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Talk to me about motion detector video doorbells

Me76

Me76

Not very good lurker
Theres been one burglary and a couple of attempts on my street in the last couple of months so I am thinking about getting a video, motion detector doorbell as a deterrent/ being able to see and shout at people if someone is making an attempt.

Can anyone tell me about how they work and how much they are likely to cost.

I have seen Ring have a £70 and £139 options, but I can't really tell what the difference is. I'd rather spend less than £100, but also don't want to get something that isn't worth it.
 
The Q's have a Ring V2 Doorbell which cost me £89 for the doorbell and a further £30 for the Chime which is a bit of a scam since the Ring sends alerts to your phone if you want it to ring like a doorbell you have to buy the Chime as well which plugs into a socket in the hallway. The Ring is battery powered though they can be wired into a standard doorbell wire. The battery is charged via USB and will last months (you can check it from phone)
Image quality is outstanding in daylight and pretty good even at night. It can be controlled from a mobile phone, an Echo with a screen (of which we have 2) or via the website. As well as viewing through it, it has a mike and speaker. You have to play around with the sensitivity of the sensor, Ours used to alert us to people walking past on the other side of the road. It is however very easy to do this.
What it doesn't do is record footage for later use, it can do that but after a month's free trial you have to fork out £3.99 a month to Ring for the privilege.
EDIT: Both the Ring and the Chime connect to your Wifi network.
 
^^^this

I had to turn my motion detection off as our door is direct on the pavement so got triggered every couple of minutes.

Only problem I have had is sometimes live view won’t load and takes a couple of goes. Might be our network though.
 
Me76 said:

Is it this one you both have?
And can you have alerts go to two phones?
Click to expand...
Yes and yes

EDIT: It is about the size of a smallish mobile phone but somewhat thicker. It feels sturdy. You mount the frame on the brick and there are 2 special screws (complete with a spare one and a screwdriver) that hold it to the frame to stop it being swiped. The camera is wide angle so it can see both of my neighbours and a good distance down each way up the close.
 
I got burgled a few months ago, and I lost count of the people that said, "Why didn't you have a Ring doorbell?" The cops that came round basically said nobody with them gets robbed.

I did upgrade the security a bit as had been totally slack (turned all lights off when out, no alarm, bike on open view, no outside lights, no net curtains, etc.) and one of the things I did was get an indoor camera that watches the back door that's a total weak point. I set it when I know the house is empty for a period of time, takes seconds to click something on the app.

I looked at loads (Ring, Blink, etc.) but settled on a Eufy and it plugs in with USB into the mains and you download and app and can watch it and get alerts if it detects motion in the zones you set. Think it cost about £30 and tbh it's bloody brilliant. Can be seen if you look in the back door, so a good deterrent as well. Be tempted to get a doorbell as well but it was a bit more of a faff to set-up.

I think they're good, affordable security for everyone, not just the rich. The amount of cameras in the UK is astonomical anyway, us having doorbell ones is irrelevant imo.
 
Somebody has been hitting the happy juice with that article. There is no recording to hand over to anyone unless you are prepared to pay the £3.99 monthly fee (I don't) plus you can crank down the sensitivity at which it responds.
Mine only triggers an alert (or a recording) if someone comes within about 5m of it which means my driveway. Someone walking past wouldn't generate an alert and thus a recording. It would by default but it going bing every time a car goes past or someone walks their dog on the other side of the road soon gets annoying.
 
Irrelevant it is not, unfortunately. In the US the police are building a surveillance network of personal CCTV. UK surveillance agencies will be exploiting this too.
 
I want to know if someone is pissing about with the front of my house. I would also be willing to share any footage I had (although as I understand it, unless you subscribe, there isn't anything to share) with the police if there was a crime in the street.

I don't see this as an issue.

ETA, I don't want this to get into that kind of conversation as we are on suburban, take it to politics if you want to. This is about what's out there and how they work.
 
Last edited:
As a teenager I was knocking around with some wronguns. We were skint and needed money for drugs and raves, we went thieving.

Thieves will be wandering around looking for low hanging fruit for later. Open windows, expensive things on show, unlit areas to access buildings are likely to flag your gaff. Address these issues and you won’t need to grass up your community with creepy surveillance cams.
 
WhyLikeThis said:
As a teenager I was knocking around with some wronguns. We were skint and needed money for drugs and raves, we went thieving.

Thieves will be wandering around looking for low hanging fruit for later. Open windows, expensive things on show, unlit areas to access buildings are likely to flag your gaff. Address these issues and you won’t need to grass up your community with creepy surveillance cams.
Click to expand...
It's not grassing up your community, it's supposed to be a deterrent, so therefore not needing to involve the police and avoiding any "grassing".
 
MickiQ said:
Yes and yes

EDIT: It is about the size of a smallish mobile phone but somewhat thicker. It feels sturdy. You mount the frame on the brick and there are 2 special screws (complete with a spare one and a screwdriver) that hold it to the frame to stop it being swiped. The camera is wide angle so it can see both of my neighbours and a good distance down each way up the close.
Click to expand...
You need to adjust that unless you have permission to film other people’s houses. We tweaked ours as it wasn’t fair to be filming our neighbours and their little kids coming and going.

We do pick up traffic when our car isn’t on the drive but not usually.
 
kittyP said:
It's not grassing up your community, it's supposed to be a deterrent, so therefore not needing to involve the police and avoiding any "grassing".
Click to expand...

Watch how police in the US are abusing doorbell surveillance footage.

Los Angeles Police Department targeted Black Lives Matter protests in May and June 2020 with bulk Ring requests for doorbell camera footage that likely included First Amendment protected activities
Click to expand...
www.eff.org

Ring Changed How Police Request Door Camera Footage: What it Means and Doesn’t Mean

Amazon Ring has announced that it will change the way police can request footage from millions of doorbell cameras in communities across the country. Rather than the current system, in which police can send automatic bulk email requests to individual Ring users in an area of interest up to a...
www.eff.org www.eff.org

The UK is not far behind.
 
Ring devices are slowly transforming public space into surveilledspace and allowing Ring owners to decide on behalf of their whole neighborhood to share their recordings of that public space with police.
Click to expand...
i.e. grassing on your community.

www.cnet.com

Ring's police problem never went away. Here's what you still need to know

Commentary: As Amazon gears up for its annual fall hardware event, it's worth taking stock of Ring's track record -- and talking honestly about where it stands today.
www.cnet.com www.cnet.com
 
WhyLikeThis said:
Watch how police in the US are abusing doorbell surveillance footage.


www.eff.org

Ring Changed How Police Request Door Camera Footage: What it Means and Doesn’t Mean

Amazon Ring has announced that it will change the way police can request footage from millions of doorbell cameras in communities across the country. Rather than the current system, in which police can send automatic bulk email requests to individual Ring users in an area of interest up to a...
www.eff.org www.eff.org

The UK is not far behind.
Click to expand...
This country is already highly covered by CCTV.

Youre blaming individuals for a much bigger problem around surveillance and a whole mess of legal stuff.

It's like saying "you're destroying the planet" to an individual that puts something in the bin that their local council won't recycle for whatever reason.

Or saying to a local businesses owner "you're a grass for having CCTV" when all the other businesses do and they wouldn't be able to to stay afloat without it.


Yes, we are all responsible for the shit that goes on in the world but often the only way to deal with it is go after the big guns, not the individual who's just trying to protect themselves.


Start a thread about how we collectively stop this tech being used in neferious ways, don't have a pop at someone using the same things as everyone else on their street to protect what little they might have.

And you posted about going thieving to get cash for raving etc as a youngun, no judgement but you can't imply that someone should just leave themselves open to that or they are a "grass".

The world is different now.
 
Tech wise were already in a place where we have to fight for legislation about how information is used.

1 individual being shamed into not getting a smart doorbell is going to do fuck all.

Just the same as the few people who don't have smart phones, aren't having any effect on how the use of that tech and peoples information is being used.
 
Fight for legislation? The UK has the most oppressive surveillance laws.

Edward Snowden says it’s simply "the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy."
Click to expand...
www.theverge.com

The UK now wields unprecedented surveillance powers — here’s what it means

The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

While campaigning is important, it would be adding to the problem by supporting the use and abuse of this technology.

By normalising their use to record public spaces, you are part of the problem.

As already listed in this thread, there’s plenty of other effective options to deter theft. That don’t require spying on your community.
 
It's easy to think that lots of people agree with or support the point of view that you're talking about.
We (me included) get in a bit of bubble and it's easy to think that if "we" don't do something, that will help change things.
I've come to the point in my life now, where, very unfortunately, I think that ha fuck all effect.

II don't want that to be the case but, it probably is.

You being the one person without a smart phone or video doorbell or some other piece of tech, while making you feel better about yourself, what is it actually achieving if that's what's happening in the world?

Genuine question.
Not trying to be tricky.
 
Blink Doorbells and cams are discounted at Amazon atm: Amazon Deal: Blink Home Security devices

as are RIng things
www.amazon.co.uk

Amazon Deal: Selection of Ring Home Security devices

Discover deals on Amazon
www.amazon.co.uk

I worry about the Amazon tentacles and recordings. I'd rather have a doorbell record to a device in my house than to the cloud and that's what the Blink Sync Module does.

These devices seem like a good, cheap way of getting people who shouldn't be there to keep on walking I suppose.
 
I spend time away from home quite frequently, so these are a godsend to me. I have the Google nest doorbell (and a couple of cameras). Great for spotting wildlife too, if anyone is in the countryside.

Regarding the comnents on the societal impact of their contribution to the normalisation of us as a surveillance state...Surely this is outweighed by the amazing little snippets of videos on twitter etc, that a)show really cool/funny stuff sonetimes; but most crucially b) all footage has a fundamental trust of authenticity, as it has the "why were you filming that" question bypassed, and much less likely to be a contrived performance.

So, y'know, swings and roundabouts really
 
Ted Striker said:
I spend time away from home quite frequently, so these are a godsend to me. I have the Google nest doorbell (and a couple of cameras). Great for spotting wildlife too, if anyone is in the countryside.

Regarding the comnents on the societal impact of their contribution to the normalisation of us as a surveillance state...Surely this is outweighed by the amazing little snippets of videos on twitter etc, that a)show really cool/funny stuff sonetimes; but most crucially b) all footage has a fundamental trust of authenticity, as it has the "why were you filming that" question bypassed, and much less likely to be a contrived performance.

So, y'know, swings and roundabouts really
Click to expand...

Sorry, what???

Edit: (Maybe you are being sarcastic, I find that hard to judge tbh, if that was meant as a sarcastic or satirical comment then fair dos)
 
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