Vuebell smart door intercom, video doorbell HD, Wi-Fi doorbell with camera, night version: IR motion detection alarm for iOS/Android

I really, really wanted to like this, as the potential is there to be an excellent bit of kit.Pros* It works,* Customer service is quick and I can't fault them,* You can turn on the motion detection, set the time period for motion detection, identify the motion detection zones on the camera picture and the motion sensitivity via the app. The app has lots of nice little features that I appreciate.* The daylight video image is crisp and clear for such a titchy thing. Although at night it's a bit poorer than I'd like.Cons* If the sun comes out, it notifies me, if a car turns around outside my house at night it notifies me. It appears to be triggered by light intensity, a serious pita. It's supposed to detect between 3-5m of the bell, so if you have a small garden or a door on the street, the notifications will probably drive you batty. So you'll need to check out the settings in the app.* The app needs a bit of work and the sound quality via the app is incredibly poor. If you intend to use the app then check out the reviews for the app on your platform of choice.* Visitors think the button on it is the actual doorbell, so they end up knocking when I don't answer the door because they've not actually rung the doorbell.* There's a skill for Alexa Show (search netvue or vuebell) , Alexa found two devices, one is the actual doorbell (identified by it's device number that's listed on the app) and another called doorbell (no idea). Unfortunately when you ask Alexa to show the doorbell, it hangs 'waiting for netvue'. I'm not alone in this as most of the reviews for the Alexa skill say the same thing. They seem to have cracked the Alexa skill for the cameras they sell, just not the doorbell. It seems these two devices are both cameras and alexa can't cope with it. It's a basic bug that should be easily fixed. If you rename the camera in the app (I called it front door camera) then Alexa will sometimes show it for about a minute - there's a lot of buffering, pixelation and 'waiting for netvue' messages and sometimes it's only seen as a blur as it hangs. It's very rare it actually shows the picture clearly* The doorbell ringer is battery operated and there's only one of themIf I could add things to their development wishlist, I'd want:* A PoE cable and the ability to capture the pictures and vid on my local network,* When the doorbell rings, Alexa is triggered and you can see the vid on the screen and if you could use Alexa rather than the app to speak to the visitor, that would be fantastic.* The ringers plug into sockets and more of them!* Doing something about the doorbell button.I don't think this is a bad choice but it's not as good as it could be. Whether you buy it depends on what features you want to use.

Edit: A discussion with support indicates that cloud services are complimentary for a period (a month) and then charges kick in. I found out that the monthly charge for video is $2, which is two-thirds of Ring's charge, but can't discover the 24/7 recording charge until trying it for free and then having that run out. However, still captures triggered by motion detection have started working again, and if this is normal (i.e. not because I kicked up a fuss) then I am happy with that and raised the star rating accordingly. indeed, I might be tempted to cough a subscription if I know I can cancel at any time and revert to just stills.Original comment follows...This doorbell was pretty good: did what it says on the tin, pushed notifications to the phone without getting in the way. Magic. But I say 'was' because not it's a uselss pile of junk unless I pay for cloud services no the free trial period has expired. Trial? No-one mentioned that when I bought it. Worse, I can take out a subscription from the phone, but to do so I have to agree to buy the server BEFORE being told how much it's going to cost me. WTF?!?! Seriously? I don't think so...OK, you think, perhaps cloud storage of videos isn't too important - you can still access the motion-detect stills locally, right? No, you cannot see any historical images at all unless you pay this unknown ongoing price. I regret not paying extra and going with Ring, now.[I note that my order was for this doorbell plus cloud storage, so I've already paid for this feature that's now been terminated on me. Very unhappy indeed.]

First of all, this is no slur on Amazon. They have been great in accepting the return of this product. I run a business from home & thought this would be great for my office door. Got it all set up fairly easily & at first things were good. A week or so in the app started to play up giving motion detections with nobody present (bell is located on a side wall of the house in an alleyway facing another house) I altered to motion detection settings, but then had more problems. The app will lock up showing images from the previous night & will not allow you to answer an incoming call. The app will also not always ring the phone! you may just get a motion detection.In principle, this is a great idea but sadly it is greatly let down by the software. The support company are based on the eastern side of the US so sending emails from the UK only has a slim window of catching a same-day reply. Sadly, in my experience with their customer support. I did not feel supported at all. The agent was polite enough, that is when I could get a reply & often had to send emails & requests twice. I was asked to install/uninstall the app & clear the cache which I did & even did a full wipe/reset of my phone, but sadly the issues soon reappear. It was at this point the support team said they would send a note to their developer with no idea of a timeline & a request for such was ignored. I really wanted this product to work well but sadly with the software issues & lack of help from support. I felt I had no choice but to ask Amazon if I could return it, which being a fulfilled by Amazon was not an issue.