Sky bell, Ring, Doorbird, etc.

[randy]

As the title would suggest, I am curious to hear thoughts from members who are using one of these devices.

While modest integration with HomeSeer would be a plus, I am mainly interested in hearing about the product and iOS apps.

The Ring Pro is appealing, but the $3 per month for video storage is cause for pause.

The Doorbird is more expensive and large.

The Skybell HD is where I am leaning for the free video storage (we all know that could change down the road) but I am a little concerned about reports of poor motion detection, connectivity and speaker quality.

Thoughts?

[randy]

One thing I read seems to indicate that the Skybell allows disabling of the mechanical doorbell, where Ring does not. We would like to be able to enable/disable the mechanical doorbell.

[mrhappy]

I can only speak for DoorBird, in reality I did not need the unit and could've lived life without it but it is what it is.

Pros:

1) Appears to be well constructed and well thought out, not a fan of the fact the fact the IDC connectors are all the same (so you could connect the power to one of the contact closure switches) but that is an issue for setup only.

2) Origin appears to possibly be an Axis IP camera so fairly easy to integrate with

3) LAN API - has enabled me to write a HS plugin for it

4) LAN as well as Wireless connection - comes with breakouts for the RJ45 connector.

5) Fairly easy to setup with the app, the app is OK - slightly dated on looks but functions perfectly well. Image is not the biggest on my iPhone 5 and appears no way to make it full screen but functions for what you need it to. Three buttons enable you to open voice communications, turn on the IR leds or open the door. Simple to use and get working.

6) Very sensitive motion sensor, can be useful in terms of triggering events.

7) Video feed URL means that you can store the video if you are running your own video server.

Cons:

1) Needs 15V @ 1A, slightly odd voltage personally (perhaps dropped to 12 internally?) so picking a power supply could be difficult. The manual also says that they only guarantee use of their own power supply and it has been specially designed for low noise etc. I ended up with a little bit of an odd DIY solution.

2) I found the Wifi range to be really poor, this could be down to the brick construction of my house and the fact it has a metal back plate. I ended up buying a wifi range extender and it still can be a bit patchy sometimes when watching the feed remotely. This could be down to my particular setup however.

3) Not pretty - I don't think it is an overly pretty device, functional of course but has a big vandal resistant switch, blue LED and a black motion sensor and has no real style. Certainly the other solutions seem to have a bit more visual appeal.

4) Occasionally the app does not pick up the notifications, can't pin this one down at the minute but the other day I got the notification by my plugin but not the app. Not sure what the issue is there, it has for 99% of the other times worked fine though.

Overall I am fairly happy but I have nothing to compare it with and not that many visitors anyway!

[mikaluch]

I have a Ring and I wish I had my money back. I pretty much set one up myself more than 10 years ago but I went a long time without automation from then till now. It is not a wireless device. We didn't have a doorbell where I put the Ring. If I was going to run wires out there I wouldn't have paid $200 for a wireless device. The battery has been lasting < 1 month and declining. Then it quit working altogether about a week ago. Customer Service is a never-ending string of next guys up. Some direct quotes from their emails:

"The best way to insure that your device does not deplete the battery so quickly is to have it hard wired. This will give your device a constant trickle charge. Hardwiring can be done one of two ways:
1-hard wire device to existing doorbell
2-you can hard wire the device to a solar panel that can be found on ring.com"

"Our Ring Video Doorbell has a battery that should hold a charge for up to six months on a single charge if you are only getting 4 notifications a day. In your case you are averaging about 8- 10 events a day. Based on that your battery is sure to run low at a much faster rate."

4 notifications a day? So if my wife and I each leave and return once a day we will use up all of the notifications, no matter how low I set the motion detector.

I'll keep it all around to hack later but I can't say I love the Canary either. It is definitely better hardware with more capabilities. It will be a better hacked tool some day.

[Duc998]

I just bought the doorbird like 5 minutes ago. The price is killing me but with good reviews and a plugin being developed by MrHappy I thought it probably the perfect fit the HS3.

My plan is trigger an event when a guest trigger doorbell to fire up the Lifx light s and maybe trigger the Amazon echo to scream someones at the door!

I'm also running Blue Iris for my x5 POE camera's. I wanted to add the doorbird into the monitoring / local video storage. All the blueiris video's get uploaded to my Google drive.

[clafa]

I have Ring Pro

Hi,

I recently installed the Ring Pro, my old doorbell was wireless so had to run wires to this location with a voltage regulator since it uses 10-16VAC.

The doorbell works, have been notified of someone at the door, the motion sensor it way to sensitive I need to play with it since I have been woken up at 4am with 'motion at the front door' and it must have been a bird or other small critter.

The ios App is fine, I have used the 'live video' feature day and night and the IR sensor works all the time.

I am not fond of the $5 per month for cloud recording, I will install some cameras later on for storing the video.

I have yet to integrate it to Homeseer with IFTT..

Let me know any specific questions you may have,
Chris

[Eman]

Doorbird product range :https://www.doorbird.com/buy

If your have a house with a gate and also you can have one with a letterbox!


Eman.