Smart doorbell: truth and fact you must know!

Today most people have installed security cameras to improve the safety of both residences and offices. Smart doorbell is a new different kind of security camera that not only provides you video surveillance function, also can help you answer door remotely when you’re away from home anywhere anytime. The device can connect to Internet, so you’re able to control and use it even you’re abroad. If you’re are interested in installing a smart doorbell, here we write an article to tell you some insights on smart doorbell products.

1# Is worth to buy a smart doorbell?

Yes, it’s worth to buy a smart doorbell, as we mentioned previously, it not only makes your living more convenient by allowing you to answer door when you’re away, it also helps to improve the safety of your family and home. When you have a smart doorbell installed, the smart doorbell keeps watching exterior environment of the door. Unlike expensive electronics, today smart doorbell is quite affordable, for instance Yoosee SD-M5 1080p smart doorbell just costs nearly US$66.

2# Cloud storage is really useful for smart doorbell?

This depends on which smart doorbell you have. Some smart doorbell only supports cloud storage, people not only need to pay the cost of equipment, they also need to subscribe cloud storage services, and pay monthly fee. A few smart doorbell (e.g. Google Nest, Amazon Ring) may come with additional paid features like face recognition. In fact, these features are not very useful to most people.

Cloud storage is not required for most smart doorbells which have a microSD card slot built-in, they can accept memory card for unlimited video storage. This saves you a great amount of money, you can manage the video files and choosing recording plan by yourself.

3# Cloud storage or memory card?

The advantage of cloud storage is the video clips are installed in remote servers, if the device is stolen by intruders, you still can retrieve the video from remote server. However, this brings another problem which is lacking flexibility. The smart doorbell supports cloud storage means can’t use the product to be integrated with other network devices such as NVR, VMS, home automation sys or access control sys.

Normal smart doorbell like Yoosee SD-M5, not only can record video to its built-in memory card, it also can deliver video stream to other network devices in the same local network. It can send stream to your desktop and laptop computer, network video recorder (Hikvision, Dahua, Vivotek, Xiongmai…etc), NAS, iSpy and Blue Iris security software. Therefore users still can retrieve the video clips after your smart doorbell is stolen, though this unlikely happens in most conditions.  

4# What if encountering Internet service outage?

For those smart doorbell cameras require cloud storage, they will be completely off if the internet service is not available, other smart doorbell like SD-M5 can still work and keep recording video clips even local network is disrupted or completely down.

5# Is battery powered smart doorbell really good?

Depends on which brand you use, some wireless smart doorbell really works good, but some can’t provide stable performance. For example, some battery powered smart doorbell adopts “wake-up” operating algorithm may not provide you a stable performance. Though “wake-up” mode can reduce power consumption significantly, but it’s prone to have a stable wireless connection after boot-up. In our past experiment, the battery powered smart doorbell were failed to boot-up or connect the network when we tapping “wake-up” button on App.

There is another big flaw of battery power smart doorbell, they only support video in demand, which means they can’t deliver continuous video. It only records video clips when motion detection occurs. Recording merely upon motion detection can reduce power consumption, also lower the usage of cloud storage. However, users may inevitable miss some important video clips.

6# Which is good for network connection among Wi-Fi, Ethernet, PoE?

Each method has pros and cons. Normally PoE is the best option, Power over Ethernet enables the device to work by merely plugging the Ethernet cable. Moreover, wired network can provide stable and high-speed and less-interfered and nearly 100 meters connection.

Nonetheless, Wi-Fi is used prominently in most installation of smart doorbell. As long as the Wi-Fi signal strength isn’t a problem it’s an optimum choice for the smart doorbell. It’s actually the best choice, if you want to upgrade your existing wired doorbell chime with smart doorbell. Since smart doorbell can take advantage of existing wiring, no extra trenching is required, which in turn greatly simplify the installation.

No matter what method you use, ensuring you get a smart doorbell that can support multiple methods, therefore you will have a great flexibility to use the suitable one fit the current and future requirements.  

7# What’s the recommended smart doorbell in 2019?

Well, if you think Cloud storage is mandatory, the Google Nest and Amazon Ring are the best choice if you are looking for a smart doorbell. However, if you really look for a smart doorbell allows you to DIY, we recommend you the Yoosee SD-M5. The product not only have high quality hardware design to support versatile functions, but also includes the amazing app for both android and iOS smart devices. Comparing with other smart doorbell, it also comes with a free software runs on Windows OS. Therefore you can use it in your computers anywhere anytime. So far, it’s the only smart doorbell that supports remotely view and control via software. </>