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Smart doorbells are an easy way that enables you to make your home a bit more secure in this day and age. When the buzzer is pushed, you get to have a look outside to see what is happening on your phone or smart display. That is due to this nifty security cameras.
From there, you now choose how you would like to interact with the person that is on the other side. This enables you to have a sense of security in your home which is more than you could get when using the peephole in your front door.
The ability to have live video feeds and two-way communication is a smart way that enables smart doorbells to advance their successors of the simple peephole.
In this article, I am going to share with you some of the smart doorbells that I have had the ability to use and you will get to know much from setting them up to using them.
If you recently purchased Ring or the Nest Hello doorbell, then the next thing is to know how you are going to use them. I have this article as a guide to help you with the setup and how to use them.
Doorbell Installation Basics
Any smart doorbell that you see around is either battery-powered or wired or both. The wired doorbells use the wiring of your existing doorbells to get te power, while most of the wireless options use a rechargeable battery pack. The kind of doorbell you are going to get will influence how and where you are going to install it.
Doing wiring of your doorbells using the old doorbells wires is simple. You only need to get two or three cables to connect. After you have turned off the power to the doorbell, just loosen the screw that is holding the old wire, remove the wire, a loop your new wire around the screw and then tighten it again.
The only obstacle you may have to deal with is determining which wire goes where. In other doorbells, like Ring, it does not matter which wire goes where to the screw, but with Nest Hello, it matters.
If you have Nest Hello, here is some little help you may need. You have to go to the smart doorbells app, scan QR code your doorbell and then follow the simple instructions.
If you have Ring 2, you may also consider following the instructions to set up or just forgo the wiring and mount it and use their included battery to power it. When you go this route, you will have to change the batteries every two months to three depending on how you will have used them. You have to keep track of the app to be sure of the battery levels.
Doorbell Set up Notifications
When people approach your smart home and press on the button on your smart doorbell, you get notifications on your smartphone or tablet. Then you can check on the app of the doorbell to see who they are and talk with them.
This feature is the killer one in having a doorbell. This makes it seem as if you are already home even when you are not there yet.
There are some prerecorded quick responses that Nest Hello has for you to use, they include the following.
“You can leave it.”
“We’ll be right there.”
“No one can come to the door.”
You only have to tap on the one you want and the person that is at the door will hear it. You may also tap it to have a live conversation with the person instead.
If you have the Ring Doorbell, it has customizable alerts and ring alerts. The motion alerts pop up as a notification on your phone when they detect motion around the doorbell, the ring alerts send notifications to you when the doorbell is pressed.
Connecting Your Doorbell to Your Home Hub
If you have Amazon Echo or Google Home, you can be able to connect your smart doorbell to it to enable you to view your front door camera on your TV or the Echo show and then use your smart hub for answering the door remotely.
If you want to use Alexa to control your doorbell camera, all you need to do is to enable the Ring or Alexa skill and set it up through your Alexa app.
How to Connect Google Home Hub To Your Doorbell
- Open your Google Home app
- Tap on Add > Set up new device > Have something already set up?
- Choose Ring or Nest from the list of devices that appear
- Follow the on-screen steps to pair the devices
- Tap on Allow > Done
- Open the Google Home app
- Tap on Home > Doorbell > Settings > Name
- Name your doorbell and tap on save.
How to Share Access of Ring and Nest Doorbell
If you have many people that are living in your home, you may want to give all of them access to your doorbell. You have to go to the app and add users so that your spouse or kids may be able to check the live video when the doorbell rings.
How to Add Users to Ring Doorbell
- Go the menu > Settings
- Tap on the + icon in the right-hand corner of the screen
- Add the email address of the person
- Tap on assign role
- Choose from the list: Owner, Shared User or Guest User
- Tap on Send Invite
How to Add Users to Nest Hello Doorbell
- Go to settings > Family & Guests > Add a person
- Add the name of the person
- Tap on Continue
- Enter the email of the person you would like to add or tap Add from contacts
- Tap on Send
How to Adjust Motion-Detection Sensitivity
Most smart doorbells start to ring as soon as a person approaches the front door, even before they press the button. If you have your doorbell close to a sidewalk with a lot of traffic, you may get frequent alerts when people merely walk past the home.
You can be able to fix this. You just have to adjust the doorbell’s motion detection sensitivity. Both Ring and Nest doorbells have the ability to enable you to set zones of space to monitor for activity.
For ring doorbell, you basically have to go to motion settings on the app and move the slider between people only and all activity. You may also tap on Motion Zones and draw a box around the area of your yard you would like the ring to focus on.
A nest hello zone is the area where the camera is going to focus on to detect movement. For you to set up sensitivity areas for your Nest hello, you first need a nest aware subscription that costs between $3-$30 per month. When you have that setup, follow these instructions to set up the zone.
How to Create A Nest Hello Zone
- Open the app and choose the camera
- Tap settings > Activity Zones > Create Zone
- Turn your phone to landscape mode
- Tap and drag the zone on your screen to move it around
- Drag the eight dots around the zones edge to change the shape
- Tap on the pencil icon, and give your zone a name, then tap Checkmark icon
- Tap on the new Checkmark icon to save your zone
How to Protect Your Doorbell Footage
A smart doorbell can also act as security cameras too. They can help you to record the footage of a thief or of someone that is trying to break in your home.
Often, the video footage is always available for you to watch from the doorbells app for some limited time before it gets deleted.
If you would like to keep your footage for a longer period of time, you can store it in the cloud for a fee.
This can be done by setting up cloud storage for Nest Hell by signing up for a nest aware account. If you are using Ring, it requires you to sign up for a video recording plan that may cost $10 per month.
Both of these types of storage accounts cost only some dollars a month but the protection is worth it, or you may opt to choose a smart security camera for that purpose.
Conclusion
The setup should be simple and you should be enjoying your new smart doorbell soon. Doorbells are a great way to send you notifications and instant mobile alerts when they detect motion.
The nest and Ring app is great to use, you may be able to check even the live view of what is happening at the gate. The technology involved is so nice.
