6 reasons you should get a video doorbell (and 2 reasons you shouldn’t)
Techradar smart house week
This article is part of the Smart Home Week 2025 in Techradar. From lighting and switches to robotic vacuum cleaners and smart thermostats, we are there to help you choose the right devices to make your life easier and make the most of it.
A video doorbell can be the first or a single piece of intelligent house technology that you buy, but it is also one of the most useful. If you are on the fence whether to buy or not, we have compiled a list of all the reasons why you should jump – some of which you may not have taken into account.
Video bells are not good for everyone, so we also included some drawbacks that are important to keep in mind.
Reasons to get a video door
1. Dester unwanted visitors
A video doorbell can help you warmly welcome customers, but it can also help you give unwanted calibers of the cold shoulder. The wide angle camera of a video doorbell gives you a magnificent view of who calls, and many models offer pre -recorded messages so that you can ask them to go at the tip of a button in the application.
A recently published doorbell, the Imou 2S doorbell has a change of voice so that you can speak to unwanted appellants while protecting your identity, and the home security company SWANN has developed an AI assistant who generates responses on the fly when someone calls. You can even choose the attitude of your doorbell, with options such as polished, disinterested and aggressive.
2. Give instructions to delivery drivers
How many times have you come home to find a package left at your door in broad daylight? If, like me, the answer is “not bad”, then a video doorbell could help. Rather than the delivery driver who rings at the door and finds that no one is at home, you can use the application of your doorbell to talk to them directly when you are far from your home and ask them to leave the package with a confidence neighbor or in a space place.
Some bells can give automatic vocal responses that indicate to letters where to leave deliveries, which is very useful if you are going to be at work and unable to use your phone.
3. Monitor the rental properties
If you have a rental house, having a video doorbell can be a good way to communicate with the tenants, as well as the entrepreneurs and the cleaners who come and go. This will also help improve safety. Most applications will allow you to add several video bells to the same interface for easy monitoring of several properties at a time.
However, do not forget that if you rent properties via companies such as Airbnb, you must disclose the use of any external security camera, including video bells, in the ads of the house. See the airbnb terms and conditions for more details.
If you use Airbnb, you can also take a look at our list of the best smart locks, which will allow you to allocate temporary entry codes to short -term tenants. No more lost keys, and you can define the code to expire after checking.
4. Check the family
If the installation of a security camera seems a little intrusive, a video doorbell is an ideal device for following family movements and guests in a more subtle way. For example, thanks to their motion sensors, they can capture images of children leaving the house for the school or the dog-walk that returns in the afternoon.
Many bells have a person detection, so you can receive an alert on your phone when someone approaches the door even if it does not ring the bell. However, this is often only available for subscribers, so be ready to make a small monthly payment if it is a feature you need.
5. Capture crime
If you capture a porch pirate or, worse, someone who enters your property, the video sequences can be invaluable to help the police catch the suspect. Even if the thief manages to steal the video doorbell (not easy because most devices are delivered with a special safety pin), it is likely that the images will be stored in the cloud or a center inside your house, so may still be recovered.
Keep in mind that if a crime has been committed, it is important not to share images on social networks because this can be considered a trial if the incident goes to court.
The view of a video doorbell could even be sufficient to dissuade potential criminals because they know that they are looked at, and some of the last bells can use AI to detect if a person lingers outside your home for an unusually long period.
6. greet the guests
Finally and above all, there is the main goal of a video doorbell: let you see who calls and give them a friendly greeting.
You can do this using a mobile application, but if you don’t have your phone with you, many last devices are delivered with a chime that you can connect in the corridor that sounds when someone comes to the door (although it is generally an optional supplement). Many video bells are also compatible with smart speakers, so you can get a two-way audio even if there is no image.
Reasons not to get a video doorbell
1. Premium price
The best video bells vary a lot at the price, some models cost almost twice as many more than others. In general, if you opt for a cheaper doorbell, you will often have to pay monthly subscription fees for some of its most advanced features. It is unlikely that cheaper video bells allow you to store video sequences at home, so you can only watch the action live on your phone or pay to store it in the cloud.
Ring is the biggest name of video bells and offers three levels of membership with monthly and annual payment options. For more details, see our ring subscription guide.
2. Audio and video shift
When a video bell works well, you should be able to hear and talk to the appellants in real time, without delay on each side. Unfortunately, however, this is not always the case, and there can sometimes be a significant gap on one side of the conversation. We always make sure to solve any latency problem when we review the video bells here in Techradar. Take a look at our complete guide to the best video bells to see the ones we recommend.
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