What is the best privacy-focused video doorbell?

I don't have experience with video doorbells, but a pattern I use to find IoT devices is look at the Home Assistant integrations[1] for moderately open APIs, then drill down into each product to find one with "Local Polling" or "Local Push" for the classification, which means you can communicate with the device over LAN instead of only via cloud. More on that here[2]. Currently the only listed doorbell with a local option is DoorBird[3]. Note it's not exhaustive as I know there's at least one product I have that could be Local Polling but the current implementation is Cloud Polling.

[1]: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/#doorbell

[2]: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-th...

[3]: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/doorbird/

I’ve been very happy with Ubiquiti’s Unifi Protect doorbell. It does mean having to buy into their whole ecosystem, but I was already most of the way there when I added the doorbell and a couple 4k cameras.

Recording to a local device does mean you have to consider things like power/network outages if you want remote access and recording to continue during those events. I’ve got all my network gear and the doorbell transformer running off a UPS to cover the time between a power outage and my whole-home generator kicking in. I’ve also got an LTE modem to fail over to on my Dream Machine Pro (Router/network controller/video storage).

I've just ordered an Amcrest AD410. It has RTSP support! I handle my video footage through https://frigate.video hooked into Home Assistant, and the Amcrest cameras are pretty open and compatible with this setup, apparently. They have a (somewhat hidden) API, with some open source solutions like https://github.com/dchesterton/amcrest2mqtt about which expose it to more common standards, and Home Assistant has an official integration for them too.

I've been really happy with my Frigate setup and previously wrote a few words about the switch: https://senryu.pub/afternoonrobot/articles/replacing-unifi-v.... It has taken me ages to find a viable doorbell, however, which is why I've only just ordered the AD410. I'm pretty hopeful for it, and a colleague already has one and really likes it.

Ring is absolutely a shame, when it comes to privacy. Following, it comes with a monthly fee if you need video recordings.

We had critical situation at home, so we also decided to set up a recording camera. Brand name is “Eufy”. Yes, you need to register an account to watch the streams, however recordings are stored on a sd card. They also offer door bells, which require a gateway, which then stores all the recordings. Eufy adversites it’s products for being secure and private, however… I just think everything comes with a price and Eufy offers a fair trade between privacy and comfortabity/usability.

So for me: Ring is a no-go and I’m not willing to set up and maintain a homebrew-solution.

> the family have decided

Think very carefully here. If you want a video doorbell, your personal requirements are very different from the requirements that your family has.

I'm very happy with my Nest doorbell, but to be quite honest, the only "privacy" thing I did was tell all my neighbors who are within view of the camera. If / when there are concerns, I'll disconnect it. (Frankly, my neighbors just laughed and then put in video doorbells pointing at my house.)

Assuming your family are average people who aren't excited about hacking and tinkering, it's not worth pushing a homegrown or niche solution on them unless it's brain-dead easy to use.

I’m curious to learn why people buy these things.

Crime rate where I live is low. Regardless that’s what insurance is for. And I’m not even sure if the doorbell would deter anyone.

Even in a large house I don’t mind coming to the front door to answer the rare unexpected visitor.

That leaves keeping delivery people honest and not throwing deliveries. But again I haven’t had that problem and if I did that’s what the return process is for.

Are these the reasons and I’m just clearly not the target market. If so how are you different that it’s an important purchase to make?

Thanks for sharing your perspectives.

Probably overkill for your purposes, but I wanted a wired networked solution that would allow me to synchronize/tile video from other surveillance cameras. I ended up deploying the Ubiquiti door bell as well as their Unifi cameras and the NVR + UDM Pro. Make sure you set it up with a local admin account and disable Unifi Cloud for security reasons. They're expensive, but they work well, and can be powered/connected via wired Ethernet with POE. The doorbell is the only one that's WiFi because it's powered via a standard doorbell transformer, but supports the latest WiFi protocols including WPA3.

I'm sure the setup experience is less easy and seamless than a Nest, but it's more locally controlled, all video is locally recorded not in the cloud, and you get a strong management interface for large footprints.

Would you like to tinker a pi?

googling pi doorbell brings stuff like this

https://makezine.com/projects/remote-camera-doorbell-and-sma...

Logitech would also be much better than amazon at least and provider a better plug and play experience https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/cameras/circle-view-...

Gira have a range of video intercoms and supporting hardware. They are a German company, so everything works offline by default. Not cheap, but it's also not going to be made obsolete in 3 years time. I believe they use SIP under the hood.

https://www.gira.de/produkte/tuersprechanlagen/tuersprechanl...

The eufy (Anker) video security products have worked very well for me and store the video locally. I don’t trust anything consumer oriented, but realistically I also don’t have time to invent my own solutions (nor do I want to maintain them). I can’t guarantee the Eufy cameras are the most secure setup, but the system works well, has a pretty good (above average) iOS app, doesn’t store on the “cloud”. No complaints here.

Netatmo? It records to a local SD card and can push videos via FTP or to Dropbox. No cloud recording or processing involved.

I assume it does have some server that it talks to so that push notifications work, though.

https://www.netatmo.com/en-us/security/doorbell

There are SIP-based solutions, for example: https://www.voipon.co.uk/sip-door-entry-systems-c-1599_587.h... (no affiliation).

The problem with those is that there's still no good open-source ecosystem around SIP. There are ad-hoc libraries that implement the low level protocol, but little when it comes to a full B2BUA to which you can then connect a SIP client.

The closest to that is Asterisk but IMO it's far from user-friendly, has very poor & incomplete documentation, an arcane configuration language and is plagued by lots of legacy telecoms-specific crap (obscure protocols that are no longer used, etc) that the majority of users won't need.

So there is SIP hardware, but then you just moved the problem elsewhere and now you need a user-friendly SIP server to run it.

It's probably overkill for a residential installation, but Grandstream has a SIP-based Audio/Video Keyfob/Keypad door access system. You could skip wiring up the door release mechanism, and just have it make a video call, and it's designed to be outdoors and weathered.

http://www.grandstream.com/products/facility-management/faci...

However, with anything like this for a family, unless they share the same enthusiasm for DIY tech projects, frustrations will occur, and you will be the target of that frustration anytime it doesn't work :(

I think Robin ProLine should fit the bill: https://www.robintele.com/en/products/video-intercoms.html

We ended up with the Eufy doorbell. Local storage is what sealed the deal for me. It's not perfect, but it's more than good enough. And there is no monthly subscription.

I reckon regardless of product, you should block it at the router/firewall/pinhole level so it can’t communicate out to the internet.

While commenting - any that are AppleKit or "Home Assistant" compatible? I've been looking for the same OP - thanks for asking.

I'm not even sure it matters at this point. Most houses in my neighborhood have a doorbell or some kind of camera. What I use doesn't matter since all the other houses are recording me. You might as well just buy the one that has the price and features you need.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Newhouse-Hardware-All-Purpose-Wi...

I have August, which is "better" but not offline either. Was a good compromise for me.

Dahua VTO2202F It doesn't connect to the cloud and you can isolate it in a VLAN.

A camera wired to a monitor & a classical doorbell - for u asked ;-)

I have checked all the links so far and none of the manufacturers show where these products are made. I think when it comes to security that is quite crucial information. Why do they hide where they make these products?