Video Doorbell Recommendation (Ring Alternatives)

I’ve used a Ring video doorbell for a while at work. when pressed it queued an alexa scene that triggered a vera scene that blinked the lights to get our attention which is nice because it’s super loud at work and we wear noise cancelling headphones to preserve our hearing.

The ring died recently and before I go out and buy another and deal with the workaround connectivity, I wanted to ask people what some “good” video doorbells are, that are compatible with vera directly?

I saw vistacam 1200 listed in the device add list of the vera but it’s hard to find for sale.

I saw doorbird mentioned on here, but man oh man it’s pricey $500 starting!

I don’t need vandal resistance, or waterproof, which I think doorbird excels at, as this is indoor. i do like the idea of POE power since we have battery-backed poe switching.

So what would folks recommend? basically I need it to be able to kick off a vera scene, and i need to be able to answer it on my phone like a ring bell. In the future I also have intentions to remotely unlock the door using a solenoid. I have it on a tcp-controlled relay already and it works via a php script so I can hit it from vera via curl I know. It might be nice if the video doorbell app had a ‘buzz them in’ button in frame when viewing the cam and talking to the person, but i know now I’m really getting feature greedy…

I am not sure if its closed yet, but one way to get a cost effective Doorbell :slight_smile:

It has the “InstaVue” technology…

I am sure with Ring you know it takes around 3-4 seconds to see the video stream once you click…
I do have Ring myself and I miss the “motion” that caused the alert as
1)takes long time for the alert to come to me
2)takes long time for the video to start…

With Ezlo Doorbell you can see the Video under 1 second! Hence its called “InstaVue”.

How?

We invented (patent pending) a whole new way of doing this, where we take advantage of our hub. Our hub keeps thing ready/fresh for us, so that when your IOS/Android app needs to see things, with a little help from our hub, you see the stream literally instantly. We have optimized the whole thing to work both Locally and remotely, where if you are local, you will stream locally from your Ezlo Doorbell to your Mobile device.

Would you be do kind as to provide a link to where i might purchase the ezlo bell?

I googled ezlo doorbell and got a page on shop.ezlo.com, or some ezlo branded domain name. It listed about 150 doorbells and i couldn’t tell which one was yours.

An ezlo branded doorbell should have the best support id imagine! Take my money please but i need your help to find it!

Link is in the post…pls click on it.
It will be available to public soon…
its only available to select few Beta registrants in this forum for now.

It might be worth noting that while Ring is a battery-operated, stand-alone device (at least, the one I’m familiar with - there may be multiple models…), the VistaCam 1203 appears to be powered off an existing doorbell circuit, and makes use of existing doorbell chimes. For me, this is a huge plus, but it does mean it may not be a viable replacement for a Ring device, depending on your setup.

Doh! Not sure how I missed the link the first time around. Pasting it VistaCam 1203 Doorbell Camera Beta Testers Wanted! in case the helps anyone.

I wasn’t expecting to get one for free but I’d be happy to provide detailed feedback on the install process and any glitches if we have any. I have a Vera secure and a Vera plus.

I’d be happy to pay for it. I mean it’s work that’s paying anyway so it’s no money out of my pocket. At work and at home I have easily more than several dozen sensors and devices. I’ve put Z-Wave controlled contactors on my EV charging station and on an industrial 3 phase air conditioning system.

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