Smart Doorbells Ringing Up Lots Of Interest In UK
With the industry’s move towards equipping the ‘smart home’ gathering pace, this month’s must have is a ‘smart doorbell.’
These have become well established in the United States, started to migrate across the pond last year and are now being pushed here.
So, if you want to see who is at your front door, whether you are in watching TV or at a tapas bar in Barcelona, it is time to get one.
The typical smart doorbell has a small camera, microphone and speaker on board, connects to a home wifi network and delivers notifications to Apps on your chosen devices that the doorbell rings.
You can then look at a wide view image of who is there.
With an option to talk to them via the App, you can say ‘not today, thank you’ from indoors to a sales rep or ‘next week instead, maybe?’ to a friend from that tapas bar.
Some Apps also integrate with a ‘smart lock,’ so that, for instance, a delivery man at an outer porch door can be let in to drop a parcel.
The best models use infra-red to give night-time views of callers and can record and timestamp images.
They can also be set up to detect people as they approach, particularly useful if it is Jack the Lad come to peer into your hallway rather than actually ring the bell.
There is general agreement in the marketplace that the best of the current available models are the Skybell HD and the Ring Doorbell Pro.
There are other models such as the 1byone VP-0033 and August Doorbell Pro that are, well, knocking on the door.
