The best video doorbells 2023

If your budget will stretch to it, the Eufy Video Doorbell Dual is well worth the cost. It’s unique here because it has two cameras: one facing forwards, and one pointing at the ground so it can watch out for parcels.

It offers great control over motion detection so you only get notifications that you care about. Better still, it comes with an indoor module called the HomeBase which acts like a range extender and means you don’t need a strong Wi-Fi signal at your door as with most other smart doorbells.

The HomeBase has 16GB of built-in storage for recording video, meaning there’s no need to pay a subscription as you do with Ring, Google and other doorbells that offer no local recording option.

Video quality is impressive both day and night, and you have a choice of using the built-in battery to power the unit or using a transformer for continuous mains power. If you want the simplicity of battery power, just note the whole doorbell must be removed from its mounting bracket to be recharged: you can’t buy spare batteries and swap them over.

For the same cost as the original 2019 Doorbell Pro, the second-generation adds quite a few new features and improves on video quality and viewing angles so you can see more, including packages left on your doorstep.

3D motion detection, using radar, allows you to choose how far away motion should be before you get an alert and, along with custom zones, you can practically eliminate any false motion alerts.

Night vision is pretty good (no smart doorbell is truly great in the dark) and quality during the daytime is excellent.

The Ring app isn’t quite as good as Nest’s but it’s still better than most, and the rich notifications you get with a Ring Protect subscription are great. 

It used to be called the Nest Hello and has been around for a few years but is still a top choice now. It’s packed with features, offers great-quality HDR footage and is easy to use.

The only area we’d like to see improved is motion detection, but you can set up custom zones to avoid lots of false notifications.

It’s expensive to buy, but if you have other Nest security cameras, then a single Nest Aware v2 subscription cost covers them all and is better value than Ring’s equivalent.

A subscription is required for recording (unlike the newer Nest Doorbell (battery) but it also gives you some useful features such as face and package recognition, and the Nest app is better than Google Home, which you’re forced to use if you opt for the lower-resolution battery-powered model.

The app makes it easy to see events as you scroll through the timeline, even if you don’t pay extra for continuous recording (something that isn’t an option with Ring doorbells, or the Nest Doorbell (battery) for that matter).

Installation isn’t difficult if you have a mains socket near your door, as you can buy an AC adapter – but it’s a shame Nest doesn’t include one in the box given the high price.

It works with most existing wired chimes and you can also get notifications from Alexa and Google Assistant on your smart speaker and other devices.

If you’re on a budget and are happy to accept ‘good quality’ video rather than the very best available, then few rivals can beat the Video Doorbell Wired for value.

It requires AC power at your door, which is great if you already have it, but will cost you extra if you don’t. The Doorbell Wired works with Ring’s plug-in mains adapter, so a DIY install is possible if you have a socket somewhere near your front door.

Surprisingly, it gives you six seconds of pre-roll, just like Ring’s most expensive doorbell, and this means you see a few seconds of footage before the motion began. 

While it requires the same Protect subscription to enable recordings, rich notifications and other features, it’s a bargain at this price.

Though very similar to the older Doorbell 3 Plus, the ‘4 has various improvements that make it a better choice.

It offers great-quality 1080p HDR video, though unlike the Video Doorbell Pro 2 its wide-angle view doesn’t show your doorstep so you won’t be able to see a package that’s been left there.

Motion detection is a step down from the Pro 2, so there’s no 3D feature but you can use motion zones to select what part of the frame to monitor. There’s also a People Only mode which helps eliminate false alarms.

Pre-roll provides up to four seconds of video from before the event began – an impressive feat for a battery-powered smart doorbell.

Being battery powered means it’s simple to install, but you will have to keep on top of recharging it and ensuring it’s not going to run out while you’re away. It is possible to connect the Doorbell 4 to mains power, but if you’re going to do that, you may as well buy one of Ring’s mains-powered doorbells.

Unlike the likes of Ring and other battery-powered smart doorbells in our chart, the Netatmo Smart Video Doorbell requires a wired power supply and probably an electrician to install.

But, once you’ve got this out of the way, you’ll never need to worry about recharging batteries or enabling more advanced, power-hungry features like night vision or live viewing. 

It’s not the only way that the Netatmo system differentiates itself either – it also records exclusively in portrait mode, making it much easier to capture a person from head-to-toe. The downside is that you don’t capture as much of the environment, and you might miss the action completely depending on doorbell placement, so it’s not a clear-cut win. 

The main highlight is that the doorbell doesn’t require a monthly subscription to access video footage – something required by most other smart doorbells on the market right now – and instead records video to a built-in microSD card.

Blink, like Ring, is owned by Amazon and now there’s a doorbell in the range alongside the security cameras. It’s even cheaper than the Ring Video Doorbell Wired (in the US, at least) and is battery powered, so it is really easy to install.

It’s basic, as you’d expect at this price, with unimpressive video quality, but it does the job. The best feature is the option to buy it with a Sync Module 2 which allows it to record video locally to a USB stick. This saves you paying a subscription to Blink Plus, which would otherwise somewhat negate the whole point of a budget doorbell.

The Nest Doorbell (battery) offers a slew of improvements over the (wired) model. The fact you can have detailed alerts, set up zones and store three hours’ worth of events without subscribing is great, as is the fact it can run from battery power, or be hooked up to existing doorbell wires. (There are also third-party solar panels if you want longer battery life.)

But there are good reasons it doesn’t feature any higher up this list. For one thing, the Google Home app isn’t nearly as  nice to use as the Nest one, and if you have older Nest cameras, you’ll have to use both, which is silly.

Those older Nest products don’t offer free storage so you probably subscribe to Nest Aware anyway, in which case the free storage isn’t a benefit. And because it’s a rolling three-hour window, anything that happened more than three hours earlier will have already been deleted.

There are other drawbacks, too, such as the fact that resolution is lower than the Doorbell (wired), and the fact there is no IFTTT or HomeKit support. (It does work with Google smart speakers and there’s now Alexa integration.)

A full feature set in an easy to use and set up device, the EZVIZ Video Doorbell Cam is a very good smart doorbell – particularly for those with existing EZVIZ devices and Amazon Alexa in the home.

It uses a PIR for motion detection and you can set how far away someone should be before you get alerts of their presence.

The sting in the tail is in the price of cloud storage, although you don’t need to pay a subscription fee as you could add a 128GB SD card for a fraction of that cost.