I like Chamberlain garage gadgets but its doorbell cam disappoints

Price When Reviewed

$99.99

Best Prices Today: myQ Video Doorbell (mannequin MYQ-D49TXXB)

The world wants one other doorbell digicam prefer it wants one other social media influencer, however I get it: Every good dwelling system producer wants a video doorbell to spherical out its product line.

Chamberlain is the most recent to enter this area after cranking out myQ-branded indoor and outside cameras like mad because it steps additional away from its storage door-centric heritage.

Specifications

The myQ Video Doorbell will shock completely nobody in design or perform. The rectangular, black rectangle is about 6 inches excessive and options a big doorbell button beneath a digicam lens that captures video in a 1:1 facet ratio (1952 x 1952 pixels) with a 150-degree viewing angle.

The unit accommodates a built-in (and non-removeable) battery that prices by way of USB-C cable. It can even cost by way of normal 24V doorbell wiring, by way of two wiring posts on the again of the system. Chamberlain doesn’t specify the dimensions of the battery however estimates it is going to run for 4 to 6 months earlier than a recharge shall be wanted.

Christopher Null/Foundry

While there’s no formal IP score on the system, the one digital aspect you may want to fret about–the USB-C port for charging its battery–is properly coated by a rubber flap. myQ does specify an working temperature of -4 to 122 levels Fahrenheit.

Installation and setup

Physical setup is easy. A flat mounting bracket attaches to the wall with two supplied screws, and the digicam then slips onto the bracket. No angled mounting bracket possibility is out there. As with the myQ Smart Garage Video Keypad, a safety screw on the underside of the digicam helps maintain it in place whereas including an impediment to discourage simple theft.

As with most myQ units, digital setup is a straightforward affair involving deciding on your system of alternative and urgent a small button on the again of the digicam to finish the connection to the myQ app. Once onboarded to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi community, the doorbell digicam seems within the app alongside another myQ tools.

Performance

Christopher Null/Foundry

There aren’t a variety of surprises with the way in which the doorbell works, apart from one I observed straight away. The massive doorbell button is ringed with a blue gentle, however this gentle doesn’t illuminate till after the button is pressed, which additionally causes a loud chime to erupt from the system (and out of your current chime for those who’ve hardwired it.

In my thoughts, the principle level of the sunshine ring is so guests can see the button in the dead of night earlier than they press it, not after. This wants a easy however vital rethink, specifically utilizing the digicam’s built-in movement sensor to detect when somebody is approaching and turning the sunshine on after they’re close by.

The movement sensor does do job of detecting folks close by, which promptly causes a small inexperienced LED to gentle up whereas launching a video recording operation. As with different myQ gear, there’s no approach to provoke a handbook recording (though the feed can all the time be considered on demand) and the ensuing clips are quick, often 10 to 30 seconds, however so long as 43 seconds in my testing.

Video high quality is okay for a doorbell, and though it’s aggressively fish-eyed, the readability of recordings was stable in my testing. Infrared evening imaginative and prescient is much less succesful, with the digicam’s useful vary topping out at lower than 15 toes. Fortunately, most recordings shall be up shut and private, given the digicam’s location subsequent to the entrance door.

As with all different myQ digicam gear, the doorbell can acknowledge and categorize clips based mostly on the kind of exercise within the body: any sort of movement or an individual, animal, package deal, or automobile. You can flip off push notifications for every of those within the myQ app, however there’s no approach to disable the notification for a doorbell press.

Christopher Null/Foundry

You can even register faces with the app, providing you with a extra detailed take a look at who’s coming and going. The function is particularly helpful with a doorbell, given the chance that you just’ll see lots of people’s faces at a variety of just some toes. Other video choices allow you to modify the vary of the movement sensor and set up as much as three detection zones for those who’re getting too many false movement alerts for distant exercise. The microphone will be disabled, and speaker quantity will be adjusted within the app, as properly.

The myQ Video Doorbell drops all recorded clips right into a monolithic assortment of video snippets, together with all of your varied myQ digicam exercise. A filtering system is meant to make it simpler to seek out what you’re on the lookout for, however I ran right into a bug the place the doorbell digicam reveals up in my units with the title “Camera,” although I’ve it set with the title “Doorbell.”

This is an issue with different myQ units, because it seems. Multiple units are known as “Camera” and might’t be simply distinguished. Some thumbnails have been additionally inexplicably lacking from my recordings, and the app would ceaselessly crash when making an attempt to refresh the record of clips, requiring a pressure stop and restart. None of these issues are deal-breakers, however they’re all a nuisance.

The larger challenge is that, for now, Chamberlain doesn’t supply an indoor chime, so the one customer notification you’ll get is by way of the app in your telephone—until you hardwire the doorbell to an current chime. myQ says a wi-fi “myQ Chime” is coming in October, however you by no means know the way actual a projected launch date is till it occurs.

Should you purchase a myQ Video Doorbell?

As with all myQ cameras, the myQ Video Doorbell shops video solely to Chamberlain’s cloud service, there isn’t any possibility for native storage. So, for those who don’t subscribe to that service, you’ll solely ever see a stay video stream from the digicam. That cloud service prices $4/month or $40/12 months for seven days of storage for a single system; $10/month or $100/12 months for 30 days of storage for all of your myQ units. A 30-day trial of the single-device, seven-day plan is included together with your buy.

As with all myQ gear, it most likely makes little sense to go for this doorbell digicam until you have already got different myQ merchandise put in and might make use of the $10/month subscription plan.

The $100 myQ Video Doorbell isn’t probably the most full-featured possibility available on the market, and given its incapability to completely carry out its main perform—letting you realize when somebody’s on the door— it’s troublesome to completely suggest in its present incarnation. Fix the buggy app and launch the myQ Chime, after which perhaps we will revisit it. Even then, it’s most likely solely a worthwhile choose for properties with different myQ infrastructure.