Which? Don't Buy smart video doorbells
We expose poor quality smart doorbells that have fuzzy video quality and barely
even notice when someone arrives at your door. Don't waste your money on those
smart doorbell duds.
A smart video doorbell is designed to monitor what’s happening at your front door and alert you quickly if you have a visitor. A Don't Buy smart video doorbell will do none of that.
Bad video doorbells will try your patience with fuzzy and distorted video quality that will leave you struggling to make out people’s faces and important details.
Our unique lab testing helps you save time and money by exposing the Don’t Buy smart doorbells, and the Best Buy models to purchase instead.
Don’t Buy video doorbells will only ‘ding dong’ when your visitor is long gone. One of our Don’t Buys didn’t alert us to what was happening right in front of its camera throughout the entirety of our testing.
Poorly made doorbells will be easy prey for hackers, enabling a malicious criminal to snoop on your property and even knock your doorbell offline while someone breaks in.
Join Which? to find out which smart doorbells we’ve named Don’t Buys.
How we test smart doorbells
Our lab testing has been uniquely designed to push smart video doorbells to their limits and expose any problems in how they have been designed and made.
- We test whether doorbell video quality is crisp and clear, both during the day and at night. If you need to use the video footage as evidence of a crime, it’s no use if it’s grainier than a VHS video tape.
- We also assess whether the doorbells accurately pick up a range of events, such as people arriving, and if the doorbell alerts you promptly when someone rings the bell.
- We put smart doorbells and their associated apps through a full security assessment, This includes whether they use strong passwords, encrypt your private information and protect you from basic hacking attacks.
What are Which? Best Buys, Don’t Buys and Great Values?
Every smart doorbell that we test is exhaustively assessed for how well it does the job of acting as a 'digital concierge' to your home.
We see whether the doorbell is easy to install on your home, and then straightforward to use day-to-day, whether that is greeting visitors or looking out for intruders.
Our tests see how quickly the doorbell alerts you to a new arrival, if the video and sound quality is up to scratch and if the doorbells will protect your data from cyber hackers.
Any smart doorbell that scores more than 71% becomes a Best Buy. Whereas any model that scores 45% or lower is named a Don't Buy.
- Best Buy smart doorbells: These delightful doorbells excelled in our testing, combining excellent performance, with simple installation and usability and genuinely impressive features and functions.
- Don't Buy smart doorbells: By contrast, these dreadful doorbells performed poorly, were a pain to use and lacked important bells and whistles. Ding dong don't buy these low quality doorbells.
- Great Value smart doorbells: Although these doorbells might not be Best Buys, they have impressive test scores and come with price tags that will keep your bank balance happy.
Avoid the Don't Buy doorbells, and instead discover the models that we would recommend by visiting our Best Buy smart doorbells.
Smart doorbell reviews you can trust
Only Which? reviews can point you towards the Best Buy doorbells that will improve your home, and the Don't Buys that will do nothing of the sort.
If you're in the market for a new smart doorbell, make sure you check our recommendations before handing over your cash.
Which? is independent – we work for you, the consumer, so you can be sure that our product recommendations are influenced only by our test results.
We're not influenced by third parties and we don't accept freebies from product manufacturers or retailers.
We buy every product that we test, so our advice helps you to make the right choice first time and avoid costly mistakes.
Join Which? to find out which smart video doorbells are Don’t Buys, and which are Best Buys.
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