Swann - Buddy 4k wireless video doorbell is great product. No monthly fee, no one else looking at you video, makes it very secure. Very easy setup and with the small speaker for the chime makes it very flexible if you have a large house. I do wish it up loaded to the Swann security system as well but it's still very easy to work with my phone and extremely clear and powerful.

I replaced my old doorbell camera with this new Swaan camera and it has a good quality Cristal clear view for my main home entrance. The doorbell was easy to install, however the anti- tamper screw didn’t work for my installation, the screw is very tiny and did not hold the doorbell cam like expected, other doorbells have a better system for anti-tamper. One of the best feature of this camera is the full coverage head to toe view, this is very useful when delivery drivers leave packages on my doorsteps. The 4k ultra HD it’s Cristal clear day or night, the instructions stated that you can view color camera at night , but for the past few days testing it , it only shows the videos at night on black/ white. The camera also includes a 32GB SD to save clips without paying any fees, you can upgrade the SD card up to 128GB. The true detect works as expected with the heat, motion and person, vehicles , packages, etc, some of this features will not work unless you pay for a swaan plan, you get a free trial of the swaan plan included. The app is easy to use it has an automatically playback of your cam when you open the app and it had 4 modes : Home/ Away/ Night/ schedules. The portable battery indoor chime can also be install in a permanent location of the inside of your house, it has 6 melodies to choose from. This wireless doorbell takes up to 6 hours to fully charge when you first set it up and depends on your motion settings, the camera charge could drain the battery faster than normal. Pro: wireless / 4k camera/ full coverage view / 2 way audio Cons : anti tamper screw/ night vision/ true detect error notifications shows people motions as vehicle motions on the app.

Easy to install and setup. Liked that this one has the wired option to existing doorbell. It doesnt ring your existing doorbell, but comes with a doorbell ringer. Got this doorbell onsale and for $100 is definitely worth it.

The Swann Buddy4K is the perfect solution (from a trusted brand) if you want the convenience of a video doorbell without paying a monthly fee or depending on cloud-based storage. I have been using a Swann Enforcer DVR based camera system for 3 years and it is great, but I wanted a video doorbell to be able to speak with visitors and get a better view of my front door. ...Pros... 1. Local storage via a swappable micro-SD card (32GB included). 2. The Swann Security App is easy to use. It guides you thru pairing and setup. Answering the door, live view, and recordings are easy to access. There are also lots of settings (chime volume, speaker volume, microphone sensitivity, motion detection sensitivity and boundaries, do not disturb). 3. 2-way audio lets you hear what’s going on and answer the door without having to be there or open it. 4. The install kit includes anchors for masonry and AA batteries for the chime. The metal mounting bracket is sturdy and has a security screw to make removing the doorbell harder for a thief or vandal. 5. The included wireless chime has different tones and is much louder than my old doorbell at full volume (you can also add extra chimes if needed). 6. Recorded videos are clear and not washed out during the day. 7. Night vision works well in low light and there is not a lot of noise, but it is in black and white. 8. Stays charged via existing doorbell wiring and transformer. 9. Doorbell button is clearly marked and has an illuminated ring around it (red when triggered by motion, blue once pressed). ...Things to consider... 1. I had to play with the motion zones and sensitivity a bit to capture motion at the range I wanted (I still ended up with a few false alerts mixed in). Unfortunately, advanced motion alerts (packages, cars, etc.) are only available if you pay a fee (the cost also extends cloud backup video storage from 1 day to 60 days). 2. While the Buddy4K can charge from the existing wiring, it does not trigger the existing doorbell chime (if you have one), but the included wireless chime works really well. 3. This was not an issue for my install, but no angled wedge is included for doorbells mounted on a wall to the side of the door (verses directly next to the door). The viewing angle is pretty wide, but a wedge really helps capture more of the approach to the door or if someone is trying to stand back to avoid being seen. Swann does offer a 30-degree wedge on the accessories section of their website that should help.

The SwannBuddy 4k is a good video doorbell but it could be better. I’ve been wanting a video doorbell but I have a very narrow trim around my door. The most popular systems wouldn’t fit. This one looked like it would fit based on the dimensions so I picked it up. It’s got a narrow footprint so it did just fit. There is just a small quick start guide in box. The full manual is online. I know this is a way to save money but I really prefer something in the box that does a better job of explaining how the product works. Even a quick reference for the different functions of the status light would be useful. There are several mounting options from screws to double sided mounting tape. My application has metal trim around my door. I did not want to put holes in it so I used the mounting tape. You have to wait a day before you install the camera if you use the tape as it needs time to get to full strength adhesion. It seems like it is a strong tape. We will see how it holds up in the elements. There is a very small screw on the mount that locks the camera to the mount. This is a bit of a hassle. You need to make sure you have a small screwdriver and keep it in a convenient place. My biggest issue with installation is the doorbell needs an angled installation block. The trim on my door is slightly canted away from the door. Because of this, half my front step is not visible. An angled block that points the camera towards the center of the steps would fix this problem. Battery life is another issue. I had this running for about 5 days before I wrote this review. In that time, the doorbell lost 60% of its battery. At that rate, it needs to be charged every 2 weeks. There were quite a few notifications caused by vehicles driving by my house. I have been playing with the sensor sensitivity and active zones for the camera to lessen notifications and make it so it only detects people and packages. Out of the box, it is set at a very low sensitivity. In fact, it missed the mail person people walking thru our yard 2x before I increased the sensitivity. I think I almost have it set properly. The bell is not super loud. I cannot hear it throughout the house. Only on the first floor. Thankfully, the app sends notifications to my Apple watch so I am notified that way. There are several tones that can be selected but changing them is not intuitive. It took me a few tries. The app is pretty good. It has a very clean and fairly intuitive interface. I have the image quality set to medium. At this setting, the quality of images is good but not great. I’m sure setting it to high would improve that but also increase clip download time and make live view a little choppy. There is a heavy fisheye effect in videos and photos. Live video also takes 10-15 seconds to load. This is long enough for someone to leave before the video loads. The intercom feature hasn’t worked well for me. When talking to someone thru the camera, the sound is choppy. The doorbell is maybe 10-15 feet away from my router. The app says there is 100% signal. There is also quite a bit of latency. It takes a few seconds for my voice to be heard on the doorbell speaker. Not sure what the issue is here. When doing updates, there is no progress bar. Only a spinning graphic. Because of this you have no idea how long the update is going to take. The one firmware update I did never seemed to end. The spinning graphic just kept spinning for over ½ and hour. Eventually I opened my door and received a notification telling me the camera was working. At that point I closed the app and reopened it to see that it was updated and working properly. The device includes an SD card for local video storage and cloud access to that storage. There is a $10/month or $99/year subscription available. This allows 30 days of cloud storage, priority help, discounts and a few advanced options. If you don’t see the value in this, the doorbell still has the basic functionality you would expect. This doorbell is part of a much larger ecosystem. Swann has full security systems that can also be controlled with this app. They also have a home monitoring plan that can call the police for you in the event of an emergency. All in all, this is a good system. I think with a few updates, it could be great. Would I recommend this to a friend… Maybe. It is affordable and doesn’t require a subscription to operate. it is also very good and notifications. These are big pluses. However, dealing with the latency issues can be annoying and battery life is a concern. If they can fix these issues, this is a no brainer purchase. For now, it’s a maybe.