Switchbot isn’t the only company to offer this kind of combo, but to my knowledge it’s the cheapest at $149.99. That compares to the $380 Eufy Smart Display E10 and Video Doorbell E340 combo or pairing the $100 Google Nest Hub with the $180 Google Nest Doorbell Cam. And it has a lot of good ideas beyond the ones I listed above.
Switchbot Smart Video Doorbell
A dedicated video monitor and local storage aren’t enough to save the Switchbot Smart Video Doorbell for most people.
- Video monitor included
- local storage
- Wired and battery power options
- Material Compatibility (Type)
- terrible video quality
- Limited recognition features
- limited aspect ratio
- grating, harsh audio
- finicky software
Then again, it’s a shame that the Smart Video Doorbell is one of the worst smart home cameras I’ve ever used. Its big problem is that the company screwed it up on the actual video doorbell part. The camera produces muddy, terrible video in the wrong aspect ratio, the onboard speakers for both the doorbell and the display are terrible, and the whole thing is powered by smartphone software that’s unreliable. Despite all this, I still think this camera has a place to be. But that spot is definitely not next to my front door.
Good on paper, nowhere else
I had several reasons to check out Switchbot’s smart video doorbell. Its purported 2K resolution video recordings are native by default; It is battery operated but can also be wired; It’s Miter-compatible (with a big asterisk that I’ll get to); It has a 165-degree field of view (again, the asterisk). If you have a paired Switchbot smart lock, the Smart Video Doorbell can read the NFC chip on your smartphone or Switchbot tracking device to unlock it.
However, the indoor monitor component is what really caught my attention. It’s a small, square device with a 4.3-inch display that can either be wall mounted or placed on a table using the built-in kickstand near a power outlet, however, it uses a power cable that’s only four-feet long. Below the display are four buttons, including one to view the camera’s live feed, one to lock or unlock your door (assuming you have a Switchbot smart lock), and one to pop up a list of generic, robotic replies that asks visitors to leave a message or tells them someone will be at the door soon. A feature in the Switchbot app supports user-recorded answers, so, obviously, I fired up YouTube to grab soundbites from “Angels with Dirty Souls,” the fake movie inside. home alone. Then I had my child ring the doorbell so I could answer them. We laughed and laughed.
The display comes with a microSD card slot already filled with a 4GB microSD card for local recording, which I think is enough, but the device officially supports 512GB memory cards for those who need more. It’s nice to have the memory card live inside the indoor device, and it’s not something that every local-first video doorbell has, so congratulations to Switchbot. This is part of why this doorbell works without an internet connection, another nice feature. In fact, you never need to connect the smart video doorbell to an app or the internet, since the monitor comes bundled with it. However, in my testing, the camera didn’t actually record video when I used it without connecting to the Switchbot app.
Beyond the video monitor, Switchbot’s camera goes completely off track. I’m not a fan of the camera’s design, and I can’t afford the scratchy, tiny speakers in it or the video monitor. Its video quality is very poor, and the camera doesn’t produce recordings even close to the 2K resolution Switchbot claims it’s capable of. The ones I tested on a microSD card actually maxed out at 640 x 360. If there are circumstances in which the camera would actually capture 2K video, I didn’t encounter them. I asked Switchbot for clarification on this, and I’ll update this review if I get a reply.
Shortly after setting up the Smart Video Doorbell, I noticed another issue – its 165-degree FOV is great on paper, but Switchbot’s choice to use a 16:9 aspect ratio meant that only the edge of my porch floor was visible, despite the camera being mounted at the lower end of Switchbot’s recommended mounting height of 1.2 to 1.5 meters. Compare this to the Google Nest Doorbell, which uses a square aspect ratio and captures about the same side area as the Switchbot camera, while capturing much more of what’s above and below it.
Not being able to see much of my porch meant I couldn’t check the cameras to see if there were any packages there – one of the main reasons I wanted a video doorbell on my porch in the first place. This wouldn’t be as big of a deal if I could rely on the smart video doorbell to always catch it when someone is delivering a package, but it routinely misses people coming near my porch, especially when they’re in and out rapidly the way many delivery drivers are.
stingy, sluggish software
It’s not much better on the software side of things. The Switchbot app is quick to promote its cloud storage service. Luckily, if you dig deeper into the app’s settings you can turn off its annoying reminders. But then there are other strange options, like both motion detection and recording being turned off by default, or video recording ending after just five seconds.
At home and on the same Wi-Fi network, the live feed takes several seconds to load, sometimes failing. When I left for a few days to review it, I couldn’t load it. And while I could get the live feed to load into the Alexa app, I could never get it to load into Google Home after adding the camera there. This is in stark contrast to video monitors, which show a live feed almost instantly when you press the doorbell button. There was also a constant struggle to load recordings into the Switchbot app, either by navigating to the camera’s timeline through the app, or by tapping the motion notification on my phone. Most smart home security cameras have these issues here and there, but for the Smart Video Doorbell, it was constant.
Third-party support is a bit confusing around. The Smart Video Doorbell has a settings menu called “Third-Party Services,” but that appears to be a way to connect your general Switchbot ecosystem to others. That is to say, when I link the Switchbot to Google Home or Amazon Alexa the doorbell shows up, but not to Samsung SmartThings or Siri Shortcuts. Apple Home is not supported. Additionally, although this package has Matter support, it is only referring to the video monitor’s ability to connect Switchbot Smart Lock to other ecosystems via the universal standard. The Matter has only received smart home camera support in version 1.5 of the standard, and at the time of this writing, only Samsung SmartThings has updated to that version.
Finally, the Switchbot app is a little light on specific smart camera features. You can set a single detection area by resizing a rectangle on the video feed, but there’s no privacy blackout feature. The app has scheduling and a sensitivity slider, but you can’t turn off or adjust the LED lights that flash when someone approaches the camera at night. And human detection is the only specific motion detection category included in the free plan; You’ll have to pay for one of Switchbot’s cloud subscriptions to perform vehicle and pet detection (both things my Netatmo camera has been able to do for free since purchasing it in 2019). A camera costs as little as $3.99 per month—not bad!—and that doesn’t include package tracking.
Who might this doorbell be for?
All my complaints aside, this makes for a nice video doorbell. The local storage, the fact that it works without Wi-Fi, the easy setup and its Switchbot Smart Lock integration are all great things. But if you want all the smart home bells and whistles that come with many smart home security cameras then the problems I’ve listed make it a poor choice.
But there is one type of person for whom a smart video doorbell may be ideal. Its indoor video monitor makes it ideal for non-tech-savvy people, especially those with limited mobility, as it means they can see who is at their door without getting up, and they don’t have to resort to an app to do so. And if you don’t care about ever recording and just want a fancy digital peephole and intercom, it’s great for that too. Then again, poor video quality, inconsistent event sensing, and fancy algorithmic detection features don’t really matter.
But everyone else should look elsewhere. There’s a lot of competition from Eufy, Reolink, and other companies, whose cameras also prioritize local video storage, but they offer better video quality, offer more features, and can detect, record, and show events with greater reliability. I’ve never used a smart home security camera that I thought was perfect, doorbell or otherwise, but the Switchbot Smart Video Doorbell misses the mark in several areas, making it the go-to doorbell camera for almost no one.
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