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Thinking of getting a Doorbot right now. What's wrong with it? Looks really convenient from the promotional video.

by zapt02 12y ago

XorNot 12y ago
Terrible video - it only supports 802.11b (so it'll drag the rest of your wireless down potentially too). Wi-fi range seemed short. The Android client has been broken since we got it (and never fixed) - you get no notifications on it. No local LAN support - everything tries to go over the internet, and their servers are unreliable. Lag time of something like 30 minutes is not uncommon. Doesn't integrate with a lot of existing doorbell/intercom systems (ostensibly it'll work with AC ones, it didn't work with mine which is admittedly some type of DC - but simple enough, short to ring and all that). It is all round a terrible product which was launched in an unusable state, with really poor design decisions.
- bravo22 12y ago
  What's your new doorbell system? Is there a brand name? How's the battery life on door bot?
  - XorNot 12y ago
    As it stood we couldn't use the Doorbot with our doorbell system at all (it was installed ~2005, some no-name chinese brand). Hooking it up led to the Doorbot constantly ringing it. EDIT: Actually I'm misremembering - it did hook up just fine, but pressing the button on the Doorbot led to it rining the doorbell continuously for some reason. No real idea about battery life - its been sitting on a bench somewhere for the past year or so, since we gave up when we realized it was going to be either the Doorbot or the doorbell which actually rang, and found the notifications on phones were unreliable. We also realized that at home, you usually don't have your phone on you or even necessarily nearby - hence the doorbell. The one nice thing about the Doorbot was they were trying to solve the battery issue by letting you draw power of the doorbell circuit - but since ours isn't AC (or has to low of a "ring" current) we couldn't use that.
    - bravo22 12y ago
      Gotcha. Thanks for the info.
joenathan 12y ago
I second the position of don't walk away from DoorBot, run. In the past month it has never rung my phone, I can check the history in the app of when the doorbell was rung, but it never triggered my phone. In the off chance it does ring, the video quality is horrible and distorted, and there is a great lag. Even with all that said, I'm still understating how bad it is. There also appears to be no progress being made to resolve these issues. Just look at the reviews for the android app.

Thinking of getting a Doorbot right now. What's wrong with it? Looks really convenient from the promotional video.

by zapt02 12y ago

Thinking of getting a Doorbot right now. What's wrong with it? Looks really convenient from the promotional video.

Terrible video - it only supports 802.11b (so it'll drag the rest of your wireless down potentially too). Wi-fi range seemed short. The Android client has been broken since we got it (and never fixed) - you get no notifications on it. No local LAN support - everything tries to go over the internet, and their servers are unreliable. Lag time of something like 30 minutes is not uncommon. Doesn't integrate with a lot of existing doorbell/intercom systems (ostensibly it'll work with AC ones, it didn't work with mine which is admittedly some type of DC - but simple enough, short to ring and all that). It is all round a terrible product which was launched in an unusable state, with really poor design decisions.

bravo22 12y ago
What's your new doorbell system? Is there a brand name? How's the battery life on door bot?
- XorNot 12y ago
  As it stood we couldn't use the Doorbot with our doorbell system at all (it was installed ~2005, some no-name chinese brand). Hooking it up led to the Doorbot constantly ringing it. EDIT: Actually I'm misremembering - it did hook up just fine, but pressing the button on the Doorbot led to it rining the doorbell continuously for some reason. No real idea about battery life - its been sitting on a bench somewhere for the past year or so, since we gave up when we realized it was going to be either the Doorbot or the doorbell which actually rang, and found the notifications on phones were unreliable. We also realized that at home, you usually don't have your phone on you or even necessarily nearby - hence the doorbell. The one nice thing about the Doorbot was they were trying to solve the battery issue by letting you draw power of the doorbell circuit - but since ours isn't AC (or has to low of a "ring" current) we couldn't use that.
  - bravo22 12y ago
    Gotcha. Thanks for the info.

joenathan 12y ago

I second the position of don't walk away from DoorBot, run. In the past month it has never rung my phone, I can check the history in the app of when the doorbell was rung, but it never triggered my phone. In the off chance it does ring, the video quality is horrible and distorted, and there is a great lag. Even with all that said, I'm still understating how bad it is. There also appears to be no progress being made to resolve these issues. Just look at the reviews for the android app.