system for cameras. The biggest, for me, is that whilst geo fencing is potentially useful for setting triggers etc, you can't override it at night. Which is, I think, pretty poor. So, for example, I can stand down the cameras when I'm (or my phone is!) at home, but can't make them activate when I go to bed (without going into the app etc).

[wombleh]

dapprman said:

How well does that part work and is it an easy set up ? It's the one thing I would miss from my Ring doorbell if I stopped using it, and until the more recent hardware (Ring keep upgrading me for free as parts break) it was unreliable.

The remote answer? Think it was fairly straight forward, start off with the base station on Ethernet wire, install their app and then add devices, set cloud username/pass/MFA, invite the wife and it’s done. There are other options but I’ve not used much other than changing it to use wifi instead. Not had any reliability issues, ive not got android so not sure if their app is much different on it.

[audi321]

tangerine_sedge said:

S100HP said:

tangerine_sedge said:

I don't want to divert the thread or come across as a luddite, but what use case does a ring doorbell/camera actually solve?

If I'm in the house and hear the doorbell, I can open the door or look out the window to see who's there, and if I'm not at home, I don't actually care if someone is at the door or not (they'll ring the doorbell, not get an answer and ps off). If I'm not at home my parcels go to one of my neighbours and vice versa. Doubly so, now that I'm working permanently from home.

I cannot think of a single point during the last 5 years that a ring doorbell/camera would be useful to me. To re-iterate I'm not a luddite (I'm currently buildng a raspberry pi / RSS feed bot for my desk, so not immune to technology for technolgies sake).

A deterrent for unwanted visitors

That's not a problem where I live, so not even useful for that!

I must admit, I can't see the point other than for parcels. There's a guy at work who has one and it's constantly going off and the alert is so loud. He's 65 and sounds like a cock when talking to the postman as his wife is normally in and has beaten him to it anyways. Just causes confusion.

[dapprman]

wombleh said:

dapprman said:

How well does that part work and is it an easy set up ? It's the one thing I would miss from my Ring doorbell if I stopped using it, and until the more recent hardware (Ring keep upgrading me for free as parts break) it was unreliable.

The remote answer? Think it was fairly straight forward, start off with the base station on Ethernet wire, install their app and then add devices, set cloud username/pass/MFA, invite the wife and it’s done. There are other options but I’ve not used much other than changing it to use wifi instead. Not had any reliability issues, ive not got android so not sure if their app is much different on it.

Do I have to invite your wife ? Doesn't seem particularly fair on her

Might have to look once more at the Eufy next time it's in a sale - though at present it's only £10 per year extra to compare against the cost of a new solution (presently £130 at Costco, and I don't remember it dropping below £100 in the sale).