Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Ring Doorbell Owners (Car Security Cam Suitability)

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Thanks all.

From feedback so far I think I'm leaning towards the Nest version. I don't want a separate camera unit as I don't yet have a video doorbell and the car's parked straight in front of the front door, so 1 dual purpose device is attractive.

Image quality during day and night is important too and speculatively it seems that nest are slightly ahead here.

Not so keen on what seems to be a £5 p/m fee to be able to view recordings older than 3 hours, especially as I'll only have a single nest device.

I need to work out if I have the correct transformer fitted, if so I'll go ahead with the purchase as quite fancy the convenience of not charging batteries, even if this is only a few times per year.
I’m really not keen on the subscription model for any of these cameras. It’s a bit like the ink cartridge model - give the printers away and charge the Earth for the ink.

£5 a month isn’t a lot, but it’s £60 a year. Keep the camera for five years and storage has cost you £300!
 
Thanks all.

From feedback so far I think I'm leaning towards the Nest version. I don't want a separate camera unit as I don't yet have a video doorbell and the car's parked straight in front of the front door, so 1 dual purpose device is attractive.

Image quality during day and night is important too and speculatively it seems that nest are slightly ahead here.

Not so keen on what seems to be a £5 p/m fee to be able to view recordings older than 3 hours, especially as I'll only have a single nest device.

I need to work out if I have the correct transformer fitted, if so I'll go ahead with the purchase as quite fancy the convenience of not charging batteries, even if this is only a few times per year.
For future reference, the Nest thermostat is also excellent and looks pretty too!
 
I use a Netatmo Presence outdoor camera that's mounted in the apex of our porch roof. Its been great so far. No storage costs, the device notifies you when there's detected movement in a target area that you can define, and it can tell the difference between people, cars, animals and other and you can set triggers accordingly. It has a built in flood light (bit weak over longer distances TBF) and IR, you can choose which one you use and how bright the light is.

You can also use the trigger event to set off workflows eg using ITTT or siri shortcuts - so you could make it a bit like a doorbell except obviously it wouldn't be able to discriminate between someone who actually wanted to get your attention vs. someone who is just posting something through your door!
The other thing it could trigger, I guess, is Sentry mode on, of course you can set parameters like times of day to do that, etc.

The unit itself houses an SD card and it saves the videos online, for free, plus you can also connect it to Dropbox or a home network storage via FTP (which is what i've done).

It's wifi connected but it does need power, so they suggest putting it in place of an existing security light, or as I did just dropped a new line in for it.

I've been really impressed by it
 
I have one of these setup watching our driveway (at moment there's an £8 off voucher on amazon...).

I was sceptical given the price but the video footage is great, especially at night its clear and can see around 30m clearly. It does require a power supply (included plug and cable is about 5m long) and it can either store the video footage on an SD card inserted into the camera (which allows you to playback events or pull a card and stick it straight into a laptop for higher quality video footage) or you can subscribe to a cloud storage option for £2 a month. It comes with an app which supports alerts and movement notifications.

I have mine connected up to HomeKit through a Rasberry Pi acting as a bridge, but that's not a "supported" option :)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07X1KV23K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1