The Best Smart Doorbells

Smart video doorbells can scare away burglars by triggering a high-definition warning. They can also help you identify suspects.

Google’s latest wired model offers person, package and possum detection for free along with three hours of event-based recordings. It also comes with a monthly subscription to enable 24/7 monitoring.

Features

A smart doorbell lets you know who is coming to the front door – and often allows you to speak to them. Many also have night vision to see visitors in the dark. This is a great deterrent to break-ins and can help police track down criminals.

Most smart doorbells work hand-in-hand with other home security gadgets, such as wifi security cameras and smart speakers. They can also be integrated with a smart alarm system, making them even more useful as a crime deterrent.

One of the best smart doorbells available is the Nest Hello wired. It has excellent video quality and connectivity, and works smoothly with Amazon Alexa-powered devices like smart displays and speakers to show and tell you who is outside. It also integrates with Samsung SmartThings, but there’s no native integration with Apple Home.

Other notable features include an easy-to-use app that can be customized to match your decor, customizable motion detection settings (sensitivity, shape, and notification time) and a battery that lasts about two and a half months between charges. It also comes with a chime, and you can purchase a separate indoor module to save recorded footage on your computer.

The Logitech Circle View is a fantastic choice for Apple HomeKit enthusiasts. Its tight integration with the Home app, including notifications and a picture-in-picture live video feed on your Apple best smart doorbell TV or iPad, makes it an excellent choice for those who want to control their doorbell remotely. It also has built-in 16GB of storage and doesn’t require a subscription to access saved events, which is the case with most other smart doorbells.

Cost

A smart doorbell combines a doorbell and security camera into one device. It alerts you when someone is approaching the door, and many can also speak to visitors via two-way audio. This can help you verify the identity of people before opening the door, as well as deter package theft. It also gives you a way to drive away unwanted guests. Many Wi-Fi video doorbells offer a subscription to unlock more features. For example, Ring offers an extra for $10 a month or $100 a year that provides 24/7 monitoring of your home by first responders in the event of an emergency. Arlo offers a similar feature called e911 for $8 a month or $100 a year.

Aside from a few exceptions, most smart doorbells require a monthly subscription to access their most useful features. These include a live view on the app, motion detection and cloud storage. If you don’t want to pay for a monthly service, consider a wired doorbell camera such as the Kangaroo or the Eufy Doorbell Camera, both of which are less expensive than the Ring and Nest models. The Kangaroo’s 60o field of view and lack of audio, however, keep it from being the best budget model.

The Netatmo doorbell is the most expensive but offers a range of smart design features that justify its price tag. It best smart doorbell works with Apple HomeKit and is compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. It also supports HomePod speakers as additional doorbell chimes and can stream its video to a TV via an Apple TV box.

Apps

A smart doorbell can help prevent porch pirates and other home invasions by alerting you via smartphone when someone’s at the front door. Some have night vision, allowing you to see who is there even in the dark. Others can provide a two-way audio connection, letting you speak to visitors through your smartphone. And some have features like facial recognition to spot familiar faces.

Many of the best smart doorbells integrate with existing smart home hubs and devices, offering easier control through a single app or platform. For example, the Nest Hello can be paired with a Google speaker or smart display to act as an indoor chime and show you who’s there on the screen. It also supports voice commands and can notify other connected devices that someone’s at the door.

The Ring Pro 2 is a beast of a camera, with a sharp 1536p resolution and HDR colors. Its advanced features include an ability to plot a subject’s movement over a bird’s eye view of your property and the option to create custom zones to limit motion detection to specific areas. However, it’s expensive and locked to the Alexa ecosystem. Its battery-powered counterpart, the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus, is a better value at half the price and works with both Apple and Android devices. It also offers a range of advanced features, including person, parcel and animal detection and can record to local storage via its Sync Module 2. You can also purchase a subscription to Ring Protect starting at $3 per month to save video clips for 60 days.

Installation

The best smart doorbells work hand-in-hand with other smart home gadgets, particularly wifi security cameras and smart speakers. They can help to protect your home from porch pirates and other unwanted guests, while also making it easier for you to answer your front door if you’re out.

Many of these devices can limit motion detection to people, packages, vehicles and animals, which reduces the number of unwanted notifications and prevents false alarms. This means that you only get a notification when something actually happens, rather than every time a tree branch moves in the wind.

Depending on the model you choose, some smart doorbells come with their own chime, while others can be paired with a speaker so that Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa can let you know someone is at the door. Some models will even allow you to use the speaker as a video intercom, so you can see who is there without opening the door.

The Belkin Wemo has a simple setup but lacks 24/7 recording (although that can be added with an Apple Home hub and iCloud plan). The Ring Pro 2 has package and person alerts, HD video with night vision and a timeline to scroll through recordings, but it requires a wired installation and charges PS5 per month for access to 30 days of history. The Nest Pro (wired) has better image quality than the Ring but isn’t quite a slam-dunk recommendation given complications over subscriptions.