To expand on a previous poster asking about local only devices in general…

Has anyone found a reliable local only doorbell? I’ve been meaning to replace my Ring doorbell ever since Amazon bought them. I finally bought a Reolink WiFi doorbell and it looks great and was really easy to set up without Internet or their app, BUT…

It doesn’t work. Capture to FTP gives me nice clear images but the videos are corrupt, maybe truncated. I can’t even open them with VLC.

I tried installing an SD card and then moving the SD card to my laptop. The videos on there play for a few seconds and then freeze.

Reolink support hasn’t responded to any of my questions, which is another minus for them.

I did notice that the unit seems to run very hot. Did I just get a dud?

So are there any alternatives? Should I just try buying another of these? At least returns (Amazon, Walmart) are easy.

  • rs5thEnglish
    8•2 years ago

    I’m using an Amcrest AD410 doorbell cam that I’ve firewalled off from connecting to the internet. I’m using it via Frigate in HA, but there’s a HA integration for Amcrest / Dahua as well.

    Edit to add: I’ve been using mine for about a year. No issues at all, it’s warm to the touch not hot. Granted, I’m not doing any motion detection or anything on-camera.

    • @dbrand666OPEnglish
      2•2 years ago

      Thanks! I’ll take a look.

      You don’t need to create an Amcrest account or let it dial home at all?

      • rs5thEnglish
        2•2 years ago

        I can’t remember if I had to have an Amcrest account to set it up or not, as soon as basic setup was done, I blocked it from the internet. So it definitely doesn’t have to phone home at least after the setup phase.

    • @jackiebrownEnglish
      1•2 years ago

      I use Amcrest doorbell as well but haven’t blocked it from network access