Choosing A Video Doorbell

While smart video doorbells offer several obvious benefits, you won’t necessarily care about all of them. Choosing a specific model requires thinking about exactly what you want to get out of it. Setting clear expectations will allow you to focus in on the performance requirements that matter for your particular use case and will make sorting through the various options much easier.

There are several factors that need to be decided upon up front, as these will drive the basic technical specs that you’ll be looking for. Start with these first to narrow the field, then we’ll move on to usage requirements where the specific review scores will provide the information you need to make an informed choice.

Basic Requirements

These factors largely come down to where you are going to install the doorbell. “Near your door” obviously, but exactly where can influence the kind of mount and field of view you need and can even impact the choice of power supply.

Mounting Surface

If you have an existing wired doorbell on your door frame, you will likely want to use those wires and install the new doorbell in the same place. Video doorbells are often going to be wider than a basic button, though, so you might not have that option. Checking the dimensions of each model will confirm if one fits in that spot.

If the door frame is not an option, can you drill holes in the wall? The type of wall material will determine the kind of fixings will you be looking at. Virtually every video doorbell these days will come with screws and wall plugs that will be fine for wood or brick.

Drywall or sheet metal situations will need something else. You might also not want - or be able - to drill holes for whatever reason. All of these cases could be served by a doorbell that includes an adhesive mount as an option.

Field Of View

The field of view (the total horizontal angle the camera can see) varies considerably between doorbell models. These range from around 110° all the way up to 180°.

Keep in mind that a wider angle lens will reduce the detail you can see in any given portion of the image. This is simply due to less pixel space being available per degree of the view. Because of this it can be beneficial to choose a field of view that best matches the area you want to watch. This will depend on the layout of the area in front and to the sides of your door.

In most cases a super wide angle will not be necessary to cover any approaches to the doorbell. Even a minimal 110° camera will suffice as shown in the diagrams below. Properties with a more open frontage will benefit from a wide-angle model to ensure the approaches are covered. Keep in mind package delivery locations and if the field of view will cover that area.

A typical doorbell near a corner

Installing in the corner offers better coverage

A narrow porch may not need a wider angle

A wider frontage needs a wider angle

Power Supply

A wired doorbell will always give you better results. You won’t have to deal with battery charging, and you’ll open the door (so to speak) to some extra features that are typically only available with a permanent power supply.

If you don’t have a transformer already, can you run wires from a wall plug, or do you want to have a transformer installed? The latter will involve some extra costs as the transformer will need to be wired into your home’s electrical supply, usually in the ceiling space. Look for a 30VA AC transformer for maximum compatibility.

If you’re not looking to deal with the extra hassle and expense involved, going with a battery powered doorbell is fine. While it won’t be quite as good, there are plenty of very capable and reliable models available now that can run for a several months on a single charge. For even easier charging, opting for a model with a removable battery pack allows you to do quick swaps with a charged spare to eliminate downtime.

Usage Requirements

What you want your doorbell to do for you will determine the factors that will help steer your selection. This includes both performance criteria and included features you'll need to look for in our reviews. It's useful to think about this instead of trying to find the perfect doorbell model.

Screening Visitors

Securely screening who comes to your door is a key benefit of having a video doorbell. You can do this whether you’re at home or not thanks to the two-way talk feature common on most doorbell models. Look for:

• Performance: Video clarity
  A high clarity score will ensure you can readily identify the person outside and won’t be disrupted by compression artifacts or low resolution video.

• Performance: Dynamic range
  Video clarit is no good to you if a bright background lighting causes the face to be dark and underexposed. A good dynamic range score will ensure you can still see the person clearly in shadows.

• Performance: Audio quality
  Clear communication will be necessary if you’re going to engage with the caller, so two-way talk audio quality scores will be important. Look for good clarity and minimal audio breakup or distortion. You’ll only need this to be effective a relatively close range as they will be standing at the door.

• Feature: Voice changer
  For extra security you may want to avoid being identifiable to the caller. Doorbells that offer a voice changer can help with this. This feature will provide the ability to select from various voice filters that change the sound, gender, and apparent age of your voice as heard from the outside.

Package Protection

As package theft has become more of an issue in the age of online shopping, video doorbells increasingly offer package detection features to help keep an eye on things. That one feature is not all you need for this to be effective, however. Look for:

• Performance: Motion detection
  It’s no good getting alerting to someone suspicious if they’ve already taken the package. You’ll need the doorbell to be able to detect an approach as far out as possible in order to give you time to respond. Look for long motion detection distances and good event capture performance with minimal missed events.

• Performance Notification speed
  Along with the ability to detect motion early enough, you need to get the alert about it quickly. Slow notifications will waste valuable response time and could result in you missing the act until it’s over.

• Feature: Field of view
  In order to be able to keep an eye on packages, even without a specific feature for that purpose, the doorbell camera has to be able to see the whole area where deliveries may be dropped off. Field of view and aspect ratio will determine how much area the camera can monitor.

• Feature: Package detection
  A specific package detection feature will help you to keep an eye on things by alerting you to a delivery specifically, not just motion. Some doorbells are now specializing in this particular role with additional alerts about when a package is picked up and reminders to do so after a certain time.

• Performance: Package detection
  If you’re going to rely on a package detection feature, it has to work well. Many of doorbells provide the feature, but it’s unreliable. Look for the package detection performance score to validate this.

• Feature: Voice warnings
  An additional aid to package security is to have the doorbell make audio warnings to approaching persons automatically. Some doorbells can provide package specific security warnings only if a package has been detected, which helps to avoid confusion with regular visitors. This is more of a nice-to-have as its effectiveness is open to debate.

Security Surveillance

Video doorbells are essentially a variant of security cameras, and most models will try to fulfill this role as well. They can certainly form part of a more comprehensive security system, but if you specifically want yours to do this you’ll need to weed out the underperformers. Look for:

• Performance: Video Clarity
  Seeing detail in more distant people and objects is all the more important when looking at security video of a wider area. The clarity score factors in video compression and resolution, so this score alone gives you a good indication of the detail you’ll get in the image.

• Performance: Night vision
  Capturing events at night is especially important for the security role, so good night vision performance is a must as well. This score factors in the overall video quality as well as the low-light/infra red capabilities of the camera.

• Performance: Motion detection
  In order to capture activity further from the camera, look at the motion detection scores to find doorbells that can detect and record further away. Maximum motion detection distance, event capture performance, and minimal missed events are the key criteria here.

• Performance: Notification speed
  Recording activity out the front of your home is job one, but it’s just as important to be able to respond to it in a timely manner. Getting actionable notifications fast is critical to this. Also look at thumbnail effectiveness as rich notifications are a great tool for determining what you need to act on quickly.

• Feature: Motion zones
  If your doorbell is monitoring a wider area, you’ll need the tools to filter out unwanted activity to reduce false positives. Custom motion zones are an effective way to do this, but not all doorbells offer true custom zones where you can create the shape you need to avoid things like plants and shadows.

• Feature: Object detection
  To further improve the usefulness of motion alerts, object detection (aka person or human detection) can help significantly. Look for features that allow you to record everything while only alerting you to human motion. Some models will also allow you to capture vehicles or animals as well if you need further control.

• Performance: Smart features
  Smart detection and filtering features can be very useful, but they need to work very well. Unreliable person detection can mean missed alerts and possibly missed recordings. The Smart Detection score tells you how effectively these features work in practice.

Next Steps

Now that you have your basic requirements and list of performance factors in hand, you can proceed to the list of reviews to start narrowing down your options.

You can also use the doorbell comparison page to quickly sort doorbell models on the main performance categories discussed above.

If you need any help, feel free to visit the contact page and send me your questions. I’ll do my best to help you out.

Learn more about video doorbells on our learning page. Here’s a sample of other doorbell guides in the library: