Eufy Video Doorbell Wireless
Effective, easy to install and free to run – the Eufy is a brilliant wireless doorbell
SCORE
PRICE £167 (£200 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/312eufy
Stand aside Nest and Ring: there’s a new video doorbell in town. The Eufy Wireless is easy to set up, too, with the first step being to plug the supplied Eufy HomeBase into your router via an Ethernet cable. This box also acts as your doorbell chime and has 16GB of internal storage where it stores motiontriggered video clips, which means no need to pay a subscription fee for an online service.
The doorbell unit itself is battery powered, with Eufy claiming the battery will last up to six months (you charge it via a micro-USB port). You can hook it up to mains power if you prefer, but the battery option means you only need attach the mounting
plate to your door frame and then clip in the doorbell. Install the Eufy Security App on your phone and follow the usual instructions and you’re done.
Image quality is excellent. A crisp 2K resolution (2,560 x 1,920) is higher than its Ring and Nest rivals, and wide dynamic range processing ensures that even on bright days you can see visitors’ faces clearly. The Eufy also has night-vision recording, which is enabled automatically when the light dims.
There’s no face recognition to match Nest, but with human detection enabled the camera will only save video clips that have people in the frame. You can also define activity zones to prevent people walking past the end of your drive from setting off notifications, and to tweak the sensitivity of motion detection. I found the doorbell’s default settings worked very well, however, only triggering recordings when visitors approached the front door.
You can use the Eufy app to talk to anyone who rings the bell. This worked okay, although there was a
notable delay between me speaking and it coming through at the other end. Alternatively, you can choose from a series of canned responses, with three to choose from – “Excuse me, can I help you?”, “Please leave it at the door” and “We will be right there” – or you can add your own.
The Eufy’s one major weakness is that the volume of the chime in the HomeBase box isn’t particularly loud, so if you’re, say, upstairs you might struggle to hear it. However, it will ring on your smartphone (and any other device you install the app on) and can also be set up to ring on any Echo speakers you may have around the house. What’s more, if you have a screenbased Echo Show or Google Home device, you can display the live-stream from the camera onscreen.
A combination of simplicity, effectiveness and low cost over time means we’re giving the Eufy Video Doorbell a
ring ing endorsement.
SPECIFICATIONS 2,560 x 1,920 video
16GB storage (on HomeBase unit) 54 x 28 x 140mm (WDH) 209g 1yr warranty