I imagine you're aware of this but Ring have a deal with police where they can view your doorbell's footage without a warrant. Idk if this is the case for other brands but certainly worth keeping in mind

I have a Eufy. The only good thing about it, IMO, is the local storage and no required subscription. That’s exactly why I bought it. Aside from that, I find it’s incredibly unreliable and frustrating to use and configure. I also have the Smart Display, which is supposed to integrate seamlessly and turn on automatically when someone rings the doorbell, and it simply doesn’t. It often turns on minutes later, if at all, well after the person left.

The doorbell’s video quality, while supposed to be 2K, is crap. It’s completely jittery, not smooth at all - which means I’ll see a person approach my door, start walking away, and then they’ll simply disappear because of how inconsistent and jittery the stream is. Useless if you care about actually seeing what’s going on outside.

When someone presses the button to ring the doorbell, it rings maybe 50% of the time. The other times it doesn’t make a sound, but still registers the person in the log. Which is completely useless for a doorbell.

On paper, Eufy checks all the boxes. In practice, I’ve been entirely unhappy with it.

I bought a Reolink a few months ago, and I quite like it.

I have a blink camera, not a doorbell camera, but just a regular outdoor camera that I have near the front door. The batteries in it lasted nearly a year before they needed replacing. Curious how long it was lasting in your doorbell camera? I would expect it to be similar unless it's basically recording constantly or something.

I really enjoyed my Blink for the first two weeks, but I didn't really want to buy another 24 pack of batteries to keep it running for another two weeks.

Now it just hangs out by the front door and makes people think we're recording them.

I’ve seen a few people recommending Aqara recently, but no personal experience myself.

I've been a fan of Wyze, https://www.wyze.com/products/wyze-video-doorbell-v2. Comparably inexpensive equipment. Has a micro sd card slot. Does not require a subscription. I can access recordings on the sd card through the app. They do offer a subscription, however it mostly seems tied to better auto detection of objects

My blink doorbell camera lasts like a year on the batteries, make sure they are non-rechargeable lithium ones. And I'm in northern Alberta, so -40 winters. I like that it has no monthly fee needed with the usb stick in the inside module thing.

Been researching for my house and narrowed it down between Reolink and TP-Link Tapo.

From your OP it sounds like you want something that's plug and play with an easy to use app. Personally I don't recommend any cloud connected cameras. Blink, eufy, ring, they're all hot trash and sell your data and the feeds to anyone and everything. On top of that you have no guarantee that one day they won't just like, shut down your doorbell cloud, man. Happens all the time.

I use a reolink WiFi wired 2k camera. Drop in replacement to a normal doorbell (doesn't need Ethernet or a neutral wire) and I have it set to connect locally.

You can use their app if you like.

Quality is great, day or night. Connects to Wi-Fi really well even though my AP is on the other side of the house. No problems with weather.

I like my Wyze cam. You can do local sd card storage as well.

I got a jeatone for the peephole

Advantages:

1. It can work 100% offline because it has a 5" screen inside the door so I can see who's outside
2. It can record 100% offline because it has a 128gb microSD (located inside the door so it can't be stolen without breaking&entering)
3. It has a PIR sensor in front so it only activates when someone is in front, so cars passing on the road don't activate a recording
4. It has a removable battery
5. The battery is 5000 mAh so it lasts months and months
6. It charges via USB c
7. Bidirectional microphone and if someone rings the bell (and I gave it wifi access) first I get a notification "someone is in front of the door" when the pir sensor detected movement, then when he rings the bell I get a video call
8. No subscription required
9. App UI to see recordings is decent, thanks to the dedicated movement sensor it highlights times with recordings without using AI detection or something like that
10. IR floodlights to see everything clearly in night time (although in pitch black can see faint dark red lights from the LEDs)
11. It costs half price than the ring and doesn't come with the mandatory privacy intrusion
12. Doesn't require screws or vhb tape, once inserted in the peephole it has hooks for a toolless install of the inside vision LCD screen
13. Maybe because it's based on tuya it can be possible to integrate it with home assistant? I didn't try it, I didn't trust it so I placed it on a "no LAN access" WLAN

Disadvantages:

1. It doesn't support onvif or other standard protocol so if someone wants an automatic backup of recordings off-site, the only option is to pay a cloud recording subscription
2. Fucking tuya
3. Technically, it can be removed without tools to charge at an outlet once a few months, but then you need to insert again the flat cable from the camera on the motherboard, not something that can last hundreds of insertions, I had to buy a very long out of spec USB cable to charge it (temporarily for 2 hours every few months, then remove it)

I have three Reolinks. One doorbell, and two of the cheaper wireless with a solar hookup. All three have the max SD memory card they'll take. As with any product, you'll get lots of variation, but so far all of them have done well enough for me.

Issues:

They aren't the highest res (newer models are better)

We had to get a wireless extender to reach the farthest one, and there still can be some stutter for the higher bitrate

For one solar panel it took a year and some drop in charging to realize the first spot wasn't the best for all seasons, but now they stay 100%

Caveat is that batteries and solar do have a lifetime, but going on 4-5 years now and no notice of difference yet

The app/client is okay, could be better, and doesn't have the greatest support, but it works ok for my basic needs. I've heard you can use other ways to get the signal, but haven't tried.

I'd buy them again. Can't speak for the higher end ones if they're worth the extra features.

I have an Arlo, and it gets the job done. Local SD card storage (you have to buy the hub for this), HomeKit integration. No complaints.

What are your requirements?

I have a Ring that has served well and I believe there are newer models with a package camera. However I’m not happy about the privacy situation.

Since it’s not immediate, I’m waiting to see what Apple comes up with.

• Apple claims to be privacy focussed
• my family is all Apple already
• end-to-end encryption
• functional out of the box, not a project like self-hosting would be
• no extra subscriptions for cloud storage
• possible synergy with smart lock

That’s a lot of nice claims