I never love making a negative video, but when I figured out everything that was going on, I knew I had to. Next video is another fun smart home tour, subscribe so you don't miss it!

this is exactly the public service that a channel on YT we need. Exposing these awful products and making buyers aware of the shady tactics some companies will resort to. Thanks for all your effort on our behalf.

Imagine if you'd been told 15 years ago that you'd need to pay a subscription for your doorbell. You'd think it was the most ridiculous idea ever.

I appreciate you calling this stuff out. It’s not fun being negative, but we do need to call out the problems and most of us don’t have the effect you do with your platform and reach.

Great call outs Reed! These are so easy to miss when deciding on a doorbell.

Thank you for being honest and real. Companies need to be called out on their BS. Putting this out there is the only way we will get this stuff fixed!

As an owner of the Eufy Doorbell you featured I agree that it is great and I have the Homebase so all the videos are stored in my home. I don't use the notification thumbnails and can open the app and see whats up in seconds. The cloud issue was way overblown in my opinion and I am very happy with all my Eufy Cameras and lights.

Love the honesty in this video since I've been looking at door cam's and have always been skeptical on which ones are actually worth paying for

The eufy issue was also unencrypted video feeds being transmitted to their servers regardless of what settings you said even though they said it was all local. Not just snapshots…

Dude I really appreciate it. I was using my Wyze robot vacuum just now and saw the ad for the doorbell. I’m glad I searched Wyze vs Eufy doorbell and found your video. I have two Eufy doorbells and I really like them.

Great video! I was actually looking at the ecobee doorbell, but I’m running the other way now 😂

Appreciate the honest reviews Reed!

Ring doorbell gone and Eufy is amazing!!

LMAO!! I love how you did the Spouse Approval droppage!

Moving from Ring to Reolink was a gamechanger for me. Even without offloading to a NAS, the local storage has been more than enough. PoE or AC, LAN or WiFi, local storage (SD) or NAS, mobile and desktop applications. It took a little more time and tweaking to get it right, but but it's been great so far.

Thanks for raising some of these pitfalls. I think all of the doorbell systems are missing support for apartments. Needing to have a doorbell unit down as the main building entrance but also one next to the apartment door. Well thats how it is in my part of the world. Not sure if on the other side of the Atlantic you have the same requirements for Condos and Apartments for two doorbell units to work as one. Maybe there is a system which can be paired.

THANK YOU for the info and honesty. I get that companies need to make money, but subscriptions have gotten out of control.

Videos like this make KZfaq a more precious place. Keep up the good work

I have had a Eufy doorbell camera for a couple of years now. Amazing , no monthly fees and you can add extra cameras if you want for other doors. Eufy is the only way to go , great camera and no extra monthly fees.

Thanks Reed, tired of features you want being tied behind a paywall! Love to see you make a video showing the best outdoor doorbell cameras that give you all the goodies without a monthly fee! Thanks!

I had the first Wyze doorbell, which was great with cam plus, but it would constantly drop from the network or take forever to load. even with a WAP less than 20 feet away.. I changed to an Amcrest AD410 and it's rock solid. the night quality is worse with IR/"night vision", so I leave my porch light on at night using a shelly relay and timers, but I've been happy with it.

Thank you for the honesty here. Ecobee burned a lot of trust on this one at the announcement. This is strike two after the door and window sensors also require a subscription.

The end is so cute. Love it!

A good topic to cover. I paid more for a Nest doorbell as it does all the basic stuff I needed without subscription. As an added bonus it alerts me on multiple google devices around the house, and my watch.

Thanks Reed.

I use the Reolink Video Doorbell PoE and I'm very pleased with it.

Disgusting consumer practices! Your reviews can save so many people from these predatory companies. Thanks

I have eufy and happy with it . Left ring 3 years ago just because of their monthly subscription and 1080p 🤦

The eufy one you ticked in the thumbnail I actually used 2 days ago, and when the person was talking back to me I could hear myself echoing with about a 5-10 second delay lol but the features are good with no subscription, because one thing that worries me about getting into smart home renovations is subscriptions. I don't wanna be paying a monthly fee for something I buy.

loving the reolink poe, records to sd card and blue iris nvr with great quality video. Has a wealth of control in home assistant.

that cooldown is insane

Great video! Yet another reason why having fully local functionality is better.

Love the work, keep it up!!

Good video, I love my Reolink Wifi doorbell, it may not have a ton of features, but at least its not tied to subscription, works with Home Assistant, and isnt sharing my video.

1:48 that's a missed dad joke opportunity there: Ecobee carefull!

I have a Reolink PoE and I'm really happy with it.

Well done! These camera subscriptions need to stop! DO NOT BUY ANY PRODUCT WITH A SUBSCRIPTION. They will change when their sales drop off a cliff. The problem is... this info needs to go viral.

Hey Reed, nice job! You forgot to include a link to your Unifi doorbell! Details please..

i bought a eufy doorbell last year (not this one) and so far I like it. It's the one that comes with a local wifi hub to plug in your house and where the chime comes from. however, unlike this one the sd card slot is attached to the wifi hub. it was my main reason for getting it because I wanted to have access to it in case someone decided to break the doorbell....sure there are better ones out there but with the shortcomings you listed for these....I believe I only paid $60 for mine...also, the cloud storage (if you choose to get it) is like $3 a month... the only downside I have with it is that I live in a side by side townhouse condo so I constantly get notified by my neighbors and their guests constantly coming in and out, but that's not the doorbell's fault.

Integrity ✅ I applaud your courage for helping so many people starting out from getting bait and switch by all these companies. Sub'd!

Reolink Video Doorbell is now the best option. 5MP and works with NVR, ONVIF, Blue Iris....

Since I'm an ecobee thermostat user I got notified when the doorbell came out and was excited until I learned it's homekit compatible but doesn't use homekit secure video. Whomever made that decision cost them an enormous amount of sales. Since that can probably be fixed with software, I hope they see the light when they don't see the sales.

Thanks. I got the Ring doorbell and Eufy cameras , I got notification galore lol

Hey, thanks for the video. I've a short question. Is the Eufy video feed still p2p or finally RTSP? thanks for the answer and keep up the good work. greetings

Love your videos. Could you review the wemo doorbell? Heard good things about it. Especially the Apple hsv compatibility

Woah. Thanks for the heads up on this, the 5 minute delay on doorbell presses is actually a firmware bug. Our team is working on this right now.

I would definitely get the Eufy doorbell and there Camaras because it's like a One time payment. You pay for it once, and it's yours for life. Just how i like it. 😌💰

Thank you thank you thank you for being so honest !!! I finally get rid off Nest hello doorbell first generation and the Arlo ultra 2 4K both of those cameras are a big reap off, it was a nightmare but I finally and after a long research I decided to go with Lorex fusion 4K +, is not perfect but it’s way way way better than other cameras …best part NOT MONTHLY FEE EVER!!! with the NVR every stay local and has a lot of good features…. A little difficult to get just to their app but is for me the best option so far ….. thanks for your honest review of those 3 products….

I commented this YESTERDAY on felllow KZfaqr Technithusiast’s video about how their home was attempted to be broken into, and how they felt their smart home had failed, but I think it’s relevant here too… “ I think it’s insane that you need a subscription for any kind of recording with your camera like, I wouldn’t mind if they would 1. Give you a limited amount of time to mark your records as important with some kind of limit to the amount of saved ones you can have, and any not marked as important would delete after the short period of time! Or 2. Some way to allow on site recording to your own storage even if it’s not something your average user my do! I mean don’t purposefully obfuscate it but it doesn’t necessarily need to be plug and play But it’s insane that they can put such a major feature of a camera, recording behind a monthly paywall especially for something that can prevent crimes!!!!!! ”

I use Blink for doorbell and external cameras with local USB storage on my router. I get notifications in real time when motion is detected. No monthly fees required. You can view all clips with the Blink app on your phone. They have the “press to talk” option. I just have to remember to disable the system when I am working outside so I do not get tons of notifications.

Would u recommend the Wyze v2 doorbell or blink with storage hub? Have both to test and both have plus and minus. Torn

Awesome, Reed. Speak the truth!

This is why I have moved to Reolink. No monthly subscriptions. Only thing I still have is a ring doorbell because it rings all my Alexa devices and shows me who’s at the door.

Kid plus subscription… I’m dead!😂😂😂

Is there anything you can buy to have your video feed from the Eufy doorbell show up on loke the Ecobee thermostat? Besides my phone.

My Wemo door bell has been great! I just wish it had color night vision

What do you think about the Reolink doorbell cam?

For the Wtyze doorbell, you mentioned clicking on the notification only goes to a snapshot but from there is there an icon you can click that brings directly to the motion event video on the microsd?

Great video! I was looking at the Ecobee and Wyze doorbell. Side question, love the shirt, can I ask where you got it from?

I love your comedy skits. They make me laugh so much.

Great content! thank you.

I have an outdoor POE camera at my front door recording 24/7 and then I have a plain simple door bell button connected to the alarm input of the camera. A push on the door bell button gives a notification on my phone and then I just open 2 way audio. as simple as that.

When hard wired the battery works like a power backup. Eufy is by far the best doorbell security by far.

Having gone through 2 Eufy doorbells that have completely died in the space of 18 months, I would never by an Eufy product ever again.

I really don't like how so many companies are pushing subscriptions. Like it's a video doorbell. We've had cameras and doorbells for a long time. Why is it so hard to just make something slightly more expensive so it doesn't require a subscription. And the things that are behind a paywall are just ridiculous. Sure, 24/7 video recording. It makes sense. The companies have to maintain their servers, which costs money. But a cooldown on notifications? Like does it really cost that much more money to send a notification?

This is why I ended up going with the Ubiquiti Unifi Protect ecosystem. It doesn't integrate as well with other smart home tech. But, all the recording/features are on-prem and you pay once. No recurring monthly fees or anything. They're more expensive but I'm not paying for them forever. And you get new features as they add them to the Unifi Protect included with your purchase.

The cloud is someone else's computer. I am trying the Hikvision variety that works with my NVR for local storage and will install it soon. I am sure it has goofy stuff about it too

Out of the box, it's a very piecemeal solution. We get some features but not others. I firmly believe (and have observed) that a lot of these solutions are of the "see a need, fill multiple wants" type of products. That said, I'm an advocate of the "create a custom solution" to have all the features you'd like, if that's something that both interests the user _and_ something they're willing to put in the effort to learn. Scrypted using an Amcrest AD410 and an Aqara Smart Button make a fantastic doorbell system. Everything stays (or can stay) local; is supported by HKSV, and it's quite affordable. But being a self-admin for smart home thingies isn't everyone's cup of tea and for some people, it's not cognitively possible.

The eufy issue wasn't so much that the thumbs and video were stored on the cloud it was how they were stored. Not being encrypted and easily viewed made the lie about storage so much worse and destroyed trust. Since then they made it clear where they are stored and encrypted things but it's real hard to get the trust back.

@SmartHomeSolver Where does Eufy store the video ? On their own cloud or on a local SD ? If in cloud, it may not be free for ever, or may not work any more one day....

Hi, Great video. If I am away will I still get notifications on my cell phone if someone is at my door?

I agree with you that it's deceptive to auto enroll people in a trial and not call out that features will be lost when it ends if they don't subscribe. But after looking at the subscription cost and comparing to Google and Ring (which are the two platforms I would go with since I don't want a Chinese company to run my smart home devices, thanks), they are all pretty similar. My home also has two Ecobee Premium thermostats and I like that I will be able view the doorbell on them, that they chime, and any Homepod or Echo devices I add will also chime. The Ecobee subscription is $5/month. A cup of coffee each day costs that so people kind of need to keep it in perspective.

I have an older Eufy doorbell. It is so slow to send notifications to my phone that it is unusable as anything more than a normal doorbell. I hope this new one is better.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again (and again): I love the cutaway scenes/gags. So creative and amusing.

I'm in week two of trying to get my Euft doorbell to work. Their support is really slow to respond even though they claim responses within 24 hours. One suggested I watch a KZfaq video about installing a different product. The issue I have is I first install the chime. Once that's successful it says to install the doorbell, but initiating that process tells me I have to install the chime first.

what about the compatibility with an existing door chime? Are there any video door bells that rely on your home WiFi local network (NO cloud) along with recording to an external USB hard drive that could be plugged into your router?

The only camera I would be interested in is one where no company has access to it. More than happy to configure port forwarding and dyndns to make it work. I know that's a niche but if there's a good quality product that caters to it I'd be interested. I used an old smartphone once but it didn't survive very long with the camera on constantly.

I already learned my lesson with the ecobee door sensors. Same situation basically can't do anything but show open/closed in their app. Can't take action without a subscription. Won't talk to any other apps. I was busy and went months between buying and installing them so no returns.

I have a "Ring" door bell which is now owned by Google. The original was returned after several months because it didn't work and it was replaced for free. The present one when someone pushes the button, it rings in the house, but not on my phone. Both Rings that I've had are slow to start recording, so if someone comes and steals a package, by the time it starts recording the person is out of range. The audio is also not good at all, I would not buy a "Ring" again. The Ring also has a yearly subscription which I pay. Thanks for your review.

For the super cheap subscription for Wyze though, you get probably the best doorbell camera out there with the subscription included.

The Wyze is kinda a Chinese company too. Also, you should have included the Reolink doorbell, it runs locally so you don't need internet and has on board storage with an SD card and 24/7 recording or you can use an NVR and the SD card is on the back so it's not easy to steal, also you need a special tool (or any pointy tool like a small screw driver in case you lose the tool) to remove the doorbell unlike the Wyze which you can just pop off. Last but not least it has 2.4 and 5 ghz wifi and even has ethernet if you want to prevent interference or deliberate jamming of the wifi signal and a much higher resolution. It doesn't have as tall an aspect ratio for seeing packages under it which is the only real downside. I guess you could say it's a Chinese company as well. Cloud recording is option for a fee or free trial which you can extend indefinitely but you don't need the cloud other than for rich notifications (and as additional backup to SD card and NVR).

with the wyze cam all you have to do is hit playback at the bottom and it brings you right to the spot in the sd card where it recorded it so not a big deal in my eyes. Also not having the ability for 24/7 recording is a hard f in my eyes so the last camera is completely out for me.

I understand the main point was to talk about the paywalls, but curious how the Wyze V2 Doorbell holds up if we're already subscribed to Wyze.

I am confused all variants of Eufy doorbell on amazon. I want it to be wired and work with existing old bell chime. plus i want a local storage and store clips in home assistant. Please guide

Would love to hear your thoughts about the Reolink. Just bought it but haven't moved into my new house yet.

We've got the Eufy Security 2K doorbell and its detection and alerts are both amazing and atrocious at the same time. What's excellent? Well, it very quickly detects cars, people, pets, moving tree limbs, stationary car tire rims, sunlight reflecting off of the packaging sitting on the porch...... and you get near-immediate notifications! Often four or five times within a single minute for the same detection! So it has excellent detection and notification speed. Our prior doorbell was a Google Nest and the notifications were very slow, up to 30 or 45 seconds after a detection had actually occurred, and then it might take well over a minute to actually connect to the doorbell to view the event, so by then the person who rung your doorbell is already leaving. But as for Eufy, I love how fast the detection is but the actual detection itself is often times complete garbage. My tire rims on my truck are five spoke, and for some reason I guess the doorbell thinks that a gingerbread man is standing in the yard? Or it'll detect a bright spot on a piece of tape on an Amazon package as a "human"..... but supposedly this thing has machine learning.... And there's no way to decrease the number of detections per minute like you have in most any other doorbell I've ever used. There were times we'd literally get identical "human" notifications twice within a ten second span, and there's zero way to stop this! I think Eufy is probably the best of the best as far as detection and notification speed as well as how quickly you can access an event's footage after it happened through the app, but the detection itself is just absolute dog shit.

I fully agree. All these companies are looking for recurring revenue streams and turning their products into services. I'm fine if it's really cutting edge features, but not for basic ones like notifications or watch the footage from the day or last few days. I finally got rid of the Ring 2 I bought 5 years ago because of that and was looking for a doorbell where I didn't have to pay for most features. I finally bought the latest doorbell from a small brand called Aosu. It's quite a clever set up: the 5MP doorbell (can be wired or battery) connects to a chime inside the house. All the footage is stored inside the chime so there's not chance of getting an SD card stolen. They do have a paid cloud offering that also has AI detection, but it's completely optional. I travelled abroad and was able to access video recordings for free very quickly. Notifications work well and are fast. The only slight downside is the battery if the motion detection is set to very sensitive. It lasted 2 months. But with adjustment it seems to be much better and hopefully will get close to the promised 5-6 months. It's not the cheapest doorbell at £120 or $150, but still worth it without monthly fees.

Appreciate the work here. Yes Ecobee was a hug disappointment.

Love my UniFi doorbell and camera system!

I opted for the Aqara Smart Video Doorbell G4. No fees incurred after original purchase. No time restricted features implemented. Can record video 24/7 to SD card stored on internal chime device. Or can opt to save video to NAS. Some people don't like the look or size of it. I do. So, I am a happy customer.

4:06 you overlooked that the whole unit isn’t secured to the wall so not only is it easy to steal the sd card, but with a little yank you can steal the entire unit!

You need to test the AOFU video doorbells, they seem to be very popular these days and I am considering one over all the other ones available.

what about the reolink doorbell? thinking of getting that one

I have been struggling with the whole doorbell/camera issue for some time and I have switched products more often than is even healthy. I'm still looking for the ideal solution. Nest - Expensive plan, ridiculous cool-off period between notifications, unreliable service since Google purchased them Ring - poor, compressed 1080p footage, issues with live view even with a strong connection, no 24/7 recording option, expensive plan, inaccurate people detection Eufy - Issues with live view, even with a strong connection, inaccurate people detection Wyze - Expensive plan, horrible AI detection, notification issues I looked into Unifi, but aside from the cost of replacing all of my hardware, the individual camera prices are kind of high. I appreciate you making this video as you pointed out a lot of the same problems I have noticed with these products, but I'm no closer to finding a good solution for my needs.

I have Lorex door bell cam works great with my Lorex camera system - reasonable cost and NO monthly fees ever.

I am considering getting a Eufy system simply because it integrates with Cove.

did you try out the reolink doorbell yet?

I got the Wyze Doorbell V2 on release day (as I have the full compliment of their products). I have been testing it using the micro usb under the back rubber cover but could not for the life of me figure out why it would notify on the first door bell press but not subsequent. This is the first Wyze product I'll be returning. Lets hope this is not the start of a bad thing, not looking forward to reconfiguring my whole home :(

Do any of these three doorbells work with 3rd party locally hosted software such as Frigate, MotionEye, BlueIris, etcetera?

I'm using a blink doorbell with eight months and two blink mini cameras inside with the blink sync 2 module. At first the flaws with the system wasn't annoying me but it's starting to grind my gears now.