After consulting Lewis, we used hands-on experience and research to evaluate the top doorbell cameras on essential features, including resolution, smart home compatibility, and storage. Our top pick is the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 for its superb motion detection and high-resolution camera with a wide field of view, offering some of the best protection and visibility available. Here are the best doorbell cameras to easily upgrade your home’s security. Every model in the Ring doorbell camera range could have been a contender for our best overall pick, but the stand-out version is the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2. This wired doorbell has a 1536-pixel full high-definition (Full HD) camera with color night vision. This design, coupled with its 150-degree field of view, allows you to clearly see who is approaching your home, day or night, and in any weather. Visitors don’t even need to ring the bell for you to know they’re there, either. The Ring Pro 2’s 3D “Pinpoint” Motion Detection sensor spots and tracks movement from up to 30 feet away and sends a notification upon detection. You can then open Live Video via the Ring app to see what’s happening in and around your property in real time. Once connected to your doorbell, you can have a two-way conversation remotely with anyone who approaches. While installation is easier on other models and there isn’t any cloud storage, you can opt for a Ring Protect subscription to store or review footage after the fact. If you pay for a subscription, you also get Alexa Greetings built-in. If you opt for this feature, the doorbell audibly greets anyone at your door and can relay preset messages. Price at time of publish: $180 As for performance, when the Wyze Video doorbell detects motion, even if the visitor doesn’t ring the bell, the camera illuminates your porch in the same way a security floodlight would, and it sends an alert. This alert is optional, and we turned it off after a few days, because the detection was sensitive, and we were getting notifications too often. Price at time of publish: $50 The Arlo Essential has a wide 180-degree field of view that easily covers the whole of our front porch. You can set the doorbell to send a notification or call your phone when the bell rings. From there, you can connect and speak directly to your visitor in real time. Besides the ease of setup, our favorite feature is a built-in siren that wards off unwanted visitors or animals remotely. Sadly, there are no free storage options, and connections would often drop out and require resetting. Price at time of publish: $150 The camera streams in Full HD, with infrared night vision, and you can zoom in and pan around, thanks to its 162-degree field of view. A two-way audio feature allows you to speak to visitors or ward off intruders via the app. We found installation simple but experienced a setup delay, because the camera failed to connect to our Wi-Fi. A system restart and switching to a 2.4GHz network fixed this issue eventually. Price at time of publish: $170 The Google Nest’s motion detection recognizes and will greet familiar faces, and you can also set it to give specific, pre-recorded instructions to delivery drivers. The camera resolution sits on par with Full HD, at 1600 x 2000 pixels on a 4:3 ratio. This quality means that images across its 160-degree field of view are clear, and people will appear in full view (from head to toe). The Google Nest can be tricky to install, and it’s not compatible with all transformers, so check before you buy. You may experience notification delays, too, but they’re minimal. Price at time of publish: $110 The camera’s 2560 x 1920 pixel resolution equates to a 2.5K display, making it one of the highest on this list, and it offers a 160-degree field of view. Thanks to its motion and light sensors, the camera starts recording before a visitor rings the bell, yet in our experience, this motion detection can be temperamental. Although the wireless nature of this doorbell makes it easy to install, if the Wi-Fi cuts out, it will stop working. Price at time of publish: $180 Netatmo’s motion detection notifies you when people approach your door, even if they don’t ring the bell, and you can set Alert Zones to make sure intruders can’t sneak up undetected. Built into the camera itself is an 8-gigabyte microSD memory card, or you can save the footage to the cloud via a Dropbox account or file transfer protocol (FTP) server—all without a subscription. Price at time of publish: $300 When a notification triggers, the Eufy camera automatically captures and shares a snapshot of the person’s face and a three-second recording of what happened before sending the alert. All images and video are stored locally via a built-in 4-gigabyte memory card on the camera itself, which helps keep your footage private. However, this capacity is limited, and no cloud storage option exists for expanding it. Price at time of publish: $150 It’s one of the most compact and slim video doorbells on this list, yet still offers a wide 160-degree view in 1200 x 1600 pixel HDR resolution. Once you’ve set up your Circle View Doorbell in the Home app, you can access live view with two-way audio and see up to ten days of recorded video on any Apple device. However, you need to have a supported iCloud+ subscription for this privilege. You can also view and control the doorbell using your voice via Siri if you prefer. Price at time of publish: $200 You don’t need to charge wired doorbells, but their installation is more difficult. You can connect the video doorbell to your existing wiring if you already have a doorbell. You can usually do this yourself as long as you follow the instructions and turn off the electricity beforehand. If you don’t currently have a doorbell, we recommend you seek expert help to install a wired doorbell camera, as it requires more advanced electrical knowledge.
Resolution
The higher your doorbell camera’s resolution, the clearer the image should be and the easier it becomes to identify who is at or near your door. Most camera resolutions range from high definition (HD) at the lower end of the spectrum, up to 2K (2560 x 1920 pixels). Some more expensive models offer 4K (3840 x 2160 pixels), while you can also pay significantly less for standard definition (SD) cameras. If you’re using a smart doorbell for notifications, two-way audio, or as an anti-theft deterrent, you can get away with a lower resolution mode around the 480-pixel mark. However, if being able to monitor your property and see visitors clearly is important, we recommend you pay extra for a camera with a resolution of at least 720 pixels, but ideally one with a Full HD 1080-pixel resolution. This quality will give you a clearer picture of who’s at your front door and provide more peace of mind if you frequently have unfamiliar faces stopping by.
Field of View
While a resolution determines how clear the images are, a camera’s field of view (FOV) governs how much of your porch, garden, or wider property is visible. As with resolution, the higher the field of view, the better. If a camera only lists one number when describing FOV, it means that the image is square. For example, a 150-degree camera has a viewing angle of 150 degrees both horizontally and vertically. If the camera has a different aspect ratio, the manufacturer lists the individual horizontal and vertical angles. Look for a FOV of at least 120 degrees on the horizontal. Models with a 180-degree FOV are best, while basic, cheaper video doorbells can drop as low as 90-degree FOV. On these cheaper, 90-degree models, you can only view see the area immediately in front of the doorbell. You won’t be able to see a visitor standing to the left or right of the camera. The vertical angle is less critical, but a head-to-toe camera with a larger vertical viewing angle helps cover a wider area. This extra coverage could be helpful if you want to check on packages on your porch.
Storage
Basic doorbell cameras with local storage typically have a capacity of 4 to 8 gigabytes of data, which equates to around a week to two weeks’ worth of footage. This limited capacity requires regularly clearing the card or transferring the saved data onto a computer. More expensive cameras offer up to 16 gigabytes of storage, or they allow you to use a personal microSD card with capacities up to 1 terabyte, which equals 1,000 gigabytes. Local storage options are more secure and offer more privacy, but they can be limited. Cloud storage options are more versatile but usually more expensive. Some companies charge a flat monthly or yearly fee for storing images and video in the cloud for a limited time. This period can typically range from 24 hours up to 30 days. After that time, the service will permanently delete the footage.
Why Trust The Spruce?
Functionally, a doorbell camera alerts users “through a mobile device when someone arrives at their door,” says Lewis. “This can be when a visitor presses the doorbell, or if they’re detected by intelligent movement sensors.” These cameras use sensors to spot movement around your front door or wider property before using cameras to capture images of the people, animals, or objects that triggered the alert. Once you receive a notification, you can view the camera live and in real-time and speak to the visitor via a two-way intercom system. Some cameras begin recording a few seconds ahead of issuing an alert so you can see what was happening before the person rang the bell or approached your property. Being able to answer the door remotely is ideal if you’re out of the house or can’t get to the door. These various doorbell camera types fall into two power categories—battery-powered or hardwired—and offer local storage via microSD card or cloud storage. All doorbell cameras require an active Wi-Fi network to work. To learn more about how video doorbells work and the features to look out for, Woollaston got advice from Chris Lewis, a security expert and CEO of The Chris Lewis Group. Using these insights, she looked for high-resolution video doorbells with wide viewing angles and a range of storage and power options to suit a variety of homes, needs, and budgets. She prioritized doorbells that offered video and audio features with motion detection.
