I was tempted to buy the belkin at $249, but the reviews were so mixed. Recently woot offered them for $50, so I was willing to take a chance at that price, and replaced a Ring doorbell with the Belkin Wemo.
The reasons the reviews are mixed is because of the prerequsites. You have to have a network with strong connectivity to the doorbell (I use a deco mesh system) You have to have a homekit hub (an appletv, home pod, etc…) and you have to have an apple plan that includes storage. (I have an apple family plan)
If you have all of these in place already, then you can install this doorbell, and it just works. For $40 it is a steal, and you don’t have to pay an additional monthly fee for full functionality like you do for the Ring and most others.
Thanks for the honest review. I have a Ring wired doorbell currently and paying $40 for the yearly plan. I already have iCloud storage, and the whole Apple ecosystem so this seems like a no brainer.
Thanks for the review. I have a Nest Hello doorbell wired in front, and Nest Doorbell (battery) on my rear entrance (cheap way to put a camera back there). I presume this is wired only, or I’d consider for another location, the Nest cameras aren’t Apple Home compatible.
One caveat though: my Wemo Mini Outlet switches have strong wi-fi reception, but their Wemo app has been buggy as hell … going offline at least once or twice a year in my experience. (Also, Belkin has not updated the iOS Wemo app in many years, so it lacks 70% of the things the Feit app offers.) Like many of these smart home services, Wemo switched from a “local reception” to “must sign in and use the Cloud” model. Check the Reddit subreddits, there have been periods when it goes MIA, messages to support go unanswered, but then many people taking to Twitter “suddenly” they wake up and restore service. I finally threw in the towel, use the Wemos for non-critical items, and use Feit smart outlet switches for lights. The Feits have weak wi-fi so I had to install an extender upstairs. It helps with a Feit security light/camera combo about 3m away.
I’m frankly getting a bit sick of the Google ecosystem. Chromecasts work but casting to a speaker group fails now more than than it works, and that’s one of teh selling points of having little Nest Minis and Home smart speakers throughout the house. Anything that’s Apple Homekit compatible is appealing. But my Nest Hello doorbell has been 99.999% reliable.