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A remote controlled doorbell with live video doesn't need video processing. It doesn't need to be digital. It doesn't need to be high resolution unless you're w

• groby_b 6y ago
  At this point you're saying "if something that didn't have most of the features of a Ring camera would be built, it would be much simpler". That's a tautology. It's also ignoring market realities. We had doorbell systems with crappy analogue cameras, and nobody wanted them because they were overpriced for what they did, and what they did wasn't particularly useful. (The "good enough" low-res analog cams made for great guessing game who's at the door, but they didn't actually suffice for recognizing who was at the door without them plastering their face right in front of the camera) And this is true for other consumer electronics too - of course you can build something inferior with less effort. But nobody wants that. (I mean, it's not like modern systems get built because somebody just wants to lose some money) This leaves the conclusion that you're mostly arguing for it because you liked the developer "simplicity", and... it wasn't simple. It became simpler once we introduced computers. It became simpler as we built abstraction layers on top. Yes, current systems are harder to understand top-to-bottom, and we paid for ease of development with increased systems complexity. But the rose-colored glasses of a "better past" are just that. Yes, we could understand the things we built more easily, but we couldn't build what we build today in that past.