A cheap smart video doorbell with offline storage and 2K video
If you don’t want to pay monthly fees for your doorbell, then the Ezviz DB2 is a good choice. Thanks to its microSD card slot, you can add up to 256GB of offline storage to this camera. While the doorbell may be a little ugly and quite large, it shoots excellent video, works with wired chimes and has a little delay in video chats.
Pros
- No monthly fees
- Excellent video quality
- Local storage
- Works with Alexa, Google
Cons
- Have to take it off to charge
- Large and a little ugly
- Not 2-way with Alexa or Google Assistant
If you don’t want to get lumbered with subscription fees for your video doorbell, one with offline storage makes sense, such as the low-cost Ezviz DB2.
Although priced as a more budget security camera, this doorbell shoots video with a 2K resolution, can record to a microSD card, and it can be powered or run from a battery.
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This doorbell lacks the more advanced features of the competition, such as the Ring Video Doorbell 4 or the Google Nest Doorbell (Battery), but it gets the basics right.
Read on in our full Ezviz DB2 review to find out how…
Ezviz DB2: Design and installation
First thing, don’t get the Ezviz DB2 confused with the Ezviz DB2 Pro. Both look the same, but the Pro version shoots at a slightly higher resolution of 2544 x 1888, compared to the 2000 x 1504 on this model.
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The doorbell comes in two parts. First, there’s the internal chime that plugs into a socket in your home. This acts as the wireless booster to the doorbell and also contains the microSD card slot for offline storage.
There’s no memory card in the box, but the system supports cards of up to 256GB in size, which will give you plenty of storage for doorbell alerts.
Then, there’s the main doorbell unit. We’re used to seeing battery-powered models being bigger than their wired counterparts, but the Ezviz DB2 is truly massive (150 x 58 x 32mm) – that’s far bigger than anything Google or Nest makes, and larger than the Eufy Video Doorbell 2K.
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This is also one of the uglier doorbells that we’ve seen. Both the bulk and two-tone finish make this doorbell look a little cheaper than the competition.
n its favour, the large doorbell button is clearly marked, so you won’t have any confused visitors wondering what to press.
Ezviz provides three wall mount adaptors in the box: a flat one, a horizontal wedge (to tilt the camera left or right) and a vertical wedge (to tilt the camera down).
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These are particularly handy if you’re going to wire the doorbell, as you can work with your existing doorbell placement and reposition the camera to look where you need it to.
Ezviz has cable adaptors in the box, which you connect to your existing doorbell.
Via the existing doorbell circuit, the DB2 will automatically top-up the internal battery, plus the doorbell can ring a wired chime if you have one.
If you don’t have an existing doorbell, the Ezviz DB2 can be used entirely wire-free.
You do need to remove the entire doorbell when it’s time to charge, as the battery is not replaceable as it is in Ring devices.
Ezviz DB2: Features
It’s relatively easy to get the doorbell powered up and connected to the chime, after which the camera appears in the Ezviz app much like any other camera in the range.
As this is a battery-powered model, tapping the main thumbnail in the app takes you to a status page that shows you recent events.
Here, you can tap the Live View option to see what the DB2 can see. The live view page is very similar to the one for other Ezviz cameras, such as the C8PF.
You get a list of thumbnail icons for recent events below the main action, and you can start a two-way talk, grab a snapshot or record your own video.
Video is split into two, with a choice to view cloud video or that stored on your SD card. Cloud costs between $5.99 a month for a single camera with seven days of video playback, and $15.99 a month for 30-days of event history for up to four cameras.
That’s relatively expensive compared to the competition, and sticking with offline video seems to make more sense.
As well as the thumbnails below the live view, you can view video history in a handy list of thumbnails and download any clips that you want to save.
These are saved to the app’s album; if you want clips on your phone, you have to go into the Ezviz album and then save them to your phone. That’s one step too many.
As a battery-powered device, motion detection is powered via the PIR motion sensor. Unlike with Ring’s devices, you can’t control which segments of the motion sensor are active, only the sensitivity.
This generally meant that we had more notifications with this doorbell than when using Ring.
You can turn on Human Shape Detection (why not just call this people detection) if you only want to get alerts about people.
There’s also a Loitering Detection, which will sound an alarm if motion is detected for longer than the set period. Given that you can only choose times between one and 15 seconds, this feature isn’t really that useful.
If you want to cut down on the number of alerts that you get, you can add a notification schedule into the app; the doorbell will continue to record, but you won’t get messages sent to your phone.
When someone presses the doorbell, your internal chime (if you have one) rings, plus the Ezviz wireless chime (with choice of ringtones), and your phone rings.
By rings, we mean it rings properly, sounding like an incoming voice call. That’s better than a simple ping notification that’s easy to miss, which you get with Ring and Nest.
Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa integration mean you can stream footage from your doorbell to a smart device.
With Alexa, you can turn on doorbell announcements, so your speakers will act as chimes. Unlike with Ring doorbells, you can’t answer the doorbell from an Echo device.
Ezviz DB2: Performance
We found the Ezviz DB2 quick to respond, both with motion alerts and notifications. Having our phone actually ring meant that we caught more callers than we normally do.
The delay in a conversation was only a few seconds, which is similar to other doorbells that we’ve tested.
Video quality is very good during the day. While a 2K resolution sounds impressive, at 2000 x 1504 isn’t that much different to 1080p.
Ultimately, the quality of the compression used makes a bigger difference, and Ezviz uses H.265. The result is that the image is sharp and detailed right into the back of the video.
At night, the camera turns on IR lights and shoots in black and white. Range of these lights isn’t so good, and the background rapidly fades to black: it looks like an arty detective film. People that come up to your door look clear.
Battery life is quoted at around four months, but that really depends on how many alerts you get. With a small front yard, our camera picked up a lot of motion, reducing battery life considerably.
