August Home's New $199 Doorbell Cam Pro With HD Video and Built-In Floodlight Now Shipping

It looks like this is the only video doorbell on the market that doesn't also use an IR camera.

 

Ahem. SkyBell HD. Full color at night.

Oh, and monthly fees with SkyBell HD = $0.

 

lol at "features a built-in floodlight". If by floodlight you mean small LED in the August logo. Skybell has been doing this, and doing it well, since the beginning, and with no monthly fees. The only added benefit I see in the August doorbell is the Hindsight feature.

 

Yeah, that's not going to attract attention to your house -- a floodlight being emitted by your doorbell. I think I'd prefer infrared in this scenario.

 

Pretty expensive for a door Bell. I have one. Not worth the cash

 

No HomeKit = No Buy

And I think I'd rather have infrared.

 

Why would it draw attention to your house? It only comes on when motion is detected at your door. It’s not like it’s always on.

 

I didn't realize that the light was motion-activated. That makes more sense.

However, I still feel like infrared would have an advantage because it would allow you to always be able to see the surroundings at night without a light needing to be activated. Sure, you won't see colors with infrared; but I'd rather always be able to see discretely with infrared as opposed someone knowing they're likely being watched because a light is shining. Personal preference, I guess.

 

I don’t want a bright light – even a bright LED – shining in the face of every visitor who approaches my door at night. I think if that happened to me just once at a friend’s house I’d be reluctant to go back.

 

Built-in flood light? Meh. I'd like to have a HomeKit smart doorbell that has a built-in taser…. for all those solicitors!

 

No mention of FOV, here nor on their website.
$50/year is too much anyway. Ring is $20 less, and night vision/infrared looks awesome on my ring pro.
Pass!

 

I have the previous, non-Pro, version of this. I’m sort of “grudgingly satisfied”, I guess. They advertise that you can answer your door remotely and talk to whoever’s at the door, but in practice by the time I get the notification, launch the app, and the app connects to the camera, they’re gone. Mebbe that’s my laggy, 3-year-old iPhone 6 Plus, but I don’t think so. I will say that even on mine the camera is good and captures good images, especially of the guy who nonchalantly looked over my UPS package before he walked off with it (the nice video, and still images from it, led to nothing, naturally).

When I bought it they claimed “future HomeKit compatibility”, and when I emailed them said they were hardware capable from the beginning and it would just be a future software update, once they had the manpower to get it done. That was a year ago; never happened.

I think the floodlight is the circle in the upper left corner of the device, not the illuminated logo in the center. Mine has the illuminated logo. Is the floodlight a visible-light LED? That shines in your visitors’ faces? Hmm. Woulda thought they’d use IR.

My last comment on the thing is that it is not obvious to all visitors that it’s a doorbell (switch) at all. Mine is the dark brown version, and people don’t seem to understand it’s a button they can press. It doesn’t say “press me” in any way. I made this comment to August too; guess they didn’t believe me.

 

All your complaints are mine. I had the original August Doorbell when it launched, and even helped August to a great degree troubleshoot their hardware. However, update after update never resolved that it was way too slow to connect, way too laggy, - and yes - people couldn't even figure out it was a doorbell due to its terrible design. At the end of the day, the doorbell needs to look like a doorbell. Until doorbell cams are fully prevalent in the world, it's going to confuse a lot of people.

And believe, it's nothing to do with your iPhone 6 Plus.

I switched to a SkyBell HD and life has been good.

 

I have the previous version. It works maybe 50% of the time due to weak wifi chip. Hopefully they have fixed this in this new Pro version. On the plus side, when it does work, it does open the August locks. There’s also a lot of lag but I think that’s due to the weak wifi chip inside. I ended up having to mount a Nest Outdoor cam outside in order to get better notification of when someone is at the door but it’s a hassle to switch between apps to open the door. If only there was HomeKit comparability and better wifi chips.