Best video doorbells

This is the Nest to buy if your wiring suits it. Google specifies 2K video in a square frame that shows more of your porch than the battery model. Because it runs from the doorbell transformer, the box that steps house power down for the doorbell, it has no battery to fail in the cold, and it's rated to -4°F.^{2 6}

What you get free is the catch. With no plan, you get up to six hours of event previews of up to 10 seconds each, and PCWorld's reviewer said it isn't all that useful without a subscription. Thirty days of history needs the Standard plan, and 60 days or nonstop recording needs Advanced. One year of Standard costs more than a Ring Wired Doorbell 2K.^{2 7 8}

Pay for the longer history, not for the AI. PCWorld's reviewer liked Gemini, Google's assistant, while Gizmodo's called its summaries useless. Both saw pets labeled as the wrong animal.^{8 9} Night vision is black and white out to 10 feet unless the porch has light.^{2 8}

A YouTube owner who mounted this beside the battery Nest found the picture crisper, with a bigger gain at night than by day, and face detection told his two sons apart more often. A doorbell press reached his Nest Hub display in 3 seconds, against 9 on the battery model, which he puts down to the wired power. One tip from him: press the doorbell onto its mount until it clicks before you screw it in.¹⁰

The E340 saves clips to 8 GB of storage inside the doorbell at no charge, and a second camera looks down at the spot where packages sit.¹¹ Eufy says 8 GB holds about 90 days at 30 short clips a day, and Reviewed repeats that figure, but nobody has confirmed it.^{11 12} The doorbell itself has no microSD slot. To add storage, you'd buy a HomeBase S380 or eufy's MiniBase chime, which takes a card, though one owner on eufy's forum couldn't tell whether clips reached it.^{11 13}

Wired power is the repeat complaint. Doorbell wires charge this battery and don't replace it. In two long threads on eufy's forum, at least four owners describe wiring trouble, such as batteries that kept falling, units that fell back to battery, or a doorbell that died until it was charged by USB. Two others say theirs work well on 24 volt transformers.^{14 15 16} Eufy lists 8 to 24 volts and more than 10 VA, but one owner's battery kept draining on a new 24 volt, 10 VA unit, and the app told another to change to a 16 to 24 volt, 30 VA transformer.^{11 14 15} If you wire it, expect that you may need a stronger transformer.

The removable battery is useful if you have no wiring, because you can charge a spare indoors and leave the doorbell on the wall.¹¹ Eufy doesn't publish a cold limit for this model, though, so don't assume it will get through a hard freeze.

Decide about your chime first. Ring says this doorbell doesn't support mechanical chimes, so the old box in your hallway goes silent and you need an Echo or Ring's plug-in Chime instead.⁷ The 2K Plus below comes with a kit that makes a sound at the chime box, but that kit replaces the old chime's job. If the old chime itself has to ring, buy the wired Nest or the E340.

The low price is only part of the cost. Ring says its doorbells work without a plan, but you can't rewatch recorded video unless you pay.^{7 17} Its square view shows more of the ground near your door than Ring's older wide frame.^{7 18 19}

Police can ask owners in an area for footage through Ring's Community Requests program. Ring calls this voluntary, and you can ignore requests. Its face recognition is opt-in.²⁰ If any of this bothers you, leave those features off or choose another brand.

It runs on its built-in battery. Optional doorbell wires charge it and ring your chime, but not below 32°F. Below that, it runs on what it has left, down to -4°F, and a long freeze can leave it dead until you bring it indoors.^{6 21} Cold is the clearest complaint from owners. In early 2022, long forum threads from cold regions described batteries draining in as little as a day and some units shutting down while wired, and Google then confirmed the limit.^{21 22}

Google's five-year promise of security updates ended on August 24, 2026. Its table still shows updates arriving, but you have no guarantee for the future.¹ The Google Store also sells it at the same price as the wired 3rd gen, with a far lower-resolution picture and a narrower view.^{2 6}

It does perform well in mild weather. In one 2022 side-by-side test, it placed first among battery doorbells for motion detection, recording and daytime video. It also recharged most often, every 33 to 35 days, against 60 to 71 days for the eufy 2K in that test.²³ A YouTube reviewer who hung one beside a Ring battery model found the Nest's picture clearer despite Ring's better specs.²⁴