Video door bells started as a niche product before Ring exploded. In recent years, smart home space has grown and now even novice smart home owners choose to dress their doors with a smart doorbell.

A smart home door adds a lot to a home. It acts as a security measure for those approaching the house or those hoping to steal packages. It can be useful for those who do not hear a sound throughout the house. It is extremely beneficial if someone stops and you are not at home.

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What can separate a smart ringtone is one that excels in all of the above, but can add even more unique features. That's what Arlo did.

Design

Let's get rid of the first tape - this is a wire ringer. This means that if you do not have a ringtone or wish to connect it, then this sound will not work. There is a rear mounting plate - as well as an angular one - that is mounted on the wall before the door bell is attached. The bell sits securely in place and there is a tamper detection if someone is trying to pull the bell - including a siren.

Arlo Video Doorbell

The bell looks quite unusual, with a white border and a black face. The lens is located near the top, while a large button is located at the bottom. As someone approaches the door, the button "breathes" a series of LEDs to further highlight the button.

Arlo Video Doorbell sounds bright

In practice, the light ringer button still looks subtle, and the LEDs may be brighter in the sunlight, but after a few weeks, I didn't notice anyone struggling to find it.

It only took us five minutes to do the installation, between removing the old doorbell and tying the new one in place.

In the box there is a chime connection kit, if you have a traditional house chime for it to integrate. In our case we did not use it and instead relied on our notifications for iPhone and Apple Watch.

Smart video ringtone

Once installed, you're ready to monitor your home entry with the Arlo app, as well as native iOS integrations.

When someone approaches the door, you will receive a motion alert. These can appear as a rich notification in iOS. This means that you not only receive a text alert, but a screenshot of the detected movement. The image will highlight the area of ​​the image on which the movement was observed.

From there, you can even touch and play live from within the notification.

Arlo Video Doorbell can ring your phone

If the visitor rings, it rings as a telephone call. Arlo has integrated itself into the Apple PhoneKit API that allows it to appear like any other phone call. If you have seen the motion alert or are busy otherwise, jumping to a live video stream is not possible, so a phone call is more natural.

It will appear in the phone application in the call log. For us, this was very useful while driving and appeared through CarPlay.

Arlo Video Doorbell sample square video

Whenever you do not want to skip a video, this is also possible from the Arlo app. You can communicate with the visitor in real time or send pre-recorded messages. A good example of this is when you are in the middle of a meeting and a delivery driver appears on the veranda.

The bell rings at the door, when you can jump in the live video, see who it is and send a pre-recorded message that says "please leave the package on the veranda" or similar.

Video quality

The video is recorded at a resolution from 1536 to 1536, which is a square aspect ratio, rather than 16 by 9. This gives you not only an excellent horizontal area, but also a video purpose. For a video ringer, this is great because it lets you see when the packages are placed on the veranda outside the field of other rooms.

Video settings Arlo Video Doorbell

You can also choose to reduce the material to 1080sqm or 720sqm. These settings also allow you to adjust the brightness of the video, turn off the HDR automatically, or turn off night vision.

Arlo Smart

A big component of Arlo Video Doorbell is Arlo Smart. This is an optional subscription service that adds a lot of features to Video Doorbell - including the rich notifications featured above. Arlo Smart allows you 30 days of cloud recording capability, object detection, e911 and activity areas.

A rich notification from Arlo Video Doorbell

Object detection is very useful. Not only does it tell you what movement was detected, but it can tailor notifications to what you want to be notified of. If you do not want to be disturbed when a cat or car passes on your porch, skip them. It helps you prevent the filling of notifications and makes you more likely to pay attention when entering a notification.

To compound this, you can set up activity areas. This way, certain areas - such as the road or sidewalk - do not constantly wander the motion sensor.

The e911 implementation is a new and useful security feature. If you called 911 on the phone, emergency services would be closest to your current location. But if you are away on holiday and you are assisting someone trying to get into your home, e911 will call emergency services closest to your home to get first responders there as soon as possible.

If you buy Arlo Video Doorbell

Arlo Video Doorbell House

By all accounts, Arlo Video Doorbell is one of the most complete door-to-door video features we've tried. Between security and privacy issues affecting Ring devices, later, more people have been exploring alternatives that make Arlo's entry quite well-planned.

We love the features that come with Arlo Smart, though it means an additional subscription service that you need to subscribe to. For a security device, we believe this is justified.

Our biggest focus is that there is no HomeKit support. Arlo didn't promise anything, but it was good in the past about adding support to existing products, such as the Arlo Pro, Arlo Pro 2 and Arlo Ultra lines.

If you're gambling on HomeKit and you're ok with a wired installation, we highly recommend diving into an Arlo Video Doorbell.

Pros

• Easy installation
• Clean design
• Send pre-recorded messages to visitors
• 1536mp video resolution
• Additional invoices with Arlo Smart subscription
• Connects to native iOS frameworks, such as Righ Notifications and PhoneKit
• Many settings for customizing the camera
• Weather resistant
• Mermaid resistant to manipulation and built-in
• Night vision
• HDR video

Versus

• Without HomeKit support
• One wired option
• The best functions require another subscription

Rating: 4 out of 5

Where to buy

Arlo Video Doorbell is available on Amazon for $ 149. The bell comes with a three-month trial at Arlo Smart, which can be added for $ 2.99 per month for video ringtones only or $ 9.99 per month for up to five cameras.