Video Doorbells: The Best Functioning Option

Keeping an Eye on the Porch

With Social Media and the Internet, it's amazing what you can find about the Human Experience. And now with connected / Smart Homes, it is possible to see what's happening at home when you're not at home. Whether for security, deliveries, or just plain curiosity, having a robot with a camera watch your front porch is a fascinating idea.

What are the Options?

There are currently two schools of thought when it comes to Video Doorbells; Motion Capture or Full Stream Capture.  Products such as Skybell and Ring both offer Motion Capture only, where as Nest Hello offers Full Stream Capture.  The difference is that Motion Capture only delivers actual clips of captured activity; so if the camera notices a person, or creature, it will start recording for a short period of time. The Nest Hello records everything constantly and when a motion event occurs, it makes note of it.  There is a further distinction between these two schools, but it will be made clear later.

What is the Cost?

Although cost of a product is often stated clearly, the function of cost is rarely covered.  You might think that just by my having not jumped immediately to the price, that I may be trying to avoid the numbers.   It is important to not look only at the price of a product but to critically consider the value of the product.  Of course some people just cannot afford the price and so will immediately stop reading, ...

The short answer there is no monthly service fee for Skybell, whereas Ring ($30 / year) costs much less money than Nest ($50-$300 / year or $5-$30 / month). Each of these devices ranges in initial price around $200

But to those who value the function, please continue reading below.

What is the Value of Security?

Although it is difficult to put an actual definite price on Security, it is possible to make an informed decision based on good information.  Supposing a porch pirate steals a package from the doorstep, having a camera out there would have offered a much better idea of when the package was delivered and who picked it up.

To return to the topic mentioned earlier regarding motion capture, the best function that Nest Hello offers above and beyond other video doorbells is that of full daily video streaming.  While all three devices offer motion detection, no robot with a camera is as good as an alert human.  Even with outlines and masks and facial detection, computers are not very wise and experienced; they do not know to ignore plants blowing in the wind, they do no know the difference between a photo of a face and an actual face. 

The value in the Nest Hello is that to hedge the shortcomings of motion capture alone, it delivers all the video from the entire day.  And recognizing that no human (even those whose job it is) wants to sort through hundreds of hours of real-time footage to find the proverbial needle in a haystack; Nest can speed up the playback to a time lapse of the whole day in seconds. (See Video Above)

A New Age of Availability and Function

Throughout recent technological history, let's say in the last 60 years, it has been possible to get video surveillance on one's home.  It has even been possible to get recordings of that surveillance. And if one could afford it, to have a person watch those recordings; to be the human with experience behind the mechanical function of video recording.   Much more powerful computers now aid society in monitoring and finding differences in the videos, but they cannot fully replicate the wisdom of an experienced human. 

Society often argues for the lowest common denominator thinking that if we can get by with paying less, we effectively get more. But in this case, to sacrifice cost over function is an unworthy loss.  There is no way to go back and recover video that was never recorded.  And if the task is left to inexperienced robots, just to save a buck, we lose more than the money we've tried to save.


There are greater available technologies currently available than what is presented in this article, but for the price. So much more is possible and yet many of do not recognize it.  I highly recommend the Nest Hello Doorbell as it's value is much greater than it's price.

Check out the Nest Hello today:
    Nest.com
    BestBuy
    HomeDepot
    Lowes