Part of the trouble with video doorbells is that you don’t always have your phone at the ready to see who’s ringing. If you’re standing in the kitchen when the bell rings, but you’ve left your phone in the bedroom, do you rush to your phone to get a peek at who’s there, or do you take a chance and just answer the door?
SwitchBot takes aim at this situation by bundling its doorbell with a stand-alone battery-powered display that gives you an extra way to peek at who’s outside. If you’re in on the SwitchBot ecosystem—and even if you’re not—it’s an affordable combo that’s worth a look.
Not to be redundant, but there are two components in the box: the doorbell and the monitor/display. I’ll break down each of them.
The SwitchBot Smart Video Doorbell is a plain-Jane design, available only in silver and vaguely resembling an old cell phone. It measures 4.96 x 3.70 x 1.50 inches (126 x 94 x 38 mm) (HxWxD) and carries an IP65 rating for protection from the elements. According to our IP code guide, that means it’s impervious to particulate matter and that it can withstand jets of water coming from any direction (short of a pressure washer, that is).
The doorbell is outfitted with a 2K camera lens with maximum resolution of 2304 x 1296 pixels and a 165-degree field of view. It records video with a 16:9 aspect ratio that promises to capture head-to-toe views of your visitors. There’s also an onboard motion sensor and two small LED spotlights at the top of the device that activate on demand. A speaker and ring button that illuminates when motion is detected, are at the bottom of the doorbell. SwitchBot includes straight and angled mounting brackets in the box.
The doorbell is powered by an internal 5,000mAh battery that SwitchBot says can last for up to 19 months on a full charge. That battery can be charged three ways: with a 5V/2A power supply and a USB-C cable plugged into a port on the bottom of the device, trickle-charged with a connection to a standard 24V doorbell transformer, or SwitchBot sells a solar panel as a $50 option that’s designed specifically to keep the doorbell’s battery topped off. (One pet peeve: The doorbell has no indicator to let you know when it’s fully charged. A simple LED would be a nice addition for those who must remove the doorbell to top it up periodically.)
The display—a “new-generation super monitor,” per the company—features a 4.3-inch screen with a mere 480 x 272-pixel resolution. A smattering of physical controls let you accept or hang up on video calls, manually check the live view, and playback recent videos. (These buttons have other functions when video is streaming live.)
The screen is dark by default unless the doorbell button is pressed, at which point it displays a live view of what’s happening outside. You can set the monitor to be always on, but this simply shows the time (in 24-hour format) and date, and this can’t be adjusted. It’s powered by a standard two-prong electrical plug.
Videos can be stored on SwitchBot’s cloud service or on a microSD card that’s slotted into the monitor. Cards up to 512GB is supported, but SwitchBot throws in a 4GB card for you to use out of the box.
You can choose from five canned, quick-reply responses (such as “Please leave the package at the door. Leave a message if you’d like to.”) that conflict-averse types can deliver on demand. These responses can be sent by either the app or the monitor.
Both devices can be wall-mounted via included screws or adhesive mounting options, and the monitor has a kickstand for placement on a tabletop. The display and the doorbell must be within 100 meters (in open air) to communicate with one another; any physical barriers between the two will, of course, quickly reduce that range. And SwitchBot recommends a more realistic range of just 5 to 10 meters. The two devices communicate with each other (and the web, via your router) using 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Physical installation will vary based on which components you’re mounting to the wall and how, but even the screw-mounted options require just two screws for each device. Use adhesive and installation can be done in seconds.
Setup in the SwitchBot app is especially quick, particularly since it does not require a SwitchBot Hub to connect to Wi-Fi. In fact, the Video Doorbell includes its own version of a hub that allows it to also work with SwitchBot Lock devices, allowing remote control of the lock via the doorbell interface, though it can’t serve as a hub for other SwitchBot gear. To complete setup in the app, the Video Doorbell is served up as a new device once it’s powered up, and a few basic steps complete the bridging to your Wi-Fi network.
The SwitchBot Video Doorbell works largely as expected. When approaching the doorbell, its ring button gently illuminates. Pressing the button causes the bell to ring (very loudly, by default), the monitor to ring, and a push notification to be sent to your phone. If the device is paired with Alexa (its only third-party support), Echo devices will also announce that the bell has been rung.
Oddly, ringing the bell does not cause the monitor to automatically display a video feed from the door. You must press the “play” button on the monitor to start the video, after which it takes a few seconds for the stream to start.
It’s also worth noting that the low resolution of the monitor is immediately evident. While color representation looks fine, the grainy quality won’t win any awards and is useful only for a quick check of who’s outside.
Both bell rings and motion detection trigger video to begin recording, stored by default to the microSD card on the monitor. Clips are limited to a maximum of 60 seconds, after which they are available in the SwitchBot app for playback for three months. The playback interface is segregated by day, with thumbnails for each recorded event appearing chronologically. A few thumbnails were randomly missing in my testing, and I found recent clips would often fail to load without a force-quit and restarting of the app. The app includes AI-based technology to categorize human motion and tag it as such; this was hit-and-miss in my testing.
Paying for cloud-storage subscription unlocks pet and vehicle tagging; plus, unlimited online storage space for 30 days of recordings. This plan costs $4/month or $35/year for a single device, with discounts for additional devices available. A one-month free trial is included with your purchase.
I found the motion sensor on the device to be extremely sensitive, and at the highest sensitivity it was flagging activity constantly, day and night, even tagging a random bug flying by as a “human” detected. Dialing the sensitivity down helped a lot toward averting false positives.
Video looks good when played back on your phone, particularly during the day, and while the viewing angle is wide, it’s not too terribly distorted. The infrared night vision mode looks fine, though its usable range is limited to about 15 feet, and while the device claims a “color night vision” mode, I found this completely useless; all video recorded at night with this mode active resulted in an image that was almost completely black.
One oddity about playback: There is no way to rewind or fast-forward through clips in the app, and even the pause button does not work. If you want to carefully scrub through a clip, you’ll need to download it to your phone for viewing elsewhere. (Fortunately, this is easy to do.)
This doorbell lists for $150 and I’ve seen it on sale at Amazon for as little as $120. That’s less than many competing products, none of which come with a video monitor.
Since it’s not especially tied to the SwitchBot ecosystem, there’s really nothing that should block any smart home user from picking it up; although if you’re not interested in the monitor, a no-frills doorbell will be the cheaper and more effective way to go.
This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best video doorbells.
Author: Christopher Null
Source: PCWorld
Reviewed By: Editorial Team
