Hi all, my Unifi Doorbell just died after only 4 years of service. I’ve been pretty disheartened with them lately, other products haven’t lived up to the company’s promise.
So I’m not looking to replace my networking stack yet, but I am looking for a doorbell camera. I only have the Unifi machine, but I also have an extensive docker/kubernetes stack, and mostly I want to use it with Home Assistant.
Any recommendations? Open to software, hardware, you name it. I have a few other Unifi cameras too, if they could be brought into the fold while I slowly migrate, I’d be interested. Thanks!
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Everyone in this thread is complaining about their short-lived UniFi devices, meanwhile I have two dream machines (the original WiFi 5 sol’n, not the rack mounted variant) that have had zero issues and are still running 24/7. I guess I should count my stars. (They replaced multiple failed netgear routers).
I’ve learned it really depends on the device. It’s completely a mixed bag, and that’s why I can’t trust it. Half the time it lasts over a decade, the other half less than a year.
For example, I got their “Enterprise” Switch 8 PoE with 2 SFP+ ports. I plugged it in in my garage, where it was 50 degrees (F) at the time, and it overheated. I googled it, apparently the SFP ports simply overheat. Turns out while it has a fan, it doesn’t turn on and simply overheats because they “Didn’t want a noisy fan on someone’s desk”. Which… uh, doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work. Their enterprise term means nothing.
That being said, my rackmount switches have been solid, oldest one is 10 years old. However that unknown makes it hard to justify purchasing new equipment.
IIRC they had a whole generation of switches that overheated like crazy.
On the other hand, I kind of want one of my nano-HDs to die so I can justify an upgrade to wifi 7.
I have an alcatel lucent switch from the 90s
It’s been running 24/7 for 25 years in some companys rack and now it runs for 10 in mine.
Got it for 30$ on ebay (and a second one for 20 as a backup)
I’ve got the OG UDM trash can as well. It’s been doing the thing just fine since 2020.
Moved to a bigger place a few years ago and recently added a Wifi 7 AP to resolve poor wifi coverage in certain areas. Works great, no complaints. Probably gonna get another Wifi 7 AP so I can just shut off the radio in the router itself, ease the load a bit.
Reolink, aqara, or amcrest would be my rec.
I never even thought about Aqara, I have a lot of their things already. Do I need an NVR or something with that?
They have a paid cloud storage, but you can also store locally. I do recommend an NVR though, frigate or shinobi are pretty good options there
Got frigate set up, more mature than I expected!
Unify has some of the best customer service even though it might be 4 years I would reach out to see what they can do for you. You might be surprised!
I’m working on a project involving home assistant, zigbee, and Google home. In a perfect world the doorbell would make all the Google homes chime. Not sure if it is going to work, but I know that I can simply hook up a Bluetooth speaker to the brains of it and it’ll work.
Materials
- Doorbell: https://a.co/d/02HBrOnB
- ESP32-C6: https://a.co/d/011HRydn
Software
My home assistant will be a docker container. In order to make this work, I will be installing esphome on the esp32. I got an esp32 screen because it will also operate a self watering garden, but you don’t need to. It will need to be configured as a zigbee proxy for home assistant, but seems pretty straight forward.
I bought a Ubiquity router once because a friend was raving about it. It crapped out on me after maybe 6 months? Will never buy their hardware again.
I’m using a Reolink doorbell camera and am happy with it so far. Had it for about two years.
How do you use Reolink? I’ve heard other people mention it, meaning do you need an NVR, or HomeAssistant, does it work in Unifi, curious how you use it
You don’t need an NVR. The camera supports a microSD card to store footage. It also supports FTP upload.
HomeAssistant isn’t required. It is supported and I do have it configured.
I have next to no recollection of how UniFi works so I can’t speak to that. Mine is connected to a 2.4GHz WiFi network. IIRC that’s all it supports. Might be different with newer models.
It also supports HTTP(S)/RTMP/RTSP/ONVIF streaming. Though I tend to just use the app (and I’m particular about installing apps) as I find it quite usable.
Try LazyNVR for reolink cameras, it’s very lightweight and a different take than frigate https://codeberg.org/LazyNVR/lazynvr-sources
What do you use now? After bouncing from really disappointing uotine with linksys, netgear and some other Chinese router I’ve been extremely satisfied with UniFi stuff. Best uptime by a large margin and I bought used off eBay
OpenBSD on an old office PC I picked up from University surplus.
While I’m not thrilled with some of my UniFi hardware, I would kill to get 4 years out of a doorbell. that’s pretty good.
That’s weird. I have never had a doorbell fail. My current doorbell is a 1990’s system that goes to mini crt displays in the house. Kind of like this
It’s over 25 years old.
I also have several noname IP cameras around the outside and they’ve never failed. One is almost 10 years old now.
So retro. I remember a string of those mini crt/camera combos. It was pretty cool tech back in the day.
Really?? Is that all? Best I can think is that the transformer doesn’t really protect the device at all, I’m guessing there was a surge at some point
My first doorbell from them died pretty quick too, ended up getting the poe one and its been pretty good, hopefully keeps going for a lot more. The chime sucks though. They just came out with some loud speaker that is supposed to also work with the doorbell but pretty pricey
I’m not sure if it’s the electrician’s ineptitude (especially these cookie cutter homes, around me I have ryan and toll brothers, one time I was installing one and the wires FELL out of the door frame) or Mother Nature getting to the electronics outside or maybe a bit of both. Don’t do indoor cameras so can’t speak to that aspect.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point NAS Network-Attached Storage NVR Network Video Recorder (generally for CCTV) PoE Power over Ethernet Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand
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