you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 7 points 8 months ago (16 children)

Honest question: what is the reason to have a doorbell of this kind?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 16 child comments
  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago

    Tells you when a package arrived and when the neighbor stole it off your porch. Tells you someone rang the bell when not home and lets you remotely yell ant the door to door sales people.

    I mean they’re useful, but I sure wouldn’t ever trust one connected to any sort of cloud.

    I do have a UniFi door cam that records to a local hard drive. I like it. Ties in with my other cameras to watch my vehicle in my driveway.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago

    If you can see it’s a salesperson you can ignore them but answer if it’s the mailman/UPS. Get notified that a package was dropped off… or that shortly thereafter some rando walks up to said package.

    Think of it as a door-peephole-at-range.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    Many.

    If you get deliveries and they're mishandled, you have a recording of it.

    If someone comes to your door when you're not home, you can talk to them.

    You can also set up local AI alerts (AI here is mostly used for facial recognition) e.g. to alert you if your MIL comes around uninvited, or if your kids sneak out at 2am, and so on.

    Once you begin appreciating a home CCTV camera setup (fully local mind you), you'll see the benefit of having your doorbell video-ed up as well.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    You can also set up local AI alerts (AI here is mostly used for facial recognition) e.g. to alert you if your MIL comes around uninvited, or if your kids sneak out at 2am, and so on.

    That sounds awful. I'd rather just not, and avoid that mindset altogether.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Avoid the mindset that your kid might sneak out, or an unwanted guest might have shown up?

    Ignorance may be bliss, but it certainly doesn’t stop shenanigans from happening.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    In the context of parenting there are certainly better things you can do to prevent "shennanigans" other than subjecting them to surveillance. Like you know... raising them?

    Terrifying with a generation of peole grown up under total control and expected to be perfectly obedient. They will be shitty adults. But hey, at least they won't have memories of that time they snuck out at night to watch the stars.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Look, I’ve had a random person walk into my house uninvited before, and having a recording of it was useful. Just because you don’t like the idea of one of the examples given, doesn’t mean these devices have no use.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    The idea of going back to a blind simple lock protecting my house, pets, and stuff is crazy to me - smart CCTV and an internet connected alarm system are so much better, plus there's no "monitoring" cost like some folks pay. $40 so you can call the cops for me? No.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    In addition to "normal" uses, my kids got into the habit of leaving me messages on the camera when I'm in the office and they are leaving for school. I grew to love these messages.

    Using Eufy with local storage. Don't know whether anything gets stored to the cloud, but I guess data still passes through Eufy servers when I view the videos.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago*
    1. Not getting off the sofa. Video doorbell pops up on my watch, no matter where I happen to be, so I can immediately decide whether it can interrupt what I’m doing.
    2. Shut the hell up. Sometimes I turn off the chimes so I’m not bothered by yet another door to door sales drone. But I still have my watch in case whoever is at the door is legitimate
    3. Intercom. My kid sometimes want to tell me something without coming inside
    4. History. Yes, sometimes I want to scroll back through all motion trigger s in front of my door
    5. Wildlife. Minor feature but it is occasionally fascinating to see what animals amble in front of my door. I’m urban so it’s limited but we have turkeys and coyotes
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    How else can you have the pleasure of telling Jehovah’s Witnesses to go away when you’re not at home?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I was waiting for this reply!

    I love those guys! Trolling them always makes my day. Asking if they are willing to help clean the house never fails to get them off my door.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments