Doorbell camera?
 

What experience do you have with a doorbell camera?

I am curious about what critters, human or otherwise, frequent my yard.

My concern for front step evil dooers is close to zero but I was thinking it would be a cheap way to have a little camera to move around the inside and outside of the house to see what’s going on.

Your thoughts?

I am a big fan of the Nest Cameras. I have a couple and move them around to see the outside as I see necessary

Second on the Nests--they're great

Me too
 

We have the Nest double spotlight with camera and love it.

Edited.... I have the Ring double shot with camera. And love it.

Dave

RING here. Have both door bell and lakeside floods. Believe, you won’t go wrong with either. Highly recommend there use. Fee is short money. Must tell you the 2am raccoon alarm does get old


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Just got blinks...totally wireless outdoor wifi cameras and seem to be working fine. Batteries last over a year.

I have a Nest outdoor that I move between lake and home (I put WiFi at lake on pause during winter) and love it. I looked at Blink because I liked the idea of totally wireless but it sounded like it only recorded when it saw something. Nest is on 24/7 and I can access the cam picture anytime from my phone for free. If you want the ability to record, save, and play back there is a fee.


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I have a dog
 

I have a friend who has a NEST camera in every room as well as the motor home parked in the yard. Only the front/back doors have a recording ability. He has also wired all his lights and many sockets so they can be turned on/off from his cell phone, so when it is dark the cameras still function when he turns on the light. I believe he can talk to "visitors" by phone while still able to turn lights and cameras on and off. He's been adding features over the years, so a look to future compatibility may be called for.

If you plan to move camera around the blink battery operated are very easy to move and they can go anywhere wifi can reach. If you want to go outside wifi range game cameras with sd cards are useful but they have to be manually checked. If you have outdoor power, wifi and don't mind paying subscription the outdoor nest is great with ability to rewind. I check my alerts but also rewind every night as sometimes critters pass at edge and don't trigger alerts.

I have an Arlo system with 5 cameras, all wireless, batteries last a few months and are rechargeable. Works great.

Door Bell Camera
 

We have been using Ring door bell cameras on both of our homes for several years and are very satisfied. The dual spotlight camera is excellent for monitoring property remotely. Highly recommended.

There sure are many choices.

Thanks for the replies.

I am going to start dirt cheap and then see if my interest takes me any farther.

Cameras can get addictive. When I am done we will have about a dozen at the island between Arlo and Amcrest. Gotta keep away the Mark Island trampoline slashers and hot tub bandits...

I let my electrician friend of mine and his girl friend use my place for a weekend as payment for some electrical work. I told him to cover the camera's. :eek: It removes any temptation. :D

8gv --

I too am a NEST fan. Have (3) at Winni & (2) in MA. The beautiful part of the NEST (not saying others don't) is the ability to continue to add till your heats content -- or wallet empty!


Be careful of "buying cheap" …… the age old adage of You Get what You Pay for. For NEST, $200/cam is quite reasonable given the features, ease of setup, night vision & quality of picture (including zoom functions).


One hidden thing to be cautious of in your research is "recording time" -- NEST, out of the box, gives you only 24 hours of look back. Yet for $10.00/month you can get a 7 day history. When you add a second Cam, this fee drops to $5/mo for each device -- thus two cams is the same price as one for recording history. Nest also offers a 30 Day plan, but given the motion or noise "alerts" it sends to your phone (optional setting) we never found a need.


Also -- Nest Cam (formerly DropCam) is the originator of these affordable wifi cams -- all others are realtively new competion. Meaning, they are a proven product.

Totally agree.....
 

I am having the exact same experience as the above. I have 3 nest cams at my place up north. I opted to leave the Internet on this year. Complete and utter torture watching the cams daily looking at the lake to see if there is any ice forming. I have two outside cams and one inside. I bought them over a year ago on a Black Friday sale. Got all 3 for about $400. Money well spent for a quality product.

Nest
 

I too invested in a Nest last summer. Decided to leave on the internet over the winter. Only problem I now have is that it appears the internet went down and I now am being told the camera is offline. I think the wireless router and or modem need to be reset however there is no one there to reset and spectrum advises they can not reset remotely, only send a ping to the modem.

Any suggestions?

Is it possible that a power failure temporarily brought down the internet?

Could a UPS (universal power supply...battery back up) help prevent this?

I put my modem and cameras on simple timers just for this reason. It powers them off and on at 2am so if I have a power glitch they will reset. If the power goes off for an extended time then I can just call and have the Internet turned off and deal with it when I get there in the Spring.

I recently installed SimpliSafe for security as well as nature watching. It is great for daytime viewing and stores video for 30 days. The doorbell camera has night vision; the other cameras are for indoors only with night vision, and provide great outside daytime viewing through the windows, which interfere with outdoor night vision due to reflections even if the status light on the cameras is turned off. All the cameras are plug-in with WiFi. Batteries and cellular phone connections provide back-up in the event of a power outage. SimpliSafe provides 24/7 monitoring for security purposes and contacts the homeowner and then the police as needed for security. I also opted for entry sensors, motion sensors, freeze sensors, smoke detectors and a water sensor. So far I am happy and think it is a good fit for my needs at a reasonable cost (currently doorbell camera free with subscription and other cameras $99 each, flat monthly rate regardless of the number of cameras, 60 day trial with no cancellation/return charge, cancellable at will thereafter).

I have edited this post several times because I am still learning the details of my system and the other posts here have been very helpful in educating me to search for capabilities and details of operation. The more I learn the more I like SimpliSafe. It is very highly rated by experts and customers. I sometimes wish the indoor cameras had better outdoor night vision; perhaps SimpliSafe can figure out how to deal with this issue--an outside camera with night vision might be a good addition. It might be better without the additional outside camera, on the other hand, so that I need not check for whatever critters might show up in the back yard after dark.

web cam/doorbell
 

Hi;

I use a "RING " doorbell at home and a "NEST" web cam at the Lake. Keep in mind the doorbell is permanent, and the nest cam can be moved arround. I like the nest at Lake. I put it on the inside of my porch facing the lake, but I can move it anywhere I want..it just needs to be plugged into an electrical outlet...it faces... West down the lake from the WEIRS BEACH to MERIDITH (great view), but I can see any critters that cross our lakeview lawn and it will store the video.

Camera is an inside cam because my porch is enclosed. Cost about $150....You get the NEST APP on your cell phone and/or your computer and you are all set. If you want to keep copies of you activity, you need to pay a small fee.

If you want to see my cam ...go on-line and type in https://video.nest.com/live/AC3BeS7ROn no password needed.
If you want to talk to me , you are welcome to call me, or e-mail me

WINNI BOB @ 617-678-1018

I put my router on a timer so it resets daily. Turns off for 5 minutes every day. Solved the “i’m Not there to reset” problem.

I also put the router on a timer this year after reading it on this site (lots of great ideas). I set it to reboot once a week. It has worked so far this winter.

I have an outdoor nestcam pointing back at the house so I can see the entrance. It dings my phone when someone walks towards the cabin like an "early warning system" :).

I have an older Dropcam inside that sometimes also needs to be rebooted. We bought a wifi switch that I plug the camera into and if the camera goes out I can cycle the power from the app on my phone.

I have recently installed a nest outdoor camera at my house .It was very easy to install and works great for a reasonable price 195$.I walk outside to take my dog out and within 30-40 seconds I recieve a notification on my phone.

I am still on the free month trial but I believe it is 5 $ a month for a 5 day record.

I love my NEST cameras but I just had seen a Ring comme4cial with a new wireless outdoor camera.

Does anyone have one of these new Ring wireless outdoor cameras?