VueBell vuebell-01 WiFi Video Doorbell Camera, with Two-Way Audio, Motion Sensor, Night Vision, Door Camera and Additional Wireless Door Chime Included (Hard Wired Version)

The unit itself was £90 and we also paid for installation by an electrician. It is absolutely awful and fails to do what they claim in the blurb.First of all, when light levels are normal to sunny the blue bell light becomes invisible so callers cannot see what they are supposed to press. So many people push on the camera giving you a close up pic of their finger!There are virtually no usage instructions, only skimpy installation instructions.The sound quality renders it virtually unusable. When we are out we get a ring alert on the phone and can see the caller but when we try to speak to them (eg, please leave the parcel next door) the caller cannot hear what we are saying because the sound is so broken up and distorted. We can see them getting frustrated but cannot make out their response either.I have tried to resolve the sound issues through the help desk and received appalling customer service. In one instance I asked how to increase the volume on the unit and they replied "Sorry for the inconvenience. Could you please try to adjust the ourdoor [sic] bell sound?". I kid you not. When the issue was not resolved by this super helpful advice they proceeded to ignore all subsequent messages.We will have to replace this piece of rubbish, which will no doubt mean another electrician's installation fee.Avoid at all costs!

We had a little bit of scare the other month, with a group of 3 youths getting into our car and stealing some stuff, then trying to get into our house. We live in a large house converted into five flats, and in the time we've lived here we've had a few people try to break in, unfortunately sometimes successfully. This last attempt came when we were actually in our flat, and it was the final straw that prompted us to improve our home security. We know have a CCTV camera pointed at the driveway, which works ok but we wanted to go one step further, which is where this came in.We'd seen the adverts for other video doorbells, the Ring one in particular, and it seemed like the perfect solution but they were fairly pricey so as this was a lot less money we decided to give it a go. When people have tried to break in to our flat in the past the first thing they do is ring all the doorbells for all 5 flats to establish if anyone is in - I know this as I've been working from home and heard them do it, once you go to answer they then scarper! We wanted something we could use to appear to be at home when we were out, as well as something we could use to get a look at who was at our door before we went out to answer it.So, first things first - this is a hardwired unit so you'll need to be slightly competent with wiring it up to the mains, or at least have a friend who can help you. I'm no DIY expert at all (just ask my wife - if you remember Reg Prescott from Kenny Everett's TV show then that's pretty similar to me) but even I managed it as the instructions are fairly straight forward. Luckily for me I was able to just swap out the existing doorbell so didn't need to run and mains cables out as it was already there, so the whole thing was up and running in 10 minutes. Obviously you might take longer if you don't already have a mains operated doorbell so bear that in mind.What you get in the box is the camera unit which you attach to the door and the battery-operated bell unit for inside your house. The camera part, which contains the touch sensitive doorbell plus the camera and microphone and motion detection, feels nice and solid but I have to say the bell part (which provides your melodies and volume control) does feel a little cheap and flimsy. It's not been an issue as it's worked flawlessly but thought it was worth pointing out. The actually main part which is outside does seem very well built, and importantly has survived so far in torrential rain so it appears to be very weatherproof!Once you are installed you'll need to download the app. There are QR codes to scan for both iOS and android - I can only comment on Android but assume that the iPhone/iPad version is the same. You'll need to register for an account, then there's a little bit of setup with your Wi-Fi details etc., and you'll be prompted to link the doorbell to the phone via a QR code on your phone which the doorbell scans. It sounds more complicated than it is in reality as you are prompted all the way though.And that's pretty much it. Once someone presses the doorbell it will appear on your phone, in a similar fashion to an incoming phone call. You can see who is there, and the best thing is this works even if you aren't at home. This means that if you are away from home and expecting a parcel you can make arrangements to have it delivered elsewhere etc., or more importantly for us if someone is testing to see if you are at home you can appear to be in to them. Quality of the video is good, even at night (although we do have a security light that turns on automatically), as the audio is spot on too. As well as the security benefits we got it for it's quite a fun gadget and there's something quite fun about speaking to your postie when you are at work too!In addition, the sensor can send a notification when it detects someone. For us, as one flat of 5 in the same big house, this actually turned out to be a bit of a pain as we were getting notifications for all visitors, but I guess it's probably better to be safe than sorry.If you are looking for a video doorbell I can't really fault this for the price. You get to see who is at your door and talk to them as if you are in, even if you are at the other end of the country. For us it's given us a lot more piece of mind at a very reasonable price. The app is great (at least on Android - I can't comment on ioS) and has plenty of extra features like motion detection, and the ability to view the live camera feed and take snap shots as required. It's left us feeling a lot safer in our flat for a relatively small outlay.

I've been using this for a couple of years and Netvue have regularly updated their app and the device firmware with new features. On 2 or 3 occasions I have had to seek support and Netvue have been quick to respond and resolved the issues well. The audio has improved over time but I find it still breaks up sometimes so the caller cannot hear what I am saying. The wifi receiver on the bell seems to be weak as my wifi access point is close by (2 metres) but signal strength in the app shows weak signal. I guess this could be down to the small antenna inside the bell housing. The bell connection (calling, video, and audio) is via the Netvue cloud server which turns out to be provided by AWS as they had a failure a few weeks ago. I think the bandwidth over this server is low, and I'd prefer it if there was an option to route via your own server or port forwarding on router so bandwidth availability was more under my control. Also, I would like to record on my own NAS rather be forced to have no recording or pay for a hosted service. But compared with competing devices I still then VueBell is a good deal and works well enough to be useful most of the time.

Own quite a few netvue products of the back of buying this doorbell. At first I thought it was great a lot cheaper than a ring and I could buy additional cameras for a fraction of the price from the same brand. However now I have used this for the last couple of months it’s not all happy endings. I get super fast fibre internet in the house, never skipped a beat but this camera doesn’t harness that - when you try speak to someone at the front door but they can’t hear you, would understand a darlek better than someone on the end of this camera. The voice quality is shocking.Also what is quite annoying is that the doorbell button is an led which no-one can see when it’s a bright day. You watch back the footage and people and pressing it all over, some don’t even realise it’s a doorbell. I have gone to the extreme of putting a sign saying where to click!As for a camera it’s good. Quality is reliable and you can see what’s going on. Night vision isn’t the best but acceptable.The app is a bit of a let down for the doorbell - I would love to see a different tone for a movement to someone actually ringing the bell. It comes up with the same notification on your phone so if it’s on silent you wont know which defeats the object of having the camera. Overall 3 stars - could be better and probably a few firmware fixes will improve this dramatically.