Smart Home WiFi Doorbell Camera

At first when ordering the Amcrest video doorbell, I was skeptical because it was so much cheaper than other competing products but I was blown away with the quality of the product and the experience for such a cheap price tag.InstallationThe installation went very smoothly. Amcrest included a ton of tools in the box for any type of installation, and I hardly used any of them. That being said, it was great that they included this so anyone can purchase the product and get it mounted correctly in different applications and surfaces. The instructions included in the box were sparse, but there was a recommendation to go to amcrest.com/videodoorbell for installation. The instructions also mentioned that there would be a video on that site, however I could not find it. The written instructions were good enough to get it installed, though. It probably took me only 25 min total to install. Also, having the QR code directly on the device was very nice for setup.Build QualityThe build quality of the camera was great and I would say its looks are on par or even better than some of the more expensive competitors. The unit comes with two different swappable faceplates (black and silver), which I think is a nice touch.Video QualityThe video quality was great, and actually better than most of the other video doorbells I have seen on the market. I read online that you could change video settings in the app, however I couldn't find this feature. This would be nice to have back if it was taken away in a software update.Motion DetectionThe motion detection and push notifications worked great, however it became annoying sometimes when people were walking in and out of the house in short time increments. It would be great if there was a way to set a cooldown period so the notifications didn't become so annoying in this situation. It would be also great if you could disable motion detection and recording for a set period of time, say an hour or so. I can see a situation where someone has this on their porch and if they're sitting out on the porch, they'll get hundreds of notifications and video recordings.StorageThe website made no mention of how much storage could store an estimated amount of video, so I just went ahead and purchased the largest supported micro SD card (128GB). I would have been nice to know this info, however micro SDs are so cheap nowadays it didn't matter too much.The micro SD card that I bought came formatted as exFAT (not FAT32) so I couldn't immediately plug it into the doorbell and format it. I had to first plug it into my computer and format it to FAT32 before the doorbell could use it. It would be great if the doorbell could format the card itself (if this is possible). This was a very minor annoyance, but I can see someone who doesn't have a computer and only an iPad or tablet having an issue.I thought it was strange that you can't download videos from the micro SD when you're not on the same wifi network. I would think that since you can stream off the card, you should be able to download as well.All in all, I think this is a solid bang for your buck as it functions the same as other doorbell cameras but for a lower cost. I give it a 4.5/5 stars and I'm only docking a half star from the minor issues I mentioned in the review.

OverviewI have been a Ring doorbell owner for over two years. At the time, the solution of a video doorbell just made sense for home security. I have other Amcrest security cameras and my biggest frustration with Ring was the proprietary nature of the product. You can only access your camera through the Ring app, and the footage is only stored if you pay for their cloud storage solution. It's because of this I grew increasingly concerned with the security of this device and where my data was going.I am a little more tech savvy than most and as a result of this I have my complete camera system set up in Zoneminder. I have been looking for a doorbell camera from a reputable company that would allow me to capture the video feed, and retain the functionality of the smart Doorbell features.As an Amcrest camera owner, I was naturally interested in the Amcrest Doorbell. In each of my camera implementations the cameras have been easy to use and fully able to integrate with my security solution of choice.InstallationThe installation of my Amcrest doorbell was not net new. Much of what I already had installed for the Ring I was able to reuse for the Amcrest Doorbell. The simple explanation for this is there are two wires on the back of Ring; I just had to remove those wires and put them on the back of the Amcrest doorbell.The Amcrest Doorbell is a little smaller than the Ring doorbell. I had my Ring mounted on an angled base, therefore I had to modify the base a bit with a new backplate to support my new Amcrest Doorbell. This was not an issue and it just took me a little time and some creative crafting to make something that looked nice.SetupOnce installed I was ready for the setup process. This is where things were a little weak. The smart app made sense, however adding the device to the app is not so streamlined.I am familiar with the QR code setup process of these cameras. I had to remove the camera from the base after install to access the QR code on the back of the unit. Only later did I find the QR code on the front of the unit behind the front plate when I was looking for the reset button.I did have to spend some time looking for the reset button. It was not clearly identified on the unit or in the documentation. I was tempted to put a pin in the front hole of the device thinking that may have been the reset (DON’T DO THIS). I am glad I didn’t as I later discovered after looking and finding a video online that the reset button was on the side above the microSD slot. I am glad I looked further into this and didn’t wreck what I assumed was the microphone for the Doorbell. The setup process would have benefitted from some type of animation within the app to let the end consumer know where this was on the device.After figuring this out I was able to initiate the hotspot and finish going through the setup process. This worked fine and everything was up and running through the app in no time. I tested its functionality and everything worked intuitively the same I would have expected as I was already familiar with the Ring solution. From a “smart” device perspective these two devices work very similarly.My next step in the journey was to connect the Amcrest Doorbell to the Amcrest View app and also my Zonemider setup. I use the Amcrest View app for my live viewing of all my cameras in a single mobile app space. I use my Zonemider solution for video storage and alert detection and tracking.I prefer to keep my cameras in a range of “ip” addresses. I was disappointed to discover no way for me to change my ip address. It appears that the unit is set to “static”. However, the device grabs a “DHCP” address from the access point. This was a little bit frustrating as I don’t understand the benefit to the process by preventing me from changing this. I actually had to go into my router and assign the MAC address to the ip address it grabbed on setup. This way my router would at least reserve the same address for this device and not give it something else down the road.At this point I cloned one of my other Amcrest cameras in Zoneminder and created a new camera configuration specific to this one. I only had to change the name and the ip address. It picked the camera up immediately and began steaming and storing the cameras RTSP feed. This was excellent and exactly what I was looking for. Additionally I went through the same setup process in the Amcrest view app. Everything was up and working great. Amcrest... Don’t ever turn your back on the value you offer in this space... This is 100% why I buy your products. Great product, great flexibility.This next issue only applied to a preference I have when I add cameras to my devices. To save bandwidth and compute I generally drop the resolution on my cameras to 720p. The Amcrest View app was pulling the substream so I was not concerned with that. I did however download the Amcrest desktop app and connected to the camera that way. I made some minor adjustments to the primary stream resolution. This worked great for my “regular” camera setup, however it broke the “live view” in the smart app and Doorbell functionality. Upon doing some further research, I discovered that it was not recommended to play with the resolution. I went back into the settings and changed the resolution settings back and the “live” view came back.The last thing I did was connect the chime to the existing doorbell ding-dong unit. That was pretty straight forward and worked without issue. At the moment everything is up and running and the device is giving me the experience of everything I was hoping and expecting a replacement for Ring would offer.Pros- Almost seamless transition for those switching from Ring to the Amcrest Doorbell- Non-proprietary setup that allows flexibility for users that don’t want to go to cloud- Flexible streaming functionality like RTSP- Strong control over the security of device and how its used (Doorbell vs camera vs both)Con- Let me manually set my IP address (even if it's only configurable in the smart app)- Let me adjust the resolution of the Doorbell (even if its a simplified preference created by you)- Documentation was missing some key callouts that forced me to have to explore other channels in the setup processOverall this Doorbell is flexible enough to meet both my functional use as a security doorbell and a security camera at a critical entry point of the house. Although some things are not perfect, I can overlook them because I was able to produce the result I was looking for. If Amcrest continues to allow full control and ownership of the device streams and don’t lock the consumer into a proprietary app or storage solution, I will continue to recommend their products to everyone. They just need to turn that RTSP feed on that spotlight camera (and hardwire it like a light) and I can get rid of my Ring floodlight camera...For less tech savvy people they offer a wide array of support and storage solutions. I personally know someone who equally likes Amcrest products and pays to store his data in one of the Amcrest service options. These products offer flexibility for everyone.Overall rating on this is 5/5.