Video doorbell

Has anyone tried a video doorbell where you see who's there on your phone? Are they reliable? do they get ripped off?

TIA

Michael

I've had a Ring video doorbell for a couple of hears. Works as advertised. Only issue is the battery needs to be recharged every three months or so. That requires removing the external cover with a special screwdriver, removing the battery, recharging then reversing the process.

I've had one for years. Very convenient, since the house is a good distance from the front garage door where the visitors ring. It has the video and also a "talk" function, which is good when you don't want the particular visitor (as in, people selling something or looking for work).
Hasn't been stolen...so far, anyway.

My experience is that at times some visitors will stand to the side of the doorbell camera lens so you cannot see them or there may be more than one person out of sight. My son just picked up an exterior wireless camera with a motion detector and a memory card. The camera syncs with your cell phone. If possible I would mount that a few meters away from a door bell camera and point it at the doorbell. That setup would give you a full wide angle view of all persons standing near the doorbell. About $50 Amazon.

We have our camera mounted behind a metal cage, similar to what you see covering many CFE meters.

Ours is not a Ring or phone-friendly doorbell.

When we moved to this house we had very poor TelMex internet speed (5 MGs tops) and we had read that you needed decent speed for Ring, etc.

The previous owner at this house had an intercom system (no video), so we bought a video doorbell (AMZN) and when we hooked it up to the existing intercom wiring, it worked. It also has microphone/speaker two way. Saves us a lot of needless steps to gate.

If the device uses the internet after buying be sure to change the default password. Yes not all boxes use the internet but some do for example that allow you to look at the camera picture at other locations. Some people report bad guys breaking into these devices and using the internet to move child porn and guess who the cops come visit? Not the bad guys.