You Don't Have to Feel Guilty About This Doorbell Camera

Recently, you might have noticed an increasing number of doorbell cameras like Amazon's Ring on neighborhood sidewalks. In addition to observing you, these cameras upload all of the footage they collect to a dizzying array of cloud servers.

My Nest Hello from Google is one of those internet-connected doorbells, and while I find it useful for seeing who's at the door when I'm away, the idea that innocent people are being filmed endlessly into a cloud that I cannot control irks me. I began looking for alternatives when I learned that Ring has ties to hundreds of police departments, rather than using a cloud rented from a company such as Amazon.

As of late last year, there really weren't any options on the market, but when Ubiquiti released its new G4 Pro Doorbell camera for just $199, I decided to ditch Nest Hello for a more privacy-friendly solution.

UniFi's G4 Doorbell and Nest Hello are extremely similar, but the G4 adds a small screen that lets you set automatic responses like "Leave the package" when you're not home.

I liked how Ubiquiti's cameras connect with a system called UniFi Protect, which allows you to store footage on a device within your home without ever sending it outside of your network. A dizzying array of cameras are offered by the company, from a tiny indoor camera for $29 to a high-end 4K camera with optical zoom that can all be combined into one system.

As opposed to Nest and Ring, which charge a monthly fee to store footage on their servers for as long as you use them, you are in control of your data.

It is, however, necessary to buy an additional device to store the footage inside your house. The company's Cloud Key Plus includes a hard drive with 1TB of storage, but since I already have an overkill network from them, I was able to use the UniFi Dream Machine Pro that I already use as a router for storage as well as networking.

The installation process is straightforward. You simply need to remove an existing powered doorbell, connect the right wires to the right screws, and drill a few new holes in the wall. Because there isn't a power supply in the box, you'll need one if you don't have a doorbell chime - luckily the one I used with the Nest Hello worked, so it took me less than 10 minutes to switch.

With UniFi Protect, you can access the camera via the web app or through a mobile app for iOS or Android. It has a slick and well-designed mobile app, which is more responsive than Nest's app, which usually takes a long time to load and can be laggy due to the fact that footage is loaded from the cloud rather than locally. The doorbell has "smart motion" detection, which displays cars and people in a carousel across the top of the home screen, making it easier to quickly locate an event that happened recently.

Despite recording in a similar resolution of 1600 x 1200, the quality of the footage from the G4 doorbell isn't quite as clear as that from the Nest Hello. However, since the G4 doorbell comes with full control over picture quality settings, I'll probably need to tweak them manually a bit more to get them on par. This is a compromise I'm willing to make to gain more control over the footage and avoid monthly fees.

The lack of an actual doorbell chime, however, quickly caused me to run into trouble: I had rely on Nest's integration with Google Home, which announces "someone's at the door" when someone rings the doorbell. There is no such integration with the G4 doorbell, so I was only able to get alerts via push notifications on my phone, which isn't ideal.

A quick Google search revealed the benefits of local control of the device, however. I could automate the process myself with a system like Home Assistant or HomeBridge. The open source tools within Home Assistant allow home automation enthusiasts to extend their smart devices to do more than what manufacturers allow them to. For example, users can repurpose incompatible devices to work together, or create one dashboard to control all their devices. I was able to play any sound I wanted when someone rang the doorbell with my Google Home after about an hour, which Nest doesn't have. The process was slow, but on the other hand, it was a pleasure to be able to do it, rather than being locked out of a device I owned if the integration wasn't there, as I was when Nest shut down its integration API in 2019.

With the G4 Doorbell, it does require a little more tinkering to get it set up, but I'm now able to store 38 days of footage, on my own network, across the two cameras I've got. I spent $8 per month with Nest to access just five days of footage before I had to delete it from their cloud service - to have access to 30 days of footage as I do with local storage would cost $45 per month.

The most important benefit is that I don't have to feed a larger surveillance machine that could hand over my recordings to authorities without my permission. Having a system I own means I am the one who controls who gets access to the footage, not whoever has access to the cloud it ends up on, which makes me feel better about having a doorbell camera in the first place.