eufy SecurityVideo Doorbell S220 (Battery-Powered) Kit, Security Camera - 2K Resolution, 180-Day Battery Life, Encrypted Local Storage, No Monthly Fees, Built-in Storage, Motion Only Alert

I had been in the market for a smart doorbell for years but in both my homes, I required one that was wireless. Neither of my recent homes have had wired doorbells, which made it challenging to find a recommended product.I did a great amount of research before purchasing this system, and was a bit nervous at first since I had never heard of Eufy prior to my search.Pros:-Very easy to install. It probably took less than five minutes total with a drill to get everything up and running.-Great images and free, one minute video storage. No paying crazy fees to keep videos you may need.-Easy to download videos to your photos on your phone, when you need to keep a record of something.-Great night vision camera. The daytime is excellent but the evening is really good, as well.-No issues with connectivity-Talk ability is fantastic.-The battery has a very long life. I think I've only charged twice since purchasing last year. Can't beat that.Cons:-None so far.I will be adding to the system as I can but so far, it's been fantastic. I have no complaints. I feel safe and secure inside my home and when away with this watching over us.

Revised 17 July 2020Eufy customer service reached out to me shortly after my post of the initial review. They asked if I would be willing to work with them to troubleshoot the issue. Since my issue was not critical and did not affect functionality or security, I agreed. Over a series of days, I performed tests and uploaded logs to their support staff, and any time that I had questions or comments, they replied to me quickly. Ultimately, the problem could not be resolved, and they replaced the doorbell without question. Now that I've been using the doorbell for close to a month, I can say that I am thoroughly satisfied with it. It is responsive, has great video quality, saves video locally instead of the cloud, can be powered by battery or existing wiring, can use existing doorbell chimes, chimes on the Homebase hub, chimes and announcements on Amazon Alexa. I have nothing but positive comments about this device and Eufy's customer service (thanks Daisy).I'm leaving the original review below, because it documented my observations and discoveries when I first installed the doorbell, and they may be helpful to new users. Any problems that I experienced in the original review have been resolved.************************Original ReviewI really didn't need a fancy video doorbell, as I live in a gated community on a dead-end street with very little traffic and few visitors. However, I replaced my front door and thought that it would be a good time to replace the original old-school doorbell while I was at it. I chose this product primarily because of the local storage. I have very slow Internet (20MB down, 1.3MB up), and other products which relied on cloud storage would not have worked for me. I also chose wired installation instead of battery so that I would not have to charge the battery manually 2-3 times a year.Installation was relatively straightforward, but I found that motion detection was not working. In fact, the doorbell failed to respond until I was only a few feet away. I contacted Eufy support, and without hesitation they told me to submit a request for an exchange, which I did. A few hours later, I found a setting in the "Power Manager" section that had three options: Optimal Battery Life (default), Optimal Surveillance, and Customize Recording. The default setting is doorbell only with no motion detection. If that was mentioned during setup, I did not see it. You would also think that the support techs (2 of them - one on live chat, and one on phone), would think to have me change that setting, since I am a new user with a new installation and probably using default settings. So, I changed the setting to Customize Recording, which enabled motion detection, and allowed me to set longer record times. Since I am using a wired setup, I don't have to worry too much about long recordings depleting the battery.The next thing that I tried to do was download video clips from the Homebase to my iPhone while in my home wifi network. Every video that I tried to download SEEMED to download properly. There was a % download progress display, and the time to complete was appropriate for a 30 second clip, but the file saved to my photos was only the last 3 to 5 seconds of the clip. I repeated this multiple times with about 10 different files, with the same result. I then realized that all of these files were associated with an eventual doorbell push. So, I activated the system several times from motion detection only (without pushing the doorbell button) to see if it made a difference. Every single one of those clips would download to my iPhone in their entirety. So, it appears that if someone pushes the doorbell button, you are not able to download the full clip from the Homebase - only the last few seconds. This makes no sense to me, as the full clips are available and viewable on the Homebase, but they are apparently not fully downloadable. I have not yet contacted Eufy on this second issue - perhaps they'll see it here and comment on it.The final observation is that it seems that video clips are more stable (when created and also when viewed later) if the Homebase is connected with ethernet instead of wifi. I have terrible Internet, but great internal wifi (Arris Surfboard Max Mesh), and videos seemed more jittery with more dropouts and freezes on wifi.I was pleased to see that I am able to receive alerts and view clips when my phone is on cellular, although the video is very choppy. This, I assume, is because the video is streaming to me over the Internet via my terrible home internet 1.3MB upload connection. I am actually OK with that, because I didn't expect to be able to access anything away from home anyway.Overall, I am relatively happy with the device, and hope that some of these issues go away with firmware updates.

I did my research and for battery operated video doorbells the Eufy one came out on top. I read or listened to all the information out there before making a purchase. I did the installation over the Labor Day holiday weekend. And therein lies my complaints!If you need an unwired battery operated doorbell, the unit will be larger than a comparable wired one which means it may be too large to install on the wood framing around your front door. I have a brick house but didn't see anything in research that let me know there would be installation issues.First to hold the bracket, the screws and anchors need a hole drilled out using a 15/64 (6mm) size masonary drill bit.This is not a bit in your normal drill bit kit and it would have been great to be informed up front that it would be required. The size is not one routinely carried by Lowes in stock so I ended up getting the next size down which is closest to the 15/65 size. Plan on spending about $9.00 for the masonary drill bit that you will use one time in your life! Why they didn't make the anchors/screws a more standard size is a mystery.Second once you have spent hours trying to find someone who has the bit, you then have a guide which peels off to be attached to brick. This is a great idea but it doesn't stick well to brick. There are two screw holes in the bracket, one near the top and one near the bottom. If the guide would have stayed in place when I made my initial pilot hole and/or mark on brick wall all would be level. Unfortunately on the second hole even though I had measured and made sure it was equidistant to the top hole, the guide sheet had shifted or the drill when it hit the mark jumped, leaving me with holes that are not level. You don't want to make numerous holes in your brick wall so if I had it to do over, I would have taken a big black marker and marked on the brick rather than the light mark I made and the guide which I left in place.The instructions are minimal. The Eufy video is short but a bit better than the written instructions. There needs to be a completely unique instruction when mounting onto brick. It is simply too different from other surfaces.As my bit was a "bit' smaller than needed, I had to rotate the bit around the hole to widen it, then try the anchor to see if I could get it to fit. As a too large hole would be disastrous if you are using a bit not identical to the 15/65 size make changes gradually and recheck until the hole will fit the anchor but NOT be too big for it.So even though not completely level (which will make me nuts) I had the plastic anchor in the hole. Next you are instructed to put the bracket and wedge if needed over the anchor as it sticks out at the "wing" level (from looking at diagram, there are no written instructions here) and using the longer screws tighten the screws until bracket is flush with wall. Can you see the issue coming with a brick wall? It is not a continuous flat surface. Where the mortar is it is recessed from the brick and even though the bricks look like they are all coming out at the same level, apparently not as there was no way to get this bracket to lie flush against the wall. I had the screws as far as they could go without breaking the bracket and/or stripping the screw. Had I known it would not lie flat, I might have investigated a pretty piece of wood mounted onto the brick wall to which the unit could be attached. That is what I will end up doing as I see a reinstall coming!The problem with it not being flush is that when you go to "click" the video doorbell into the bracket it simply will not fit correctly. I found a blog site online and of the folks who had this problem, ALL of us were mounting it on a brick wall! If I had access to tech support I could have found out if Eufy had a fix. (more on that below). Since the unit isn't flush in the bracket removing it with the "key" (basically it is a straight paper clip!) is next to impossible. I decided to leave mine in there as is, because I know I will be reinstalling this completely and if I can't get it to come out a burglar may have the same issues!Since the instructions are minimal, I really needed Customer Service. Even though I expect most people will be doing the installation after normal work hours or on the weekend, those are the exact hours customer service is closed! If you are going to be providing devices that cover home security self installed by the home owner, you should have someone around 24/7 to answer questions! There is nothing like discovering what is wrong AFTER you have completed the install. I have mounted lots of things over my life that require a bracket. I have wrought iron brackets holding in copper window boxes affixed under four windows on the outside of my brick home. I have numerous HEAVY large windchimes that are held up by wrought iron brackets on the brick screened in porch. In other words placing a bracket onto brick is not something new to me, so I could never have anticipated that this little tiny plastic bracket would cause such a head ache. I am not without some skills with the drill. If you are new to home installation try to do the install Monday to Friday during office hours so you can call Eufy for support.Once poorly installed the video doorbell itself is fabulous. It works great, even in the very dark which was a pleasant surprise. There was a bit of an issue with getting the base to switch from the router to WiFi but I eventually got it to work. My sister is a complete idiot with electronics but I am slowly educating her on how to review the alerts you get from motion or ringing the bell. (When I was at the door instead of the "can you hear me" I expected, she wanted to know if I could SEE her, and she was serious, so I mean no disrespect when I call her an idiot!)In short the unit is fabulous. The installation particularly on a brick surface needs far better instructions and advance warning as to the drill bit size required. Customer service needs to be open when customers are most likely to need the service. Get those things fixed and it would be 5 stars across the board.