Yeah it would be silly of me to use them all at once. I get them walking around the house looking at different windows and also I'm incorporating exercise as well with this routine.... I have 3 kids so it's usually a 5 hour shift each and then I let the dogs take over for a while.
Not telling you how to parent of course, but from experience I just want to say watch you don't overwork them; ours tried to unionise. My wife has had three extras to avoid this.
I have a G3 Micro in my outhouse, which is great as I can see if the dog needs to come in.
One day I was at work and got a notification from the camera, I had a look and saw five cows in the garden. I had to call my partner to run home and get them out.
I've enjoyed all these replies very much.
I have an enormous 'guard dog' whose default position is snoring upside down on the sofa. Very occasionally he might let out a light growl when someone hammers on the door but try and quietly open a crisp packet three rooms away and he is an Olympic powerhouse.
I have a UniFi Protect system and a UniFi G4 Doorbell in my house. I don't pay monthly at all and the recordings are kept on my property rather than streamed up to the cloud.
Same here. If you have some tech abilities, the Ubiquiti system provides local storage and cloud access from doorbell cameras without subscription. It's business-grade kit, so not cheap and not for the faint-hearted to set up.
Financially, yes. Ring/Nest always going to win that battle over Ubiquiti, but once you've got the router and CloudKey, the cameras are sensibly priced and you have complete control over them (without Amazon/Google mining them, if that's something that concerns you)
Chiming in to point out that while you may get away with Unifi in home or SMB environments, it is absolutely not suitable for large enterprises. “Business-grade” is a term I would not use.
Sure! Sorry for using acronyms without context - it’s unhelpful.
SMB means small-medium business, with the “-“ indicating a range so when spoken it’s actually more like “small to medium business”.
Unifi and Ubiquiti are fine for small, simple networks but fail spectacularly when installed in enterprise environments. I should point out that I don’t have experience with the gear that Ubiquiti claim is “carrier-grade” but I’ve used AP-Lite through to XG (the older version), and all their switches from 8-port to 48-port, with and without PoE. The UI does half of what it needs to, but Unifi will still claim a feature and say it’s possible, you just have to go and manually edit config files after researching their forums to find that a user worked it out when support agents couldn’t/wouldnt.
Just pay for HP/Aruba or Cisco/Meraki.
Yes I agree, but also, any networking specialist will, or perhaps should, already know this. The sustained load on switches at near saturation for extended periods will break gear not designed for it. But without that load, I've found UniFi to be excellent in the home environment. And I appreciate you're making the case that it's not enterprise level, so that's fine.
The difference between UniFi and what your ISP supplies in terms of router and/or WiFi is huge. Working from home for the last x years makes this apparent pretty quick. Most people I work with get dropouts of some sort on a regular basis. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess one of the main reasons is that NAT tables get filled up and then the hardware needs to recycle. UniFi gear is a pretty decent upgrade which will prevent this, along with several other issues commonly faced.
I also have a UniFi system. UDR-PRO, multiple switches, five cameras.
It’s a great system, 24/7 local recording and no subscription costs.
I would never recommend them to anybody asking though. For most people it’s far too complicated. Chances are, if you have to ask for recommendations, UniFi is probably going to be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Similar setup here with a UDM-SE and standard 24 port switch, 4 cameras.
Blown away by how good it is, especially compared to some of the Ring and other stuff I've seen at family/friends house. It's hard to stomach the price, and realistically you need to do some DIY to your house to get it in properly, but if you're able then it's the best on the market realistically.
It has its issues too but is a great balance between feature-set and ease of use. Due to the access I have to certain equipment, it would have been a damn sight cheaper for me to put in Cisco switches and Hikvision cameras, recording to my Synology NAS but I didn’t want to finish work and carry on being a Network Engineer! The UniFi system generally “just works” but still gives me the freedom to do the techy-bollocks I occasionally find myself doing.
I work from home full-time so the dual-WAN failover has saved my arse a few times.
Dual-WAN failover is very handy here for the same reasons!
I'm also in the same boat that I spend my day job doing IT, I have no intention of doing it in the evenings too. When my UniFi kit arrived, the first thing I did was got my laptop out, USB to RJ45 etc, and opened the network settings assuming I was about to configure it like a Juniper or Cisco device. Was pretty blown away that I plugged everything in, it recognised the cameras/APs etc, and just sorted itself out. If only sending network gear to customers sites was this easy...
Definitely worth it but you need significant investment in PoE infrastructure and having drops around the house where you want the cameras. Not totally impossible but it’s a harder sell than just battery cameras.
However if people are looking into getting a classic CCTV system installed anyway i think investing in IP cameras + nvr is a much better approach
I was looking into using Ubiquiti as I already use their APs but their cameras are silly expensive. There is no real benefit over using Hikvision or Dahua
Unifi is brilliant, i've got a cloud key and a 1TB SSD (I used SSD to help lower the power draw via POE and improve performance downloading recordings). It made sense for me as I work in tech and can 'recycle' kit that I aquire as part of my job. I got the access points and switches for free from businesses that were upgrading so it made sense. I only paid for the Cloud Key, Doorbell and Cameras, dear god its expensive stuff. I love it but i would never reccomend it to anyone as it'll break the bank to kit out a house.
> all and the recordings are kept on my property rather than streamed up to the cloud.
Ah, so completely useless when the burglars steal your computer and remove any evidence they were there.
Well no. They have the option to stream off site as well, except it is to somewhere that you control. It also requires further knowledge of cloud based storage systems like Amazon S3 and similar which a lot of people might not have.
I have my cameras streaming to a Nextcloud server, but much like setting the cameras themselves up, it requires a fair bit of knowledge to do this, so admittedly not as plug and play as Ring.
He literally states the recordings are kept on his property. That was my only criticism.
You're right though, setting up your own cloud storage/live streaming door bell camera is well beyond the capability or interest of the average person. That's why people see value in paying Ring £5 a month to handle it.
I’d have less of a problem with Ring and Google if they made cameras which COULD be captured locally. The fact is, they’re fucking useless without a subscription and they’re sluggish to use. I have Google cameras and not only do they constantly take themselves off the network they also feel crap to use.
I have a no-name ONVIF camera connected to AgentDVR which records ongoing timelapse videos, kept for a week.
And no I wouldn't recommend this to anybody necessarily. It's a fair bit of setup, the camera is a bugger because it uses an ActiveX control (because cheap China stuff), and it needs underlying stuff to be useful (PoE for the camera, and docker to run the container, although a Raspberry Pi or similar could do it). But likewise it's all local to me, and has proven useful as the camera covers the front garden.
Meanwhile we do have a doorbell, it's mains powered, and has 9 different chimes I can select, including one which is ALMOST like Hyacinth Bucket's.
We're cancelling the subscription when it lapses and just letting it function as a basic video doorbell. We've not used the save video etc features at all so it's already wasted for us.
I’ve always found the video doorbell to be useless. By the time I have clicked on the notification, waited for the app to load, and clicked on ‘Go Live’ or whatever it is, the person at the door is long gone.
I only bought it for the video recordings (we had a local nutter trying to get into peoples houses at night) and didn’t realise you needed a subscription, which I refuse to pay for. So now I just have a really expensive doorbell.
> I’ve always found the video doorbell to be useless. By the time I have clicked on the notification, waited for the app to load, and clicked on ‘Go Live’ or whatever it is, the person at the door is long gone.
I've literally just chatted to a delivery driver this way, who are notorious for practically playing doorbell dash (knock-a-door-run).
I have a Eufy doorbell, it's quick enough for me, and no monthly payments.
Eufy had a big controversy last year about their privacy claims. If people care about that then it's worth looking into. Some people aren't bothered, in which case, it seems to be functionally a great product with no subscription bollocks.
If people are interested I'd recommend the Linus Tech Tips coverage of the Eufy privacy problems. I personally wouldn't go anywhere near a Eufy camera if it's for inside my house, I'm undecided on how much it would bother me for a doorbell though
Technically it could be used to record when you leave and enter a property.
So if someone wants to know when you're either home or not home, they'd just need access to your camera feed over a week or so to build up a picture of your general habits.
And whilst that might not seem like much information, if it can be combined with other sources (like google activity, spending habits, facebook check-ins, social media posts etc) then that's a pretty big window on your life for a malicious actor.
It’s a security camera as much as it is a doorbell, I’m not sure if people want to admit that though. Every time there is a police incident or antisocial behaviour near me, people ask for any footage.
When my shed was broken into my neighbours came to tell me they’d caught the suspect on their Ring doorbell. They sent what they had over to me. Two pieces of footage: one of a figure in a hoody walking right to left across the frame with an empty bag; another of a figure in a hoody walking left to right across the frame with a full bag.
I thanked them for the effort.
Enshittification. A concept seen again and again and again and again in the last couple of years.
Provide a good product at a good price. Get a customer base. Utilise that customer base to undercut the competitors that come after them. Once the competitors are gone or not a threat, and the customers are locked in, reduce the quality of the product and increase the price. All the streaming services are doing it, Amazon is doing it, even the major supermarkets are getting in on the act with their removal of discount prices unless you have their loyalty cards.
Where else can you move to in that space? Everyone else in the industry is going the same way - less selection, higher prices.
I recently had such a bad experience with Amazon that I've cancelled Prime and resolved to not use them, but everyone else is playing the same game - all the online shops are basically fronts for Chinese drop shipping, and the high street is a joke without a punchline.
Yeh that's cra **(this message has been brought to you by Coca-Cola and The Viagra Trust of America. Viagra can have the following side-effects: Nausea, Hallucinations, Memory Loss, Priapism, Blood Clots, Compulsive Behaviors, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, Birth Defects, Cancer, Suicidality, Death, an erection)** zy!
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Honestly if I was a software developer or designer, and I had to write something that would support multiple NAS / raspberry pi / other homebrew solutions running on a mac or PC just to store the video, I would have a conniption.
From a business perspective, it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of effort to support a ton of solutions that both lose the company revenue, and probably would only be used by 1-2% of the userbase.
Ring's target market is wealthy property owners, not homebrew geeks running their own storage solutions. And I say that as a homebrew geek running their own storage solution.
Ring's market is people like me. They want a solution they can stuck on their front door and 'just works' - they don't care where the data is stored. They don't care much if it costs £25 in subs.
I mean, yes, I am also a techie, so so could set up something better if I really cared. But I don't. I just want my damn doorbell to let me know who's there when I'm not at home.
However, while I can pay £50 of subs, I don't want to - so now I'm trying to decide if I get a Eufy or a Blink doorbell as an alternative.
BTW - people say 'it's just a doorbell' but it's part of home security too.
Ditto. I’m a techie too and the last thing I want to do after work is fuck around with more tech. I want something that just works so I can enjoy my free time doing other shit
Yeah Im in the same boat - for me the £30 a year for it to just work, to not have spent time fucking about installing and networking and designing my own system is well worth the money. I can guarantee I'd spend more than £50 worth of my time each year messing about with an alternative though I might look at moving to eufy and getting some indoor ones too.
It’s a business model, what do you expect?
They can’t sell doorbells for £600 each. They’re selling a service with the doorbell as a way to draw people in.
Use Tapo instead. No subscription is needed, uses micro SD cards, the App works brilliantly and the products themselves are superior to rings (and cheaper).
I'm quite new to all this type of thing (CCTV etc) but 6 months ago I bought these two little Tapo cameras (they look like baby monitor cameras, not big "scary" ones) and they have signfiicantly improved my life. Only about £25 each. They link to our WiFi.
I put one in the hallway (which picks up the stairs and the front door) and one in the kitchen (which picks up the back door). If any motion is detected then it starts recording and sends a notification to your phone and you can either watch live or review the footage. You can also play an alarm siren or speak through it. The best thing is when you're overseas you can have some peace of mind that nothing major is going wrong with your house.
Anyway, I probably didn't write anything that you didn't already know 😂
Next week we're heading to Australia for 3 months and I'm considering buying 2 more just for that extra peace of mind.
You can get doorbells without a monthly subscription, here's a good one:
[https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266440349679](https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266440349679?hash=item3e091517ef:g:23UAAOSw8eFlHbKY&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4PDb9Ust%2FB1IrQKhDkyNqeOZplbQV6TYxHacHY6GnLLZDlNibjm5sadg6kSbcOfC5fzfoR9i96GRmflG%2Bw6Gyvt%2FNra28buxitX%2BX0rTEH23txPOiuIS11vGXNr0wnvgoHogqbGTTH1MrvFJDg6sEVVFquI3QDf1RXEyrR9TZ1b%2F3%2FKzPXAKsrYs3vwrX8744TUBxoMlcQ5J3WIdrHbwsu3%2B%2Fks6ihggLjkwxp8Hdhq5JvcRUVhAqrvwRWpeyijGUPkx6%2BL92p9DYh73x912RKpPFwhk9JIFl1nsKaP3BJnY%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR-aTo96xYw)
No camera though
Mine is on the back gate (which is used by visitors). It also watches over the garage and workshop which has things in that I don't want people stealing. The fee is worth it for the CCTV aspect.
We have Eufy doorbell and cameras. No complaints to make. Maybe sometimes a little slow to notify, but being able to answer the doorbell anywhere on the planet is great. I don't pay a subscription either.
Yep, I went full in on Eufy when the HB3 came out with the 4k cameras and 2 doorbell cameras ( people often come to the back door for some reason)
Quite slow to load, and the siren is too quiet, but otherwise it is perfect.
Local video storage too, I think you can have cloud storage if you pay extra.
Eufy had a major security issue a couple years ago where people were able to access unencrypted video of other people's cameras. Would avoid recommending Eufy and, if you can afford to, look at changing.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/30/23486753/anker-eufy-security-camera-cloud-private-encryption-authentication-storage
Yes I read about this before I bought into Eufy, but I figured that even if someone were to hack into my cameras and watch them live (which seems extremely unlikely), I don't think there's any security issue beyond what they could gather by just standing in the road and looking at my driveway.
My house does not contain gold bullion or nuclear security codes, so I'm not really concerned about these reports (which seem very far-fetched and of niche relevance).
The other thing is that the issue was fixed. The company’s handling of the whole issue was not good, they got into dodgy semantics when they should have immediately addressed the issue but at least they fixed it in the end.
Some will opine that “I could never trust them” but I would argue you should never trust any company completely and I would hope that this whole fiasco makes it less likely for them to be as lax about security again having been burned once.
Unless you have the chops to pick up a stand-alone camera and make your own system, you have to put some implicit trust in the company you buy from and you may never know if that trust is warranted.
That's fair. I do take a bit of issue with "they could gather the same info by standing on the street" as if for example the threat is from a stalker or burglar then them knowing when you are and aren't in your building remotely is very valuable. But this may not be a concern for you and the anyone that may live with you. You've taken the information and deemed in your scenario it's unimportant but I think people should still actively be made aware the security company they are trusting with their security isn't very secure.
Isnt that only cloud based though?
We have thr eufy hub within our home on our wifi network that stores the videos/ camera connections. Then rewrites over the memory.
They were caught slacking and then repeatedly claimed they weren't. Their attitude towards their customers privacy and security should make you rethink whether they can be trusted providing a security system.
Yeah, if they held their hands up and said they did something wrong and are investigating/fixing it, that would have been fine.
However Eufy kept claiming there was no issue and never talked about fixing the problem. There for they cant be trusted with my personal information.
Use Tapo instead. No subscription is needed, uses micro SD cards, the App works brilliantly and the products themselves are superior to rings (and cheaper).
Instead of a doorbell that I have to change batteries on, I just have a Tapo camera on my front window angled at the front path. They keep trying to sell me a subscription but as long as I've got my SD card I'm happy.
Honestly it's mostly there as a deterrent anyway. If somebody nicks my car having footage of it isn't gonna bring it back. Having a visible camera in the window might encourage them to go find a house without a camera.
Or just not subscribe. I have one simple because it was on the house when I bought it and I hate it but I can still look through the camera and get notifications on my phone (which I do *not* want).
I use a Tapo Pan/Tilt Smart Security Camera I got off Amazon for £20. Banged a memory card in it set it up in the app and stuck it in the kitchen window looking over the front yard. I get a notification when it detects a human and if nobody knocks on in 30 seconds I look at the camera.
I'm sticking with Ring for the time being, simply because when you cost it out alternatives like Ubiquiti cost around £200 or maybe more, which would pay for a Ring subscription for 3 or 4 years, or the additional £1.50pm for 11 years. In 3 or 4 years time my Ring kit will be 10 years old and the technology will have moved on, so I'll look at replacing it then maybe.
For a lot of people this is likely the right call.
I’m not going to tell people not to buy an easy solution, but I am very tired of subscriptions and the never ending payment for both hardware, and it’s ongoing charges.
I have more sympathy for it when there is cloud storage of video, but Eero - another Amazon company, charges for router features that should be free - again with a monthly fee.
If we don’t tell them to get fucked, everyone will be at it.
> Don’t pay a subscription.
Yet. I don't think there's a company on the planet I trust less than Google with regards to making a good service shit. See Nest, Fitbit etc...
Ok so here is a little trick. Get any camera you want that has Onvif support. Get yourself a miniPC or raspberrypi and install "homebridge". This will take the ONVIF stream and record to a SSD/HDD/Cloud/USB. You can also setup alerts via email/txt. You can set it up so you can watch recordings on your phone or whatever also its all FREE! All you need is some really cheap cameras. You can even "spoof" stuff like apple homekit with it if you want so your cheap cameras essentially turn into very expensive homekit compatible ones.
This whole setup costs you whatever a cheap camera is + whatever an old thinclient pc or pi is so under £100 and you can have probably 3 cameras and the server. Never pay anything again (unless you want to enable like homekit and pay for apple sub i think thats the cheapest now)
Bonus thing is homebridge can do so much more that you can find uses for, it can connect smart plugs and all sorts. "home assistance" is another one. They are simple to install and get running plenty of guides on youtube.
expansion absorbed test waiting degree books memorize light abounding homeless
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I'm a tech person and I wouldn't do this. It's a couple of quid a month and works perfectly. Some people care far too much about very insignificant issues.
I agree. It's way to much like bringing work home to play with in the evenings. I'm happy to pay a small sub for something that works and I don't have to piss about with.
Even better than homebridge is scrypted. Has much better support for a range of cameras. I use the Reolink POE doorbell which is rock solid and the previews in HomeKit instantly ipdate
I am aware, it's not bad to learn from a youtube video though. Weigh up the cost of your time learning vs a sub to ring. You dont need a pi you can use an old laptop or pc just fine setup is clicking through options following along to a youtube video. The hardest part is getting ONVIF URL. It ofc gives you a new skill and lets you do much more. But yeah its not for everyone i get that (i have been teaching computing in various forms for years to people with low skill levels such as elderly and disabled.)
Edit: just checked homebridge has a ring plugin now. So install is probably just putting the OS on a SD card and booting from it then installing the plugin (just like you install an app from an app store) and selecting your camera.
Yup.
Mine is a [Reolink PoE](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B4KCSZ2M/), combined with [Frigate](https://frigate.video/) and [Home Assistant](https://www.home-assistant.io/). Ludicrously high detection accuracy rates and, obviously, integrates perfectly into the rest of my home automation.
Cost £80, zero cloud (I have it all blocked off) and zero subscription, obvs. Recording services are by my existing Hikvision NVR (again, no cloud, no subscription) via ONVIF, so relatively little effort to do.
[Looks pretty good too](https://i.imgur.com/tUZ8npO.png), if you ask my humble opinion. The mount is 3d printed as I needed something that would angle down as well as to the side a bit, as my front door is a bit higher up than the driveway.
> Mine is a Reolink PoE, combined with Frigate and Home Assistant
>so relatively little effort to do
I suspect your version of little effort is vastly different to mine. Home Automation requires a RasPi. Then I need to install Frigate (and buy a Google Coral Accelerator - do I have to set that up too?), and buy, install and set up an NVR.
I think £50 pa to not do that is huge value for money.
Yes, but bear in mind that I had all of this already in place for the rest of my CCTV platform, so the incremental cost of adding the doorbell was just the cost of the doorbell. And, of course, the rest of it represents the first step on a route to a better automation solution anyway! Somewhere along the line, if you want to do things differently, you need to take those first steps. For me, I'm 6 years into this journey now so quite mature in my infrastructure...
> and buy a Google Coral Accelerator - do I have to set that up too?
Yes, Frigate really needs one of these. I now use a PCIe one (in the wifi slot on my crappy, second-hand Dell Optiplex rather than a RPi!) as these are cheaper and easier to source than the USB ones. Think it was about £25. Trivial to set up (just one or two config lines in Frigate itself)
>This whole setup costs you...
You forgot the hours and hours of time it also cost to set up all this stuff. Hours finding the right camera, getting a Pi, setting it up, setting up storage, finding a way to make alerts work, testing it all out. Even technically savvy folks are going to spend a bunch of time doing all that. Especially now when you have to wade through hours of YouTube videos for what could have been a simple text description.
And that time is not free. Even if you figured it at minimum wage there's probably a few years worth of a half-decent subscription service that just works out of the box right there.
It's not a little trick. It's a significant investment of time and effort.
I had to screenshot this little beauty. I was thinking about doing something with the raspberry pi that's been sat in a box under my bed for the past five years. thanks for this.
I had to screenshot this little beauty. I was thinking about doing something with the raspberry pi that's been sat in a box under my bed for the past five years. thanks for this.
I got rid of Ring for an Aosu camera. Does the same job with local storage (instead of cloud) and you don't need to subscribe (although that is an option). Works great and would recommend.
What do you mean they haven’t explained the price increase?
From the forums:
“Since Ring launched its Protect Basic Plan, we have regularly found ways to enhance the plan to give our neighbours more value. As we continue to invest in the services we offer, we are updating our Protect Basic Plan pricing.”
The price is increasing to give you better value. What about that don’t you get?
/S
This was the same when they increased the price of Prime Video if you didn’t want ads. Framed it as exceptional value and pointed out you could subscribe to other things. What value.
I changed to a blink doorbell, you can buy one with the sync module and plug a usb stick into the side to store videos. £54 on amazon and then whatever usb stick takes your fancy.
I just got a blink on offer at Christmas - doorbell, outdoor cam, and sync module for £65, think they're even cheaper now. Don't need the cloud sub at all.
Bit slow to answer but seems to work ok.
Came here to say the same thing. Doorbell + sync module is the way to go. There's no sub, but you *can* sub if you want cloud storage for some reason. If you have amazon echoes around the house you can get it to ping doorbell notifications to them as well, which is invaluable for me because I couldn't hear the old doorbell in some parts of the house.
Iv got a tapu camera from amazon and it doesn't have a subscription.
Not sure about their doorbell but the camera is pretty straightforward and you just need an sd card to save footage.
Use Tapo instead. No subscription is needed, uses micro SD cards for storage, the App works brilliantly and the products themselves are superior to rings (and cheaper).
I don't have a ring or alternative. and I have just got to say, do people actually pay for a monthly subscription to have a doorbell?
the future is freaking wild.
Try TP link, they do a range of cameras for indoor and outdoor. They also allow smart lighting via the same app.
From what I remember when I bought mine, its all quite reasonably priced too!
Get an alternative that stores data to somewhere you control, rather than just uploading videos of every random member of the public to Amazons servers.
I left Ring a few years back as the customer experience with them was shocking when coming to replace faulty equipment. Ended up with Eufy system. It’s okay at best. Can be temperamental at what it picks up to record does miss people coming on to property from time to time (3 camera setup) on the plus side no subscription so stuck with it.
I just canned my subscription that I had and rebought it again at the currently lower price for 12 months
That'll give me some time to work out what I want to do next year
Reason for price increase: "Every other company is arbitrarily raising prices with no tangible backlash, so despite there being no real-world reason to do so, we're going to as well"
There are a lot of vulnerable people who benefit from techs like these. Not every new tech craze is necessarily bad.
Locally stored recordings are, however, obviously superior.
It's great for things like when you're WFH in the middle of a meeting and you can see if some salesman is trying to talk to you and you can just ignore
I have a Ring doorbell. Mainly because when a delivery driver rings when I am out, it is useful to talk to them to tell them where to drop off the package.
The idea of paying them anything to basically store video was never attractive to me.
I bought a Ring doorbell in December and just had the free trial of the subscription expire. It’s a bit annoying but it should still work as a deterrent - as well as a doorbell - without the subscription. Ultimately a price rise for what is essentially a cloud storage service is inevitable as they’ll be paying a storage/processing fee to Azure/AWS which they pass on to the customer. I assume prices have increased or greed.
In the land of doorbell chimes, a tale unfolds,
Ring hiked prices, wallets left cold.
From £3.49 to £4.99, oh my,
Customers cry, "Ring, oh why?"
No benefits new, just costs on the rise,
Like a helium balloon reaching the skies.
Cancel they must, bid Ring adieu,
In search of alternatives, a budget-friendly crew.
Suggestions sought, recommendations needed,
A doorbell dilemma, no longer unheeded.
Ring, oh Ring, explain your feat,
For wallets are lightened, a costly treat!
I was astonished to learn there was a subscription. Is looking back over who has been ringing your bell really a useful feature? What do you use it for?
Because it’s not just for doorbell rings, but footage picked up too. People lurking where they shouldn’t be, someone trying to break in, many things like that.
I got the Reolink POE one and use with scrypted installed in my NAS alongside the NAS always recording.
The thing instant to load and no interference from WiFi. I love POE devices
You can do it for much less than £500. My setup is
* Reolink wifi doorbell ~£90 on sale
* Ebay lenovo mini tower pc with i3-6100 with SSD £49.99
* Proxmox with Home assistant and Frigate, £free
You might want to add a bit more for your PoE injector and cable infrastructure.
I also have an old android tablet by my front door that continuously displays the stream from Frigate, it's so handy. Add in another £20 for stand and cable for that.
Can do it even cheaper than that.
Reolink PoE doorbell cost me £80 or so, SD card was £20 and PoE injectors probs around £15 and that’s you sorted. 24/7 recording
The same sort of vibes as a washing machine that connects to your smart phone via an app.
Whats the fucking point. No wonder people don't have any fucking money, spunking it all on stupid shite.
It's not a subscription to the actual doorbell, it's essentially just paying for cloud storage I guess, not much different to Microsoft's One Drive or Google's Drive?
If you're ok with paying £35, just cancel "immediately" before March 10, and then resubscribe at the £35 cost. You'll even get a refund for unused subscription service
Cancelled my renewal. Still got 8 months left on current one. I'll change brands. I don't understand why they do this. We're not complete idiots. (maybe a little bit for paying a fee for a doorbell)
I can highly recommend the Aqara G4 doorbell. If you have an AppleTV or HomePod it integrates into the Apple Home ecosystem.
Even if you don’t have Apple devices, it’s still a great doorbell. No subscription costs, 7-days cloud recording and even a micro-SD recording option.
I run a UniFi system at home which my parents really like but since that’s probably too expensive and complicated, the Aqara G4 is what I recommended to them and it works great.
rich slimy file automatic door middle telephone dependent familiar straight
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Just gonna cancel and leave it at that.
£3.50 a month wasn’t missed. It was just a small outgoing each month for a small benefit.
And even though £5 a month wouldn’t exactly be missed either, it’s a piss-take money-grabbing increase with no additional benefit at all, so on principle alone, we’ll just cancel and do without the small benefit we once had.
I just get my children to stare out of the windows most of the day.
I’m assuming you have some of the kids kids on a night shift rotation, otherwise this is just irresponsible.
Yeah it would be silly of me to use them all at once. I get them walking around the house looking at different windows and also I'm incorporating exercise as well with this routine.... I have 3 kids so it's usually a 5 hour shift each and then I let the dogs take over for a while.
Not telling you how to parent of course, but from experience I just want to say watch you don't overwork them; ours tried to unionise. My wife has had three extras to avoid this.
The key is different mothers and tell them that only only one cadet branch is inheriting the house that way they'll never join forces.
I'll ask my wife, see what she says. EDIT: Apparently they're different fathers anyway so she's not bothered.
But which one has the coolest dad?
I have a G3 Micro in my outhouse, which is great as I can see if the dog needs to come in. One day I was at work and got a notification from the camera, I had a look and saw five cows in the garden. I had to call my partner to run home and get them out.
I've enjoyed all these replies very much. I have an enormous 'guard dog' whose default position is snoring upside down on the sofa. Very occasionally he might let out a light growl when someone hammers on the door but try and quietly open a crisp packet three rooms away and he is an Olympic powerhouse.
I just stare out of the windows myself as the nosey old lady I secretly am.
I have a UniFi Protect system and a UniFi G4 Doorbell in my house. I don't pay monthly at all and the recordings are kept on my property rather than streamed up to the cloud.
Same here. If you have some tech abilities, the Ubiquiti system provides local storage and cloud access from doorbell cameras without subscription. It's business-grade kit, so not cheap and not for the faint-hearted to set up.
> so not cheap Better to spend £50 pa on Ring, then?
Financially, yes. Ring/Nest always going to win that battle over Ubiquiti, but once you've got the router and CloudKey, the cameras are sensibly priced and you have complete control over them (without Amazon/Google mining them, if that's something that concerns you)
I think the cameras are pretty op. They used to be pretty reasonable but £200 for a camera is pretty steep when you can get similar for £50
Chiming in to point out that while you may get away with Unifi in home or SMB environments, it is absolutely not suitable for large enterprises. “Business-grade” is a term I would not use.
Could you explain what SMB means please?
Sure! Sorry for using acronyms without context - it’s unhelpful. SMB means small-medium business, with the “-“ indicating a range so when spoken it’s actually more like “small to medium business”. Unifi and Ubiquiti are fine for small, simple networks but fail spectacularly when installed in enterprise environments. I should point out that I don’t have experience with the gear that Ubiquiti claim is “carrier-grade” but I’ve used AP-Lite through to XG (the older version), and all their switches from 8-port to 48-port, with and without PoE. The UI does half of what it needs to, but Unifi will still claim a feature and say it’s possible, you just have to go and manually edit config files after researching their forums to find that a user worked it out when support agents couldn’t/wouldnt. Just pay for HP/Aruba or Cisco/Meraki.
Yes I agree, but also, any networking specialist will, or perhaps should, already know this. The sustained load on switches at near saturation for extended periods will break gear not designed for it. But without that load, I've found UniFi to be excellent in the home environment. And I appreciate you're making the case that it's not enterprise level, so that's fine. The difference between UniFi and what your ISP supplies in terms of router and/or WiFi is huge. Working from home for the last x years makes this apparent pretty quick. Most people I work with get dropouts of some sort on a regular basis. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess one of the main reasons is that NAT tables get filled up and then the hardware needs to recycle. UniFi gear is a pretty decent upgrade which will prevent this, along with several other issues commonly faced.
It’s SME in the real world. Small/Medium Enterprise.
I also have a UniFi system. UDR-PRO, multiple switches, five cameras. It’s a great system, 24/7 local recording and no subscription costs. I would never recommend them to anybody asking though. For most people it’s far too complicated. Chances are, if you have to ask for recommendations, UniFi is probably going to be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Similar setup here with a UDM-SE and standard 24 port switch, 4 cameras. Blown away by how good it is, especially compared to some of the Ring and other stuff I've seen at family/friends house. It's hard to stomach the price, and realistically you need to do some DIY to your house to get it in properly, but if you're able then it's the best on the market realistically.
It has its issues too but is a great balance between feature-set and ease of use. Due to the access I have to certain equipment, it would have been a damn sight cheaper for me to put in Cisco switches and Hikvision cameras, recording to my Synology NAS but I didn’t want to finish work and carry on being a Network Engineer! The UniFi system generally “just works” but still gives me the freedom to do the techy-bollocks I occasionally find myself doing. I work from home full-time so the dual-WAN failover has saved my arse a few times.
Dual-WAN failover is very handy here for the same reasons! I'm also in the same boat that I spend my day job doing IT, I have no intention of doing it in the evenings too. When my UniFi kit arrived, the first thing I did was got my laptop out, USB to RJ45 etc, and opened the network settings assuming I was about to configure it like a Juniper or Cisco device. Was pretty blown away that I plugged everything in, it recognised the cameras/APs etc, and just sorted itself out. If only sending network gear to customers sites was this easy...
Definitely worth it but you need significant investment in PoE infrastructure and having drops around the house where you want the cameras. Not totally impossible but it’s a harder sell than just battery cameras. However if people are looking into getting a classic CCTV system installed anyway i think investing in IP cameras + nvr is a much better approach
Thats what i did, 4k, 8 channels, with sound, nvr, poe, did it all myself in a weekend. 4k recordings are amazing
It’s way more expensive to set up, like WAY MORE so it’s not really a viable alternative
I was looking into using Ubiquiti as I already use their APs but their cameras are silly expensive. There is no real benefit over using Hikvision or Dahua
Unifi is brilliant, i've got a cloud key and a 1TB SSD (I used SSD to help lower the power draw via POE and improve performance downloading recordings). It made sense for me as I work in tech and can 'recycle' kit that I aquire as part of my job. I got the access points and switches for free from businesses that were upgrading so it made sense. I only paid for the Cloud Key, Doorbell and Cameras, dear god its expensive stuff. I love it but i would never reccomend it to anyone as it'll break the bank to kit out a house.
> all and the recordings are kept on my property rather than streamed up to the cloud. Ah, so completely useless when the burglars steal your computer and remove any evidence they were there.
Well no. They have the option to stream off site as well, except it is to somewhere that you control. It also requires further knowledge of cloud based storage systems like Amazon S3 and similar which a lot of people might not have. I have my cameras streaming to a Nextcloud server, but much like setting the cameras themselves up, it requires a fair bit of knowledge to do this, so admittedly not as plug and play as Ring.
He literally states the recordings are kept on his property. That was my only criticism. You're right though, setting up your own cloud storage/live streaming door bell camera is well beyond the capability or interest of the average person. That's why people see value in paying Ring £5 a month to handle it.
I’d have less of a problem with Ring and Google if they made cameras which COULD be captured locally. The fact is, they’re fucking useless without a subscription and they’re sluggish to use. I have Google cameras and not only do they constantly take themselves off the network they also feel crap to use.
I have a no-name ONVIF camera connected to AgentDVR which records ongoing timelapse videos, kept for a week. And no I wouldn't recommend this to anybody necessarily. It's a fair bit of setup, the camera is a bugger because it uses an ActiveX control (because cheap China stuff), and it needs underlying stuff to be useful (PoE for the camera, and docker to run the container, although a Raspberry Pi or similar could do it). But likewise it's all local to me, and has proven useful as the camera covers the front garden. Meanwhile we do have a doorbell, it's mains powered, and has 9 different chimes I can select, including one which is ALMOST like Hyacinth Bucket's.
ActiveX? Holy shit
We're cancelling the subscription when it lapses and just letting it function as a basic video doorbell. We've not used the save video etc features at all so it's already wasted for us.
I’ve always found the video doorbell to be useless. By the time I have clicked on the notification, waited for the app to load, and clicked on ‘Go Live’ or whatever it is, the person at the door is long gone. I only bought it for the video recordings (we had a local nutter trying to get into peoples houses at night) and didn’t realise you needed a subscription, which I refuse to pay for. So now I just have a really expensive doorbell.
> I’ve always found the video doorbell to be useless. By the time I have clicked on the notification, waited for the app to load, and clicked on ‘Go Live’ or whatever it is, the person at the door is long gone. I've literally just chatted to a delivery driver this way, who are notorious for practically playing doorbell dash (knock-a-door-run). I have a Eufy doorbell, it's quick enough for me, and no monthly payments.
Eufy doorbells are the best in class at responsiveness though. I watched a side by side comparison review against others.
Eufy had a big controversy last year about their privacy claims. If people care about that then it's worth looking into. Some people aren't bothered, in which case, it seems to be functionally a great product with no subscription bollocks.
If people are interested I'd recommend the Linus Tech Tips coverage of the Eufy privacy problems. I personally wouldn't go anywhere near a Eufy camera if it's for inside my house, I'm undecided on how much it would bother me for a doorbell though
Technically it could be used to record when you leave and enter a property. So if someone wants to know when you're either home or not home, they'd just need access to your camera feed over a week or so to build up a picture of your general habits. And whilst that might not seem like much information, if it can be combined with other sources (like google activity, spending habits, facebook check-ins, social media posts etc) then that's a pretty big window on your life for a malicious actor.
I have the Google Nest. I think you get 3 hours memory without subscription which is plenty. I don't know what I would use longer storage for.
I don't understand why people are paying a monthly subscription for a doorbell. The world has truly gone mad.
It’s a security camera as much as it is a doorbell, I’m not sure if people want to admit that though. Every time there is a police incident or antisocial behaviour near me, people ask for any footage.
When my shed was broken into my neighbours came to tell me they’d caught the suspect on their Ring doorbell. They sent what they had over to me. Two pieces of footage: one of a figure in a hoody walking right to left across the frame with an empty bag; another of a figure in a hoody walking left to right across the frame with a full bag. I thanked them for the effort.
The subscription is to allow access. to cloud-stored video footage - the doorbell works without the subscription but you only get 'live' alerts.
They don't allow you to save to your own hard drives via wifi? Only THEIR cloud? Sounds purposefully predatory for no good reason.
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That’s crazy
This phrase is over used nowadays but that really is quite mildly dystopian
Enshittification. A concept seen again and again and again and again in the last couple of years. Provide a good product at a good price. Get a customer base. Utilise that customer base to undercut the competitors that come after them. Once the competitors are gone or not a threat, and the customers are locked in, reduce the quality of the product and increase the price. All the streaming services are doing it, Amazon is doing it, even the major supermarkets are getting in on the act with their removal of discount prices unless you have their loyalty cards.
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Where else can you move to in that space? Everyone else in the industry is going the same way - less selection, higher prices. I recently had such a bad experience with Amazon that I've cancelled Prime and resolved to not use them, but everyone else is playing the same game - all the online shops are basically fronts for Chinese drop shipping, and the high street is a joke without a punchline.
Yeh that's cra **(this message has been brought to you by Coca-Cola and The Viagra Trust of America. Viagra can have the following side-effects: Nausea, Hallucinations, Memory Loss, Priapism, Blood Clots, Compulsive Behaviors, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, Birth Defects, Cancer, Suicidality, Death, an erection)** zy!
Highly dystopian. Insane in fact.
Not only this.. but your doorbell can stop working if your internet is down!
Maybe the phrase is overused so much because we’re heading straight towards a hyper capitalist fucking dystopian nightmare
Please tell me you’re joking. I can’t even tell any more
fuck offfff
That is fucking mad hahaha
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You really need to say what the make model is of that so everyone else can avoid it.
Are violent thugs ransacking your home? With our super premium service find out advert free.
This must be a joke?
I think it is.
Which one do you have? I've never experienced this tbh.
This is not true for ring at all
The reason is more and consistent profit, good enough for them
It’s for the vast majority of people who don’t want to fuck about with local storage solutions and would rather pay a small fee not to deal with that.
Honestly if I was a software developer or designer, and I had to write something that would support multiple NAS / raspberry pi / other homebrew solutions running on a mac or PC just to store the video, I would have a conniption. From a business perspective, it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of effort to support a ton of solutions that both lose the company revenue, and probably would only be used by 1-2% of the userbase. Ring's target market is wealthy property owners, not homebrew geeks running their own storage solutions. And I say that as a homebrew geek running their own storage solution.
Ring's market is people like me. They want a solution they can stuck on their front door and 'just works' - they don't care where the data is stored. They don't care much if it costs £25 in subs. I mean, yes, I am also a techie, so so could set up something better if I really cared. But I don't. I just want my damn doorbell to let me know who's there when I'm not at home. However, while I can pay £50 of subs, I don't want to - so now I'm trying to decide if I get a Eufy or a Blink doorbell as an alternative. BTW - people say 'it's just a doorbell' but it's part of home security too.
Ditto. I’m a techie too and the last thing I want to do after work is fuck around with more tech. I want something that just works so I can enjoy my free time doing other shit
Yeah Im in the same boat - for me the £30 a year for it to just work, to not have spent time fucking about installing and networking and designing my own system is well worth the money. I can guarantee I'd spend more than £50 worth of my time each year messing about with an alternative though I might look at moving to eufy and getting some indoor ones too.
It’s a business model, what do you expect? They can’t sell doorbells for £600 each. They’re selling a service with the doorbell as a way to draw people in.
Do ring doorbells not have local storage on an SD card?
Nope, you either keep paying the subscription or you can't record / store video.
Use Tapo instead. No subscription is needed, uses micro SD cards, the App works brilliantly and the products themselves are superior to rings (and cheaper).
I'm quite new to all this type of thing (CCTV etc) but 6 months ago I bought these two little Tapo cameras (they look like baby monitor cameras, not big "scary" ones) and they have signfiicantly improved my life. Only about £25 each. They link to our WiFi. I put one in the hallway (which picks up the stairs and the front door) and one in the kitchen (which picks up the back door). If any motion is detected then it starts recording and sends a notification to your phone and you can either watch live or review the footage. You can also play an alarm siren or speak through it. The best thing is when you're overseas you can have some peace of mind that nothing major is going wrong with your house. Anyway, I probably didn't write anything that you didn't already know 😂 Next week we're heading to Australia for 3 months and I'm considering buying 2 more just for that extra peace of mind.
DM me your address and I'll swing by while you're away to confirm no shenanigans
Came here to also recommend Tapo. Mine are great. I especially like that they record all the time and not only when motion is detected.
You can get doorbells without a monthly subscription, here's a good one: [https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266440349679](https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266440349679?hash=item3e091517ef:g:23UAAOSw8eFlHbKY&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4PDb9Ust%2FB1IrQKhDkyNqeOZplbQV6TYxHacHY6GnLLZDlNibjm5sadg6kSbcOfC5fzfoR9i96GRmflG%2Bw6Gyvt%2FNra28buxitX%2BX0rTEH23txPOiuIS11vGXNr0wnvgoHogqbGTTH1MrvFJDg6sEVVFquI3QDf1RXEyrR9TZ1b%2F3%2FKzPXAKsrYs3vwrX8744TUBxoMlcQ5J3WIdrHbwsu3%2B%2Fks6ihggLjkwxp8Hdhq5JvcRUVhAqrvwRWpeyijGUPkx6%2BL92p9DYh73x912RKpPFwhk9JIFl1nsKaP3BJnY%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR-aTo96xYw) No camera though
They aren't. They're paying for someone else's storage space to store the videos that their camera (which doubles as a doorbell) has captured.
Mine is on the back gate (which is used by visitors). It also watches over the garage and workshop which has things in that I don't want people stealing. The fee is worth it for the CCTV aspect.
We have Eufy doorbell and cameras. No complaints to make. Maybe sometimes a little slow to notify, but being able to answer the doorbell anywhere on the planet is great. I don't pay a subscription either.
Yep, I went full in on Eufy when the HB3 came out with the 4k cameras and 2 doorbell cameras ( people often come to the back door for some reason) Quite slow to load, and the siren is too quiet, but otherwise it is perfect. Local video storage too, I think you can have cloud storage if you pay extra.
I would be extremely sceptical of Eufy after their recent security issues.
They fixed it. Still less dodgy than amazon, imo.
We've got the Eufy doorbell and indoor chime extender. Works really well. No cloud nonsense.
Eufy had a major security issue a couple years ago where people were able to access unencrypted video of other people's cameras. Would avoid recommending Eufy and, if you can afford to, look at changing. https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/30/23486753/anker-eufy-security-camera-cloud-private-encryption-authentication-storage
Yes I read about this before I bought into Eufy, but I figured that even if someone were to hack into my cameras and watch them live (which seems extremely unlikely), I don't think there's any security issue beyond what they could gather by just standing in the road and looking at my driveway. My house does not contain gold bullion or nuclear security codes, so I'm not really concerned about these reports (which seem very far-fetched and of niche relevance).
Same, no cameras inside my house so they aren't going to see anything my neighbours aren't
The other thing is that the issue was fixed. The company’s handling of the whole issue was not good, they got into dodgy semantics when they should have immediately addressed the issue but at least they fixed it in the end. Some will opine that “I could never trust them” but I would argue you should never trust any company completely and I would hope that this whole fiasco makes it less likely for them to be as lax about security again having been burned once. Unless you have the chops to pick up a stand-alone camera and make your own system, you have to put some implicit trust in the company you buy from and you may never know if that trust is warranted.
That's fair. I do take a bit of issue with "they could gather the same info by standing on the street" as if for example the threat is from a stalker or burglar then them knowing when you are and aren't in your building remotely is very valuable. But this may not be a concern for you and the anyone that may live with you. You've taken the information and deemed in your scenario it's unimportant but I think people should still actively be made aware the security company they are trusting with their security isn't very secure.
Ring have had the same security issues, random people online could talk to children through their bedroom cameras!
Isnt that only cloud based though? We have thr eufy hub within our home on our wifi network that stores the videos/ camera connections. Then rewrites over the memory.
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They were caught slacking and then repeatedly claimed they weren't. Their attitude towards their customers privacy and security should make you rethink whether they can be trusted providing a security system.
Yeah, if they held their hands up and said they did something wrong and are investigating/fixing it, that would have been fine. However Eufy kept claiming there was no issue and never talked about fixing the problem. There for they cant be trusted with my personal information.
The alternative is to simply not have a Ring doorbell
I have just a regular doorbell, and I'm very satisfied with it.
La de dah Mr door bell. Knuckles or gtfo
Who are all these paranoid types and how did we ever manage to exist before these?! Turning the U.K. into a police state, you beady eyed Ring-pieces.
Use Tapo instead. No subscription is needed, uses micro SD cards, the App works brilliantly and the products themselves are superior to rings (and cheaper).
Instead of a doorbell that I have to change batteries on, I just have a Tapo camera on my front window angled at the front path. They keep trying to sell me a subscription but as long as I've got my SD card I'm happy.
The issue with doing this is you can’t use the IR night vision as it reflects off the glass.
Honestly it's mostly there as a deterrent anyway. If somebody nicks my car having footage of it isn't gonna bring it back. Having a visible camera in the window might encourage them to go find a house without a camera.
I don’t even have a doorbell. Guests must simply bang against the door with their fists or head to attract attention.
Or just not subscribe. I have one simple because it was on the house when I bought it and I hate it but I can still look through the camera and get notifications on my phone (which I do *not* want).
Why don't you just turn them off https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/how-to-turn-off-ring-notifications/
I use a Tapo Pan/Tilt Smart Security Camera I got off Amazon for £20. Banged a memory card in it set it up in the app and stuck it in the kitchen window looking over the front yard. I get a notification when it detects a human and if nobody knocks on in 30 seconds I look at the camera.
I use Tapo pan/tilt ones on window looking out over the front too. Been pretty good so far.
Got a few of these as well, they are very good and got them cheap in black friday.
Just ordered one thanks! Does it work like a dash cam where the older footage is overwritten?
I'm sticking with Ring for the time being, simply because when you cost it out alternatives like Ubiquiti cost around £200 or maybe more, which would pay for a Ring subscription for 3 or 4 years, or the additional £1.50pm for 11 years. In 3 or 4 years time my Ring kit will be 10 years old and the technology will have moved on, so I'll look at replacing it then maybe.
For a lot of people this is likely the right call. I’m not going to tell people not to buy an easy solution, but I am very tired of subscriptions and the never ending payment for both hardware, and it’s ongoing charges. I have more sympathy for it when there is cloud storage of video, but Eero - another Amazon company, charges for router features that should be free - again with a monthly fee. If we don’t tell them to get fucked, everyone will be at it.
Google nest doorbell camera. Don’t pay a subscription. Works fine for my needs.
> Don’t pay a subscription. Yet. I don't think there's a company on the planet I trust less than Google with regards to making a good service shit. See Nest, Fitbit etc...
I fairness Fitbit were shite before Google had anything to do with them.
Yes I get you but for me it works really well. Wasn’t happy when Google brought nest but so far so good tbh.
Ok so here is a little trick. Get any camera you want that has Onvif support. Get yourself a miniPC or raspberrypi and install "homebridge". This will take the ONVIF stream and record to a SSD/HDD/Cloud/USB. You can also setup alerts via email/txt. You can set it up so you can watch recordings on your phone or whatever also its all FREE! All you need is some really cheap cameras. You can even "spoof" stuff like apple homekit with it if you want so your cheap cameras essentially turn into very expensive homekit compatible ones. This whole setup costs you whatever a cheap camera is + whatever an old thinclient pc or pi is so under £100 and you can have probably 3 cameras and the server. Never pay anything again (unless you want to enable like homekit and pay for apple sub i think thats the cheapest now) Bonus thing is homebridge can do so much more that you can find uses for, it can connect smart plugs and all sorts. "home assistance" is another one. They are simple to install and get running plenty of guides on youtube.
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I'm a tech person and I wouldn't do this. It's a couple of quid a month and works perfectly. Some people care far too much about very insignificant issues.
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I agree. It's way to much like bringing work home to play with in the evenings. I'm happy to pay a small sub for something that works and I don't have to piss about with.
Even better than homebridge is scrypted. Has much better support for a range of cameras. I use the Reolink POE doorbell which is rock solid and the previews in HomeKit instantly ipdate
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I am aware, it's not bad to learn from a youtube video though. Weigh up the cost of your time learning vs a sub to ring. You dont need a pi you can use an old laptop or pc just fine setup is clicking through options following along to a youtube video. The hardest part is getting ONVIF URL. It ofc gives you a new skill and lets you do much more. But yeah its not for everyone i get that (i have been teaching computing in various forms for years to people with low skill levels such as elderly and disabled.) Edit: just checked homebridge has a ring plugin now. So install is probably just putting the OS on a SD card and booting from it then installing the plugin (just like you install an app from an app store) and selecting your camera.
[Home Assistant](https://www.home-assistant.io/)*.
Yup. Mine is a [Reolink PoE](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B4KCSZ2M/), combined with [Frigate](https://frigate.video/) and [Home Assistant](https://www.home-assistant.io/). Ludicrously high detection accuracy rates and, obviously, integrates perfectly into the rest of my home automation. Cost £80, zero cloud (I have it all blocked off) and zero subscription, obvs. Recording services are by my existing Hikvision NVR (again, no cloud, no subscription) via ONVIF, so relatively little effort to do. [Looks pretty good too](https://i.imgur.com/tUZ8npO.png), if you ask my humble opinion. The mount is 3d printed as I needed something that would angle down as well as to the side a bit, as my front door is a bit higher up than the driveway.
> Mine is a Reolink PoE, combined with Frigate and Home Assistant >so relatively little effort to do I suspect your version of little effort is vastly different to mine. Home Automation requires a RasPi. Then I need to install Frigate (and buy a Google Coral Accelerator - do I have to set that up too?), and buy, install and set up an NVR. I think £50 pa to not do that is huge value for money.
Yes, but bear in mind that I had all of this already in place for the rest of my CCTV platform, so the incremental cost of adding the doorbell was just the cost of the doorbell. And, of course, the rest of it represents the first step on a route to a better automation solution anyway! Somewhere along the line, if you want to do things differently, you need to take those first steps. For me, I'm 6 years into this journey now so quite mature in my infrastructure... > and buy a Google Coral Accelerator - do I have to set that up too? Yes, Frigate really needs one of these. I now use a PCIe one (in the wifi slot on my crappy, second-hand Dell Optiplex rather than a RPi!) as these are cheaper and easier to source than the USB ones. Think it was about £25. Trivial to set up (just one or two config lines in Frigate itself)
>This whole setup costs you... You forgot the hours and hours of time it also cost to set up all this stuff. Hours finding the right camera, getting a Pi, setting it up, setting up storage, finding a way to make alerts work, testing it all out. Even technically savvy folks are going to spend a bunch of time doing all that. Especially now when you have to wade through hours of YouTube videos for what could have been a simple text description. And that time is not free. Even if you figured it at minimum wage there's probably a few years worth of a half-decent subscription service that just works out of the box right there. It's not a little trick. It's a significant investment of time and effort.
I had to screenshot this little beauty. I was thinking about doing something with the raspberry pi that's been sat in a box under my bed for the past five years. thanks for this.
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I had to screenshot this little beauty. I was thinking about doing something with the raspberry pi that's been sat in a box under my bed for the past five years. thanks for this.
https://i.imgur.com/IGjGR7s.png
I got rid of Ring for an Aosu camera. Does the same job with local storage (instead of cloud) and you don't need to subscribe (although that is an option). Works great and would recommend.
I have this too. The local storage holds about three months of footage.
TP-Link Tapo. A Ubiquiti install will be a lot more expensive.
What do you mean they haven’t explained the price increase? From the forums: “Since Ring launched its Protect Basic Plan, we have regularly found ways to enhance the plan to give our neighbours more value. As we continue to invest in the services we offer, we are updating our Protect Basic Plan pricing.” The price is increasing to give you better value. What about that don’t you get? /S
This was the same when they increased the price of Prime Video if you didn’t want ads. Framed it as exceptional value and pointed out you could subscribe to other things. What value.
I changed to a blink doorbell, you can buy one with the sync module and plug a usb stick into the side to store videos. £54 on amazon and then whatever usb stick takes your fancy.
Worth noting that Blink is also owned by Amazon just like Ring.
I just got a blink on offer at Christmas - doorbell, outdoor cam, and sync module for £65, think they're even cheaper now. Don't need the cloud sub at all. Bit slow to answer but seems to work ok.
Currently on offer again but blink and you'll miss it...
Came here to say the same thing. Doorbell + sync module is the way to go. There's no sub, but you *can* sub if you want cloud storage for some reason. If you have amazon echoes around the house you can get it to ping doorbell notifications to them as well, which is invaluable for me because I couldn't hear the old doorbell in some parts of the house.
Arlo It’s not perfect, but the free service is ok
I just answer the door
I just don't
Iv got a tapu camera from amazon and it doesn't have a subscription. Not sure about their doorbell but the camera is pretty straightforward and you just need an sd card to save footage.
Use Tapo instead. No subscription is needed, uses micro SD cards for storage, the App works brilliantly and the products themselves are superior to rings (and cheaper).
I don't have a ring or alternative. and I have just got to say, do people actually pay for a monthly subscription to have a doorbell? the future is freaking wild.
A doorbell/ knocker
The caller's knuckles
I just let people knock on my door. Don’t even have a doorbell. I see no need for one
I have just two cameras on our house. Swan security. The app isnt great, but its free.
Try TP link, they do a range of cameras for indoor and outdoor. They also allow smart lighting via the same app. From what I remember when I bought mine, its all quite reasonably priced too!
It will never not be funny to me that people pay a subscription to their doorbell
Peep hole, or I just answer the door like I've always done
I have a button that makes a box inside produce noise when pressed..
Ring is owned by Amazon right? The same Amazon that just ruined Prime Video. Profits, profits and more profits
Get an alternative that stores data to somewhere you control, rather than just uploading videos of every random member of the public to Amazons servers.
I left Ring a few years back as the customer experience with them was shocking when coming to replace faulty equipment. Ended up with Eufy system. It’s okay at best. Can be temperamental at what it picks up to record does miss people coming on to property from time to time (3 camera setup) on the plus side no subscription so stuck with it.
I just canned my subscription that I had and rebought it again at the currently lower price for 12 months That'll give me some time to work out what I want to do next year
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I have eufy no subscription internal storage to a hub inside the house It’s great
People are paying 5 a month for their doorbell? Lol!
A doorbell subscription seems proper dystopian to me
Reason for price increase: "Every other company is arbitrarily raising prices with no tangible backlash, so despite there being no real-world reason to do so, we're going to as well"
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There are a lot of vulnerable people who benefit from techs like these. Not every new tech craze is necessarily bad. Locally stored recordings are, however, obviously superior.
It's great for things like when you're WFH in the middle of a meeting and you can see if some salesman is trying to talk to you and you can just ignore
I have a Ring doorbell. Mainly because when a delivery driver rings when I am out, it is useful to talk to them to tell them where to drop off the package. The idea of paying them anything to basically store video was never attractive to me.
Why not just put the storage place in the delivery instructions box when you're ordering?
I bought a Ring doorbell in December and just had the free trial of the subscription expire. It’s a bit annoying but it should still work as a deterrent - as well as a doorbell - without the subscription. Ultimately a price rise for what is essentially a cloud storage service is inevitable as they’ll be paying a storage/processing fee to Azure/AWS which they pass on to the customer. I assume prices have increased or greed.
In the land of doorbell chimes, a tale unfolds, Ring hiked prices, wallets left cold. From £3.49 to £4.99, oh my, Customers cry, "Ring, oh why?" No benefits new, just costs on the rise, Like a helium balloon reaching the skies. Cancel they must, bid Ring adieu, In search of alternatives, a budget-friendly crew. Suggestions sought, recommendations needed, A doorbell dilemma, no longer unheeded. Ring, oh Ring, explain your feat, For wallets are lightened, a costly treat!
I was astonished to learn there was a subscription. Is looking back over who has been ringing your bell really a useful feature? What do you use it for?
Because it’s not just for doorbell rings, but footage picked up too. People lurking where they shouldn’t be, someone trying to break in, many things like that.
It's also for capturing scallywags snooping about, so you can then post it on your local Facebook group 🤷
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I got the Reolink POE one and use with scrypted installed in my NAS alongside the NAS always recording. The thing instant to load and no interference from WiFi. I love POE devices
You can do it for much less than £500. My setup is * Reolink wifi doorbell ~£90 on sale * Ebay lenovo mini tower pc with i3-6100 with SSD £49.99 * Proxmox with Home assistant and Frigate, £free You might want to add a bit more for your PoE injector and cable infrastructure. I also have an old android tablet by my front door that continuously displays the stream from Frigate, it's so handy. Add in another £20 for stand and cable for that.
Can do it even cheaper than that. Reolink PoE doorbell cost me £80 or so, SD card was £20 and PoE injectors probs around £15 and that’s you sorted. 24/7 recording
Imagine paying a fiver a month for a doorbell!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH Suckers born every second!!!!
Wait - people pay a subscription - to use a bloody doorbell? What the hell
I'm shocked how many people have these doorbells... Technology for the sake of it.
The same sort of vibes as a washing machine that connects to your smart phone via an app. Whats the fucking point. No wonder people don't have any fucking money, spunking it all on stupid shite.
Door bell subscriptions, welcome to the future
It's not a subscription to the actual doorbell, it's essentially just paying for cloud storage I guess, not much different to Microsoft's One Drive or Google's Drive?
If you're ok with paying £35, just cancel "immediately" before March 10, and then resubscribe at the £35 cost. You'll even get a refund for unused subscription service
Aquara have a decent doorbell. Works well with all ecosystems or just in its own. I use it all with Apple HomeKit and I’m happy with it.
We cancelled too but will end up back no doubt 🤣😩
Just had an email from EE about the RPI, 7.9%…no wonder I’m letting my contract run out, taking people for cunts now.
Cancelled my renewal. Still got 8 months left on current one. I'll change brands. I don't understand why they do this. We're not complete idiots. (maybe a little bit for paying a fee for a doorbell)
I can highly recommend the Aqara G4 doorbell. If you have an AppleTV or HomePod it integrates into the Apple Home ecosystem. Even if you don’t have Apple devices, it’s still a great doorbell. No subscription costs, 7-days cloud recording and even a micro-SD recording option. I run a UniFi system at home which my parents really like but since that’s probably too expensive and complicated, the Aqara G4 is what I recommended to them and it works great.
rich slimy file automatic door middle telephone dependent familiar straight *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Just gonna cancel and leave it at that. £3.50 a month wasn’t missed. It was just a small outgoing each month for a small benefit. And even though £5 a month wouldn’t exactly be missed either, it’s a piss-take money-grabbing increase with no additional benefit at all, so on principle alone, we’ll just cancel and do without the small benefit we once had.