this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026

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doorbell camera recs (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 hours ago by Today@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Any recommendations on doorbell cameras? I used to have Ring and it was ok. Moved and got Blink- sucks, didn't realize it was battery only, constantly dead. Looking at Eufy from Costco- hardwired and no subscription because it uses local storage. Thoughts?

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[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

What are your requirements?

I have a Ring that has served well and I believe there are newer models with a package camera. However I’m not happy about the privacy situation.

Since it’s not immediate, I’m waiting to see what Apple comes up with.

Apple claims to be privacy focussed
my family is all Apple already
end-to-end encryption
functional out of the box, not a project like self-hosting would be
no extra subscriptions for cloud storage
possible synergy with smart lock

That’s a lot of nice claims

[–] Level9831@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

Been researching for my house and narrowed it down between Reolink and TP-Link Tapo.

[–] als@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 6 hours ago

I imagine you're aware of this but Ring have a deal with police where they can view your doorbell's footage without a warrant. Idk if this is the case for other brands but certainly worth keeping in mind

[–] BertramDitore@lemmy.zip 11 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

I have a Eufy. The only good thing about it, IMO, is the local storage and no required subscription. That’s exactly why I bought it. Aside from that, I find it’s incredibly unreliable and frustrating to use and configure. I also have the Smart Display, which is supposed to integrate seamlessly and turn on automatically when someone rings the doorbell, and it simply doesn’t. It often turns on minutes later, if at all, well after the person left.

The doorbell’s video quality, while supposed to be 2K, is crap. It’s completely jittery, not smooth at all - which means I’ll see a person approach my door, start walking away, and then they’ll simply disappear because of how inconsistent and jittery the stream is. Useless if you care about actually seeing what’s going on outside.

When someone presses the button to ring the doorbell, it rings maybe 50% of the time. The other times it doesn’t make a sound, but still registers the person in the log. Which is completely useless for a doorbell.

On paper, Eufy checks all the boxes. In practice, I’ve been entirely unhappy with it.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

I don’t know how onto look for this but one of my requirements next time will be responsiveness with the doorbell/video. I have a small front yard so already the Ring has trouble being timely

I was hoping a locally controlled doorbell would be more responsive than a cloud doorbell

[–] TAG@lemmy.world 7 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Would you trust Eufy? A few years ago, they got in trouble because their cameras might only store footage locally but they stream to the cloud. They claim to have fixed the issue, but it is unclear if they mean that the footage is no longer being sent or if they just tightened security so that only they (and trusted partners) can watch it.

See: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/more-eufy-camera-flaws-found-including-remote-unencrypted-feed-viewing/ https://www.cnet.com/home/security/eufy-says-software-bug-that-exposed-users-video-footage-to-strangers-has-been-fixed/

[–] BertramDitore@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 hours ago

It's a good question. I'm not totally confident either way, but I remember that debacle, and bought mine after they said it was fixed. They posted somewhere that they hired an independent security researcher to audit everything and he was satisfied that it was resolved. Can we trust that? I really don't know. I only trust them as much as I trust any tech company, which is very little, but it is was it is.

[–] cobysev@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

I have eufy for two doorbell cameras (since my house is technically 2 separate apartments), a garage floodlight camera, and a couple security cameras I put up in my house. I've never had any of the problems you mentioned. Sounds like your cameras might be too far away from your HomeBase; you're not getting a reliable stream across your network.

I switched from Ring to eufy specifically to avoid paying for a cloud subscription, and to store all my security footage locally. I heard about Ring collaborating with police to hand over your video feed without even notifying customers and I said, "hell no!"

My only complaint about eufy is that the video stream is a bit delayed. The live feed is maybe a few seconds behind, even if I'm standing right next to the camera to stream. Which makes it a little difficult to chat with people over the camera.

Also, by the time the phone app notifies me that there's a car in my driveway, the person is already standing at my door. Ring would ping me when a car was halfway up my long driveway, and the video feed was near instant.

eufy is terrible at determining movements too. If it's a sunny day, I get pings constantly because the shadow of the trees swaying across my driveway set off the motion detection. I have to remember to switch it to human only detection so I'm not bombarded with notifications all day. Which just makes it less likely to notify me of someone in my driveway until they're already gone. I've narrowed the detection area to keep the tree branches from pinging movement, but I can't stop their shadows in the driveway. I need to know when there's movement in my driveway.

The sacrifices I make to avoid a surveillance state...

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

My Eufy is super reliable. I have the older doorbell and the newer basestation which I upgraded from the last generation. Is your base sation not getting a good connection? Ours is 1.5 floors up and maybe 30 feet away from the doorbell. The walls are all interior but most of what's between the doorbell and base is stairwell. We have a security camera farther away and outside an exterior brick wall that also works reliably.

As far as the Eufy app and doorbell and camera we have, they work really well. We don't have any other addons like the screen.

I have my mine integrated with home assistant but the integration unofficial and super hacky.

Its nice because we can have a shot from the camera pop up on our TV and smart screens (hacked echo shows running view assist) but setting that up in a way that was reliable was NOT intuitive.

I purchased this setup for the same reasons, all local.

[–] BertramDitore@lemmy.zip 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Interesting! I'm always fascinated when people have such different experiences with the same products.

I have 4 total Eufy devices: the latest base station, a doorbell cam, a separate cam in my kitchen pointing at my cat's food, and the smart display. They're all connected to the base station which is hardwired to my gigabit connection. The base station is about 10 feet from the doorbell and smart display, and the kitchen cam is about 10 feet in the other direction. That standalone kitchen cam is the most reliable of my Eufy devices, and it still randomly disconnects, only works some of the time, and streams really jankily.

I wonder if I ended up with a bunch of lemons, it sure sounds like my devices are not working as intended.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago

Yeah, it's weird. But there's a lot of things that could affect these devices. Ours is Ethernet but only to our mesh point in the middle of our place so it's not too far from either camera.

I wonder if it's choking on the 4 devices. Never had that many connected. I do want to add more some time, but likely only one or two more cameras.

[–] Today@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Costco had the Eufy doorbell and a solar camera on sale. Maybe I'll try them, knowing i can return them if needed.

[–] Berttheduck@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 hours ago

Just another chipping in on the Eufy solar. I've been pretty impressed so far with a few minor niggles.

Generally it works well, connects nicely to the repeater and rings ok. Solar works great no issues with battery power on our south facing front.

The main selling point for me was no subscription or remote server connection.

It's annoying if it loses connection to the WiFi. I've actually turned the security mode (which makes it scream if taken off the wall without turning that off first in the app).

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

I bought a Reolink a few months ago, and I quite like it.

[–] ServeTheBeam@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Another here for Reolink. I have a full house setup and they’ve been rock solid.

[–] Today@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

It looks like Costco used to sell the Reolink but now they don't have any on their site. I'm not tied to Costco, I just really like being able to drive over and return it if I get something I don't like.

[–] Maestro@fedia.io 3 points 5 hours ago

Same. I'm happy with my Reolink. Works well. Can have local storage and integration.

[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I’ve seen a few people recommending Aqara recently, but no personal experience myself.

[–] Today@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Never heard of that. I will check it out.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago

I didnt know they had cameras now, but they've made smart home IoT devices like switches and sensors for years now.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

I have a blink camera, not a doorbell camera, but just a regular outdoor camera that I have near the front door. The batteries in it lasted nearly a year before they needed replacing. Curious how long it was lasting in your doorbell camera? I would expect it to be similar unless it's basically recording constantly or something.

[–] Bruncvik@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago

Batteries can get quickly depleted when the wifi connection is unstable. My camera had to be recharged every month until I got a dedicated wifi extender in the hallway by the front door. Since then the battery lasts about half a year.

[–] Today@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Mine are only lasting about 3 weeks. We live on a fairly busy street. Also, it only rings the doorbell and app if you hold the bottom for 2-3 seconds.

[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago

I really enjoyed my Blink for the first two weeks, but I didn't really want to buy another 24 pack of batteries to keep it running for another two weeks.

Now it just hangs out by the front door and makes people think we're recording them.

[–] Trixxstrr@piefed.ca 3 points 7 hours ago

My blink doorbell camera lasts like a year on the batteries, make sure they are non-rechargeable lithium ones. And I'm in northern Alberta, so -40 winters. I like that it has no monthly fee needed with the usb stick in the inside module thing.

[–] symbioticremnant@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

I've been a fan of Wyze, https://www.wyze.com/products/wyze-video-doorbell-v2. Comparably inexpensive equipment. Has a micro sd card slot. Does not require a subscription. I can access recordings on the sd card through the app. They do offer a subscription, however it mostly seems tied to better auto detection of objects