We commonly kvetch about the not-really-optional subscriptions hooked up to too many sensible dwelling units. And then there’s the problem of privateness: When a safety digicam vendor shops video that’s been recorded at your own home, are they following finest practices to maintain that data non-public and safe? Anker’s Eufy division takes a distinct method with its mannequin T8200 Video Doorbell: There is not any subscription price, and video is encrypted and saved utilizing 4GB of storage on the gadget itself.
And the place most video doorbells seize video in 1080p decision, the digicam in Eufy’s gadget information 2560 x 1920 pixels with excessive dynamic vary and distortion correction. But this received’t be the proper alternative to your dwelling in the event you don’t have already got doorbell wiring in place. And in the event you benefit from the sound of your current doorbell’s chime, this one will bypass it in favor of its personal, which should be plugged into an outlet.
Installing the Eufy T8200 Video Doorbell
On the intense facet, Eufy’s Video Doorbell is a cinch to put in—this was the best doorbell set up I’ve ever carried out. Once you’ve shut off the facility at your breaker field and situated the chime to your current doorbell, you’ll set up a jumper on the chime’s FRONT and TRANS terminals to bypass the chime. The subsequent step is to put in the brand new doorbell itself.
I’ve not seen a video doorbell that requires comparable wiring, however the Eufy Video Doorbell is nonetheless very simple to put in.
The doorbell comes with a steel mounting bracket and an optionally available mounting wedge that shifts the digicam’s view 15 levels to the left or proper (relying on the way it’s oriented) so you may see farther in that course. Eufy gives extension wires and wire nuts within the field if the present wires popping out of your wall show to be too quick. Unlike the Ring Video Doorbell 2 and another rivals, nevertheless, there isn’t any various to the T8200’s black enclosure.
The Eufy Video Doorbell delivers wonderful picture high quality.
The doorbell snaps onto the bracket, which has two conductive pads to switch warmth from the doorbell to the bracket. Eufy gives a easy pin-like device in case you ever have to dismount the doorbell from the bracket, however a paperclip would doubtless serve equally as nicely (because you’re certain to lose the device in a drawer someplace—except you reap the benefits of the magnet pad and stick it to the facet of your fridge).
The subsequent step is to revive energy, set up the EufySafety app in your smartphone, and join the doorbell to your own home’s Wi-Fi community. In the ultimate set up step, you’ll set up Eufy’s chime by plugging into an AC outlet. You will have the ability to deploy as much as 4 of those chimes when Eufy begins promoting them individually later this 12 months, in an effort to unfold them round the home the place you’ll at all times be in earshot of one in all them.
Using the Eufy T8200 Video Doorbell
It’s a pity the Eufy Video Doorbell is offered solely in black.
With its very excessive decision and HDR to sharpen video in low gentle conditions or when the particular person is brightly lit from behind, the T8200 produces a wonderful stay feed and recorded video, too. The doorbell’s default choice is to report at a decrease decision to protect storage, however I discovered that the reminiscence card was sufficiently giant to retailer round 30 days value of notifications. Your mileage will fluctuate relying on what number of guests you get.
The T8200 sends an alert to your smartphone at any time when it detects movement, however recording begins three seconds previous to that, which is a superb function. When you view the recording in your telephone, you’ll get a whole image of what triggered the alert.
Much just like the Scout Video Doorbell, Eufy makes use of synthetic intelligence software program that focuses on face-shaped objects. To be clear, nevertheless, this isn’t facial recognition—it could actually’t establish who the particular person is, solely that it thinks what it sees is a face. When the digicam alerts you to the presence of an individual in your porch, it’ll additionally ship you a thumbnail closeup of that particular person’s face. It’s an amazing function, even when it sometimes errors a cat’s face for a human.
I’m an enormous fan of the Eufy’s movement detection zone setup.
This digicam has the most effective motion-detection zones I’ve seen. The app reveals you the digicam’s view, with its motion-sensing zone overlaid as a clear blue polygon. You can modify the factors of the polygon nevertheless you prefer to cowl precisely the realm desired. Combined with the five-point sensitivity scale that ranges from alerting you to all movement to people solely, false and extraneous notifications plummeted after I fine-tuned it.
The T8200 helps two-way audio, after all, and it cribs a function from the Maximus Camera Floodlight: You can play again as much as three pre-recorded messages if you don’t wish to interact with a customer. This is doubly helpful if you’re not dwelling, however you don’t need the particular person in your porch to know that.
On the draw back
Eufy boasts Alexa and Google Assistant assist, however this function isn’t all that it might be. You can stream stay video to a suitable sensible show, however you may’t work together with guests in actual time and you’ll’t view recorded video. There’s additionally no assist for IFTTT or Apple’s HomeKit know-how, and you’ll’t develop the obtainable storage by tapping Eufy’s personal HomeBase hub that’s used for its Arlo-like dwelling safety cameras. If somebody manages to steal this video doorbell, you’ll haven’t any video proof of the crime.
Bottom line
Most buyers will evaluate the Eufy Video Doorbell T8200 with one thing within the Ring lineup, however Eufy can’t compete with Ring’s expansive ecosystem of sensible dwelling merchandise (starting from its full Ring Alarm dwelling safety system to useful doodads just like the Ring Steplight). Meanwhile, you’ll want to attend till 2020 for Eufy to have a battery-powered video doorbell.
That stated, Eufy’s doorbell delivers high-quality video, nice movement detection with the power to tell apart between faces and different issues in entrance of its digicam, and its low price is rendered much more enticing by the absence of a subscription service. Back on the opposite facet of the ledger, this doorbell received’t work along with your current doorbell’s chime, and its integration with sensible shows is a weak spot.