Mine is slow. It often doesn’t sense motion until I’m already unlocking the door. Other times it will pick up cars even though the road isn’t in the ‘zone’. Yes I’ve messed with the settings and placed the wifi extender thing as close as possible.
But we also have a hard drive wired camera system. So if some fool steals or vandalizes something the doorbell should at least give a time stamp to go to the hard wired cameras.
We are very rural, so the house, barn, workshop and utility porch are all on line.
It’s really handy if something is delivered when we aren’t in the house so we can tell whoever is at the door that we are on the way.
I like my neighbors, but I want my privacy too. My Wi-Fi is locked down, and so far I can’t find a wireless doorbell that satisfies my security requirements.
Tin foil hat time but I’m not a giant fan of letting google or Amazon have a live feed of my house. I do have a 4 camera security system that’s CCTV and on prem stored.
We have a wrought iron gate on our walkway to the house (U shaped entryway, garage on one side, bedroom on the other, it’s more decorative than anything else). To the side of the gate where the latch is we have this sign:
We used to get Jehovah’s Witnesses and solar system salesman. No more.
Delivery people are the only ones ringing the bell now.
I would actually like one in theory, but the security concerns haven’t been addressed to my satisfaction for any product on the market. And I really don’t want to give Amazon or Google any more of my data.
I jumped on the Ring bandwagon very early on. After the Amazon acquisition, I became uncomfortable with their data practices, unfortunately.
My home network is all built around Ubiquiti UniFi stuff, so I decided to take their UniFi Protect doorbell for a spin…
I freaking love it. Has all the stuff you expect (good video quality, two way comms, motion detection), it also has a tiny puddle light type system when people get close at night. But the absolute best feature is a tiny OLED display that can display messages. With a bit of nerdery, these can be custom (and quite rude) missives to door to door salesfolk.
The other nice side to it all: Video is processed/stored locally (and not on an SD card in the doorbell). No subscription, no sleazy data practices. No “cloud” storage/processing.
I have one and while it “works”, it really has not been of any value.
I caught a vandal keying our cars on video, but without a witness that will identify the perpetrator, it is worthless. If nobody on Facebook or Nextdoor speaks up, its not like the police are going to share the video with the local news.
We gave away full-sized candy bars on Halloween (honor system - one per person) and we saw plenty of people (a majority?) help themselves to multiple bars. We can see who was a dick and who wasn’t, but that really doesn’t help the trick-or-treaters that came along after the bowl was pilfered.
I once had a package not show up, but video showed that it was actually never delivered, as opposed to porch piracy. Amazon replaced it regardless. I guess the video provided some peace of mind in one regard (not stolen), but just made me that much more dubious of the USPS tracking.
There is some benefit in that you have this safety net in the event something really bad went down. But for penny ante crimes, the net result is that you are still subject to a-holes, but sometimes you have video where you can relive the moment.
@DrWorm I’ve had FedEx mark packages as delivered that weren’t. One finally arrived at the door 5 weeks later, the other 3 months later. The one that arrived 3 months later was a text book for a college student.
Only need one if they can get past the guard house.
Have one; never installed it.
Had one and liked it, then we moved. It came with us, but it got lost in the bajillions of boxes of crap we haven’t figured out what to do with.
Want one but no longer have WiFi. The ones that use cellular don’t seem very good.
Wouldn’t do any good. We live in a very rural area and if a package doesn’t show a neighbor will deliver it within the next day or so.
Mine is slow. It often doesn’t sense motion until I’m already unlocking the door. Other times it will pick up cars even though the road isn’t in the ‘zone’. Yes I’ve messed with the settings and placed the wifi extender thing as close as possible.
But we also have a hard drive wired camera system. So if some fool steals or vandalizes something the doorbell should at least give a time stamp to go to the hard wired cameras.
We are very rural, so the house, barn, workshop and utility porch are all on line.
It’s really handy if something is delivered when we aren’t in the house so we can tell whoever is at the door that we are on the way.
I like my neighbors, but I want my privacy too. My Wi-Fi is locked down, and so far I can’t find a wireless doorbell that satisfies my security requirements.
Tin foil hat time but I’m not a giant fan of letting google or Amazon have a live feed of my house. I do have a 4 camera security system that’s CCTV and on prem stored.
We have a wrought iron gate on our walkway to the house (U shaped entryway, garage on one side, bedroom on the other, it’s more decorative than anything else). To the side of the gate where the latch is we have this sign:
We used to get Jehovah’s Witnesses and solar system salesman. No more.
Delivery people are the only ones ringing the bell now.
@lisaviolet That’s great!
I would actually like one in theory, but the security concerns haven’t been addressed to my satisfaction for any product on the market. And I really don’t want to give Amazon or Google any more of my data.
I jumped on the Ring bandwagon very early on. After the Amazon acquisition, I became uncomfortable with their data practices, unfortunately.
My home network is all built around Ubiquiti UniFi stuff, so I decided to take their UniFi Protect doorbell for a spin…
I freaking love it. Has all the stuff you expect (good video quality, two way comms, motion detection), it also has a tiny puddle light type system when people get close at night. But the absolute best feature is a tiny OLED display that can display messages. With a bit of nerdery, these can be custom (and quite rude) missives to door to door salesfolk.
The other nice side to it all: Video is processed/stored locally (and not on an SD card in the doorbell). No subscription, no sleazy data practices. No “cloud” storage/processing.
I have one and while it “works”, it really has not been of any value.
I caught a vandal keying our cars on video, but without a witness that will identify the perpetrator, it is worthless. If nobody on Facebook or Nextdoor speaks up, its not like the police are going to share the video with the local news.
We gave away full-sized candy bars on Halloween (honor system - one per person) and we saw plenty of people (a majority?) help themselves to multiple bars. We can see who was a dick and who wasn’t, but that really doesn’t help the trick-or-treaters that came along after the bowl was pilfered.
I once had a package not show up, but video showed that it was actually never delivered, as opposed to porch piracy. Amazon replaced it regardless. I guess the video provided some peace of mind in one regard (not stolen), but just made me that much more dubious of the USPS tracking.
There is some benefit in that you have this safety net in the event something really bad went down. But for penny ante crimes, the net result is that you are still subject to a-holes, but sometimes you have video where you can relive the moment.
@DrWorm I’ve had FedEx mark packages as delivered that weren’t. One finally arrived at the door 5 weeks later, the other 3 months later. The one that arrived 3 months later was a text book for a college student.