Review on 🚪 Amcrest 1080P Video Doorbell Camera Pro: Ultimate Outdoor Smart Home WiFi Doorbell Camera with Wired Power, PIR Motion Detect, RTSP, IP55 Weatherproof, MicroSD Card, 2-Way Audio, 140º Wide-Angle AD110 by Matthew Watkins

Although this device is nothing more than a simple IP camera and therefore can be used with software that supports RTSP, the developers of this device made a choice to corrupt it so that it needs to connect to the internet to download. Without it, you cannot connect to it through the app. The doorbell just sits and blinks until it connects to the internet, even if you turn off all sorts of "cloud" features. You cannot set up your device AT ALL without logging into the app, which requires you to agree to the company's privacy policy. The device makes multiple connections to the internet (anything hosted on BitBucket) when downloading. The company's support service will not answer what these connections are for. One of the connections is multicast, and for some reason it seems configured to accept connections from any other member of that multicast group. RTSP works and I recorded a ZoneMinder camera. Although this works and the camera appears to be connected to the network, the application says the camera is disabled until you allow the camera to access the internet. This thing is very loud and the LEDs are very bright. When the device connects to Wi-Fi, it screams "NETWORK CONNECTED SUCCESSFULLY!". So if there are problems and the connection keeps dropping, your doorbell will keep calling out "NETWORK SUCCESS” to your neighborhood. Imagine if any security camera did this. You're walking down the street on a typical day and every few minutes you hear "SUCCESSFULLY CONNECTED TO THE NETWORK!" in the distance. You keep walking, but no, you're already in the shopping district, there are cameras everywhere. They move on, the screams from the cameras and their network statuses are deafening. They keep connecting to WiFi. They endlessly scream in excitement at their newfound network connectivity. Then you will notice. If the cameras keep screaming, then they have a problem and won't record. You won't really be followed, you can steal whatever you want. Hooray! bonkers, right? No, it's just a terrible design. Also, the LEDs around the doorbell are probably visible from half a mile away, so there's no point in making them that bright. There is no option to dim the light in the app. Volume change does not work properly. I put it on "silent" but when you ring the doorbell the doorbell itself makes a very loud ding-dong out of the speaker. Tell me why does the person calling need to hear a very loud ding dong noise? No, this sound is for people INSIDE the house. I clearly heard the sound of the doorbell speaker coming from inside the house, on the other side of the brick wall. It was as noticeable as the internal call itself. After restarting the device (by which I mean turning the entire switch off and on again because there's no reset button), the volume change took effect and the doorbell eventually went silent. Of course, in order for this to work, I had to mute the speaker volume, so now the talkback feature doesn't work. What you connect to an existing bell device is something more. The diagrams show it to fit the bell box cover but mine didn't fit exactly. The only way out was to cut a hole in the lid, put the wires through it and tape it to the top of the lid. Not perfect. While the creators of this doorbell opted for the dreaded screwdriver and drill, they didn't opt for the "wedge" mount that doorbell cameras typically come with. I think the piece of plastic was overpriced, but the drill wasn't. This means that the camera is aimed straight ahead and not at the door. This is a big disadvantage. Honestly, that alone is enough to put you off buying this device. A friend 3D printed one for me (on Thingiverse) and I can tell you that a wedge mount is a serious requirement if you really want to see who's at the door and what's going on. interest in this matter. It's easy to disassemble and you'll be greeted by a UART connector, micro-USB, and more. The last note I will make is that when you turn on the device, it takes some time (up to a minute) for the indicator to light up. . When you turn off the power, the light stays on for a while. The device has two relatively large capacitors that do this. So be aware that when you first turn it on, you should wait a minute before assuming anything is wrong. Overall the product is 0/10. good hardware, terrible software/firmware. Unfortunately, because of the latter, it's just bullshit.