Do any of you have Ring or Google Nest doorbells, or something similar?

The roughly ninety-year-old (based on the Art Deco Bakelite interior fittings) doorbell on the new house was broken when we bought it. We've been dealing with a million workers and delivery people and no doorbell, because we bought a Google Nest doorbell and our electrician couldn't be bothered to install it for a couple of months. He finally did that and I finally got the app installed on my phone.

We didn't want to wire it, so we got the battery model. It'll need charging, and that's something else to remember to do, but I suppose we'll get a notification when it's time to do that. The other drawback to a battery doorbell is particularly annoying, in that there is no option for the doorbell to ring in the house.

Quirt isn't bothered by this, but my clothes don't all have pockets, so I don't have my phone on me every instant of the day in case somebody wants me to come to the door. Also, my pajamas don't have pockets. And also, there will be times, like at holidays, when we may have guests in the house when we aren't home. They won't know somebody's at the door.

This bothers me enough that I have ordered a Google Mini speaker. Apparently, we can make it so that it rings when somebody presses the doorbell.

Another problem arose yesterday, its first day in service, and I don't see a solution. There is apparently a not-insignificant time lag between when the button is pressed and when the message wends its way through the internet and notifies my phone. It was long enough that the person had pressed the doorbell again and walked away before I got to the door. Maybe people will adapt to this delay and start waiting longer after they ring the doorbell?

Also, the notification on an iphone is a single barely audible chirp. (Less than a chirp actually.) People have been complaining on the internet that you can't change this sound on iphones. (Android users can change it.) This is suboptimal and there seems to be no workaround.

Also also, I've had to disable the "somebody's on my porch" notification, as it catches everybody walking down the street. I wanted to disable the "there's a package on my porch" notification, because we had people working on the porch yesterday and I got literally hundreds of notifications, but we need to know when deliveries come. So basically, I'm getting pestered to death about things I'm not interested in, only to get inadequate notification of things I am interested in.

Do you people have these things? And do you like them?

Wow, so your post is basically screaming at me not to buy a Google Nest doorbell! Yikes!! It sounds like it was designed by someone who didn't give any thought whatsoever to all the different people who live in a house and what they might be doing etc....

So, we actually have a doorbell that works (for now, it's my experience that all doorbells die) but eventually I'd like some kind of camera for safety.

Can you not get a traditional, hardwired doorbell with a ringer inside the house?

Oh, and in the meantime, maybe you could to put a sign on the door, something like "we're home! please wait" or something?

I've had a "We're home! Please knock hard and yell!" sign on the door for the two months it took the electrician to get around to installing it. I was really hoping to get rid of it.

The camera is nice. The doorbell, not to put a fine point on it, sucks.

I think the 21st-century answer to this is a camera and a separate traditional doorbell, but we're now mildly invested. If we leave the camera Google thingie there and add a doorbell, there's the risk that people will ring the Google doorbell instead the one that...you know...works.

I have a SimpliSafe system that I still haven't gotten around to installing, but it just has an outdoor camera and we don't plan to install the SimpliSafe doorbell that's an option with the system.

We still have an old wired doorbell with a chime in the front hall. Works fine for us, but no one ever comes to our house, so the limited functionality works great for our needs. lol... Once I get the outdoor SimpliSafe camera installed, we'll be able to see who is at the front door but they'll just be ringing our old wired doorbell.

If you just want a doorbell that notifies you that someone is at the door when you're on any floor of the house, maybe something along these lines would work for you. I just picked this one randomly and don't know if it's the best choice, but I'm sure there are other units that are out there that are similar. You wouldn't need an electrician to do any wiring, from what I can tell.


https://www.amazon.com/Wireles...WW/ref=sr_1_6?sr=8-6

If I'm getting the specs straight, you plug receivers (the chime part of the system) into an outlet inside in rooms where you are likely to hear the chime. The battery-powered transmitters (doorbells) go on the front and back doors. And you can plug in multiple chimes around the house so you can be notified that someone is at the door without having your phone. No camera, but you have your Nest for that. Of course you'd have to put a note on the transmitter for the new system so people know which doorbell to ring.

It's not a lot of money to experiment with it if it meets your needs functionally.

Another thing to consider, if not for this, then for other uses...

We have older phones and tablets that still work but that we've replaced with newer devices for various reasons. Those old devices can often still be used for certain functions. For instance, I have a Bose Wave radio with CD player that doesn't have WiFi or Bluetooth capability. I could buy the Bluetooth adapter but instead of spending any money, I just took an old Android phone I had in a drawer, plugged it into the Bose through the input audio jack, and I happily stream The Jazz Groove, a streaming service that we listen to all the time. Not a high end sound solution, but for folks like us who don't have discerning ears, it's a zero cost solution that keeps us swimming in music!

You might be able to connect old phones (as long as their WiFi is working and you can get an internet connection) and leave them around the house in places where the Nest could notify you that someone is at the door.

I don't want to pay a monthly subscription for a damn doorbell.

Yeah, I'm not doing this. Packages don't get stolen off of our porch; the dogs bark when anyone approaches; no one has broken in during the 30 years we've lived here. I don't need a fancy front door camera system.

Now get off my lawn!!!!

We didn't buy the subscription. It takes videos.

It stores them until it runs out of space and it starts over. That doesn't require a subscription.

I told Muffin about my struggles with it and said this made me feel like a real Boomer, but I got a reassuring, "I just want a doorbell. I don't need anything else. I wouldn't like that," from the youngest of my three Millennials.

I don't mind having an image of whoever's at my door. I just don't understand why I have to give up something that works great in order to get it.

I'd like to have something like what you mention, MA, but without the problems. I'm sorry.

It's something I plan to research.

I'm going in order.

My priority is a front door with nine panes of glass, with no security screen cover, and with no metal security door.

The panels are covered with a curtain and there's an outside light next to the door.

Punch in a single pane of glass, open the door from the inside, and make yourself at home.

quote:

my clothes don't all have pockets, so I don't have my phone on me every instant of the day

Mobile phones are great, but when I first got one it was like going back to my youth when there was only one (wired) phone in the house, usually in a place of prominence on a "phone table" in a hallway.

I was thrilled to discover that Panasonic has systems with cordless handsets that can be linked to two different mobile phones so you can answer/make calls from the handset. Panasonic calls the functionality Link2Cell.

You can leave your mobile phone wherever and just scatter handsets in various rooms. Extension phones, if you will. It will also signal you when you have a text coming in. If you do a lot of back and forth texting, that can get to be a nuisance, but for us, having the text alert is a nice feature.

Costco has the systems on sale all the time. We have five handsets plus the base station. Don't know how I could live without them.

Here's the four handset model, which is currently out of stock at Costco. I see some people think that these newer models aren't as robust as the older ones like ours were...

https://www.costco.com/panason...oduct.100729221.html

You can find them anywhere, but I love Costco because you have the 90 day trial on electronics. If they don't work out for you, then back they go...

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel:

Punch in a single pane of glass, open the door from the inside, and make yourself at home.

We've had doors with glass on top that presented the same security challenge. We had double-keyed deadbolts installed, so you need a key to lock and unlock the door, whether it's from the inside or the outside .



Downside is that if you double lock it from the inside you need to keep the key nearby so you can unlock it in case of fire or other emergency.

There's probably some newfangled electronic lock that gives you the same functionality, but I don't want an electronic lock....

I also have punchable glass on both sides of my front door. We have a double-keyed lock, but we keep a key hanging in it unless we're going on vacation. We didn't want to risk our kids being unable to escape the house in an emergency when they forgot where the key was kept. And they definitely would have forgotten where the key was kept.

Thanks for the thread and the posts, folks. You just saved me costs and hassles.
I do need to get a gizmo that will ring on the third floor when the bell on the second floor rings.

Yes! I'm going to buy a double-key deadbolt. This can be done quickly and easily. Thanks, wtg and Cindy.

Double key deadbolts here. Not doing Ring doorbells or smart systems. We live at such a busy intersection that crooks or package thieves would be very visible.