Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsWell, it works like it said it would
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2024
In the process of automating my home, and finally got around to adding a video doorbell. Awhile back I decided to go with amazon, mostly because the non-internet version (hubitat) I settled with was too involved a process to set up, and required more attention. I'm gone alot, and have a truckload of things to do when I get home, so I literally don't have the time to mess with something like that. Enter Alexa's repertoire of things I can utilize. Since I'm already subscribed to pretty much everything amazon has, may as well just go all in, right?
Anyhow, item came in a day early (surprising, since I live in the middle of nowhere) along with my tp-link mesh system. Pretty much doing a tech overhaul at my house. Got rid of Starlink (great service, but support sucks in general) since spectrum entered into the area and signed up with them. Starlink uses just a single wireless router if you don't want to spend more $ for additional hardware. And then there's other issues I just didn't want to subject myself. I digress.... Set up the mesh system, got spectrum running, and started connecting things.
First thing was the doorbell. This to me is still a novel thing. Yes I know its been around for awhile now, but remember, i'm doing a tech overhaul here. Didn't bother with such things before, nor cared too much about em. So, after some thinking, I installed it at the traditional place (front door), and used the wedge to angle it a bit to catch the front sidewalk. Connected it to the mesh system (took a minute, as I was unfamiliar with the system). It pretty much installs itself. It's all run off the phone as far as configuring and whatnot. You WILL be required to install the blink app. It's not part of the amazon app. Not sure why, ask Jeff about that one. Sync module is a no brainer, just follow the directions.
Here's the interesting part. I don't need yet another subscription, so I opted out of the cloud storage thing. With the app, you can pull clips off the sync module using your phone, and do whatever you want with them anyhow, don't need a sub to get it. Save yourself a few dollars and go the route I went. Get a usb stick. HOWEVER, I didn't get a usb stick just for the sync module. I have a microsd storage card (350 gig) from my previous phone that I couldn't use in my new one (fold 5), so it just sat around being randomly used as a transfer tool between pc's. So why not use it as storage for the module? Well, I plugged it into a sd card multireader and stuck it into the module... AND IT WORKS. Amazon states max is 250, but I've got an extra 100 gigs with my microsd card :)
Will tech support help if it breaks down? Doubt it. The research I did says that although higher capacity cards may or may not work in the module, support is limited to cards with a max of 250 gigs. Not sure how that works out, but I don't write software so whatever.
Long story short, camera works great. Fiddle with the sensitivity though. I set it too high (lvl 7) and got alerts from the clouds going by. Dropped it to 6, but its too dark to tell if that helped. In the end, i'm happy with my purchase. Quality is great, and does what it says it's supposed to do. Good luck!