there's no right or wrong when it comes
to choosing a video doorbell different video doorbells suit different people and
different lifestyles but there are some questions that you can ask to make sure
that you get the right doorbell for you the first thing to consider is what technology you
already have if any because if you're already set up on the alexa system or the google home system
you might want to choose a video doorbell that will integrate with your existing system and
keep your t
echnology as streamlined as possible another factor to consider is whether or not you
want your video doorbell to be wired or wireless if you go for the wireless option then it's going
to be running on batteries which means that you can get it up and running straight away and it's
nice and easy to set up however that means that those batteries have a life of course and be
very careful to check how long that life will be because some of them can last as little as a
week which means every wee
k you've got the hassle of recharging and thinking about those batteries
all the time of course it depends on the settings how long they will last as well so have a look
into that the other option is wired now this means that you're going to have to get power to wherever
you put your doorbell so potentially it's a little bit more hassle and expense to get that set up at
the beginning but perhaps easier in the long run next up you need to consider whether or not you
need or want to sign up t
o a subscription service so this is where you pay to have all of your video
history stored on the cloud so that you can access it at a later date the easy way to work out
whether or not you need this is think about what you're using your video doorbell for if you
just want to see who's at the door then you don't necessarily to look need to look back at that
history however if you're using it as a security camera as well then it may be worth paying that
monthly fee but it is quite a big comm
itment and it can add up over the year so i would think
about this one carefully i would also bear in mind the fact that there are some security and legal
questions around these doorbells as well so if you are actually storing people's data you need to
be quite careful even just using the normal system you need to make sure that you're notifying people
that you're recording them and be very careful if you're recording any areas that fall outside of
your actual property itself if you don't s
ign up for the monthly subscription your doorbell will
just temporarily record what it sees to the cloud but it will write over that continually quite
quickly so you are still storing data to some extent another alternative is that some of them
have sd card slots where you can insert an sd card and you can record that as well but with both
of those you also need to be careful about the privacy rules another thing to look carefully at
is what settings your video doorbell has so some of them
are really quite clever and you can use
them to exclude certain zones so they don't get triggered by animals all the time for example
others of them will actually tell you there's a person with a parcel at the door for example
and some of them you can get just to record very specific zones so check that it's got the options
that you need before you go ahead and buy one something else to think about is does your video
doorbell have face recognition so this is quite a nice feature that some o
f them include and that
means they'll recognize who's at the door and tell you so you might get a notification on your
phone or whichever device you're using linked to your to your doorbell and it will say a certain
person is at the door now this can be useful for people who live alone or for if you've perhaps got
carers visiting an elderly relative so make sure you think about what you want your video doorbell
for and whether or not that's an important factor now when you're looking at all
the lovely things
that your video doorbell can do make sure you also check out what's actually included in the package
because some of them are set up so that you then have to pay extra and pay subscriptions
for certain things so for example two-way communication on some of them it can do it but
it's not actually included in that initial price you then have to pay on top of that so you
don't want to get stung at a later date now this may seem like a very silly question
but you actually ne
ed to check whether or not your video doorbell rings believe it or not with
some of them ringing is not included they will just send you a push notification to your phone
and you actually have to buy a separate chime to ensure that you get that bell ring so if that's
important to you check out whether or not it's included because you don't want to get then have
to pay an extra they're about 50 pounds sometimes afterwards when you think all your money is spent
and you think you're ready to s
et up that could be a nasty surprise another important factor
that's very easy to overlook is does your wi-fi reach the video doorbell so traditional doorbells
don't run on wi-fi never had to think about this before but if you've got a poor connection in your
house or perhaps you've got a huge great porch or you're putting it at the end of somewhere far away
then is that wi-fi actually going to reach because if it doesn't it's not going to work one to think
about if you're in the uk in our
lovely climate is is it waterproof now this is very easy to check
on the specifications just make sure that it's ip rated most of them will be but there might be
some rogue ones out there that are coming from different places that don't enjoy quite so much
rain that haven't thought about this factor something else to consider these days with any
wireless product is is it secure and can it easily be hacked now of course there's
no definitive answer to this question but perhaps go for a more
trusted brand and then
you can look into what efforts they're making to keep the devices secure the good news is the
longer these products are around on the market the more the manufacturers are having to make
effort to keep them secure otherwise we wouldn't buy them so i hope that you found that useful
if you are in the process of choosing a video doorbell with all that said and done the one that
we went for is drumroll please the google nest video doorbell and that's because we've already
got that system at home so it integrates well with all the technology that we've already got
we've got a nice little hub in our kitchen and so when someone comes to the door we can glance
over there we get a voice notification and we can look at exactly who's at the door so that works
for us but maybe something else works for you if you've got your own experiences or comments
please feel free to share them and add them down in the comments below but that's all for today
if you're new here
please do consider subscribing i post lots of helpful home content so i'd
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Comments
Great video Georgina, and good timing as my sister wants a new 🚪 🛎. 🙌