Eufy Video Doorbell 2K
For renters, the Eufy Video Doorbell is the best smart doorbell you can buy.
The Eufy Video Doorbell is likely the best wireless smart doorbell camera on the market in terms of price, reliability and performance. Compared to a first-gen Ring or even the more recent August View, Eufy blows them both away.
This is especially true if you’re renting and can’t take out the old doorbell that’s already installed. Because the Eufy works wirelessly with the help of a hub that connects to your router, you can simply throw it on any outdoor surface with the right mounting equipment and get it to work for up to six months at a time.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of minor issues with it – like the fact that you’ll need to physically unmount the camera to recharge the battery for around six hours every six months and a small delay when talking to someone live – but as a security camera it works fairly well.
Design
The Eufy Security Doorbell has two major components, the actual doorbell camera itself and the aforementioned HomeBase comes inside the box.
The Security Doorbell, as you’d expect, has a fairly slim, basiclooking all-black design with a front-facing camera and a built-in microphone while the Eufy HomeBase looks like an all-white wireless router – it’s fairly plain but still a bit bulky. That’s ironic, of course, because you’ll need to connect it to a router and will find all the wires to do so inside the box.
Now, at first, we hated giving up a port on our router to something as silly as a smart home hub for just one product, but the benefits significantly outweigh the cons.
The HomeBase acts as a brain for the whole system. It securely stores all the footage – which means, if your camera is ever stolen, all of the video is still safely stored inside. Even better, Eufy uses a proprietary communication technology that’s more power-efficient than standard Wi-Fi, allowing the wireless camera to work for months without recharging.
Even better, the HomeBase supports up to 16 devices, which means if you ever want to expand your home system with, say, a bunch of Eufy Cam 2 cameras, it’s no hassle.
The HomeBase can also serve as a chime, which is nice, but you’ll also get phone notifications on both iOS and Android should you want those, too.
Setup
Setting up the system isn’t exactly as simple as pairing some new headphones, but it isn’t as difficult as you might expect, especially if you’re drilling into wood.
To that end, Eufy provides you