Reolink - Wired Video Doorbell (WiFi)

I have had two Aqara G4s fail partially. One just wouldn’t stay connected when mounted next to the door. The other one stopped sounding its chime. I moved one to the attic to watch for mice and moved the other one to a door no one ever uses. Replaced with a Reolink which I’m pulling into HomeKit with Scrypted.

that's where it falls apart. I can use Home Assistant to send the image (webrtc) to the Google Home hub, have live notifications (with live view when someone rings the doorbell) on my phone, have AI face detection (using llmvision and memory), ai person detection is like 99.9% accurate here and notifications arrive after like 1 second but I really canot get 2 way audio working outside the reolink app. Tried everything, frigate, scrypted, webrtc card and go2rtc. Not possible here.

I recommend the WiFi without battery. The battery cameras are very limited with many features missing. The size of the frame should be secondary.

If you have an existing doorbell, the Reolink WiFi doorbell cam works perfect with HA and scrypted. Works over the existing 24v doorbell wiring.

I like Reolink. If there is currently a doorbell there you can get power from it and not need batteries.

Don’t get the battery one. I bought it and returned it. It doesn’t have ONVIF, RTSP, or any of the things that would make integrate with HA or Scrypted, and the battery constantly goes dead even though I had it connected to my transformer. Just sucked all around for this purpose. I replaced it with the hardwired wi-fi version and it’s 100x better. I use it mostly with Scrypted and Homekit, but it is added to my HA instance as well. The difference in image quality is negligible to my eyes although the battery version did have a wider FOV.

Reolink but not the battery version.

I’m using the WiFi (but hardwired) version and it works great. I use Scypted but I’d imagine Frigate would work as well since it uses ONVIF.

With 230v running through the chime and button (which sounds crazy to me) you could probably get away with using a Zigbee dry contact sensor like a Shelly for chime events. Anything else is going to require a transformer to step down to a “normal” level of 12-24 volts. The Reolink WiFi will work fine with this but won’t drive a mechanical chime. You have to use the one it came with. It also comes with a transformer, at least the US version does, (a small power brick) that you might be able to use the existing wiring in your wall for after it’s disconnected from the mains. That’s exactly what I did. My existing doorbell transformer wasn’t adequate so I just used the one that came with it instead. It came with a wireless chime that I use inside the house. The WiFi + battery version can drive a mechanical chime typical in USA applications but it sucks and doesn’t even work with HA anyway.

Reolink makes a couple of Wifi door bells that can be powered by the existing wiring. One can use the existing chime if you want to keep that. No subscriptions.

I would not go with ring! They are raising prices at taking features! I recently dropped my ring and went with Reolink Wifi doorbell. I tried talking to ring about my issue with the prices changing and the loss of features and they just said I could cancel so that's what I did and am happy I did.

Home Assistant + Frigate & my Reolink Doorbell do this perfectly.

Home Assistant is a smart home platform which handles the UI of all that stuff. Frigate is the NVR software that the camera connects to. I get doorbell press events, 2 way audio etc. All while the Reolink doorbell only has LAN access and is connected via HTTP FLV and RTSP/ONVIF.

Reolink should work well, you can buy a MicroSD card to put inside it or get their Home Hub to store the footage inside your house.

The Wired Doorbell to the chime won't ring it. It comes with a plug in chime or can use smart speakers / smart home devices to play a chime. I have the doorbell wiring wired version.

Reolink would be the best option. Eufy is ok but they don't integrate well with third party smart home systems.

For me, reolink is the obvious choice. You can pick up the WiFi doorbell version for around your budget, although you'll have to add the cost of an SD card on top of that. It's completely locally controlled and the quality is great. No subscriptions, and a lot of configuration options. The box comes with a plug in chime and power supply, but if you have a hard wired doorbell already you will likely be able to power it from that.

I cannot recommend reolink enough. Their wifi doorbell (and the rest of their wifi lineup) has a micro SD slot for local recording. Or you can purchase their hub that will stream recordings to the hub. There is zero cloud subscription if you do not want it so the data and recordings are yours. I've used a few of their cameras for years and they have been rock solid.