this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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To expand on a previous poster asking about local only devices in general...

Has anyone found a reliable local only doorbell? I've been meaning to replace my Ring doorbell ever since Amazon bought them. I finally bought a Reolink WiFi doorbell and it looks great and was really easy to set up without Internet or their app, BUT...

It doesn't work. Capture to FTP gives me nice clear images but the videos are corrupt, maybe truncated. I can't even open them with VLC.

I tried installing an SD card and then moving the SD card to my laptop. The videos on there play for a few seconds and then freeze.

Reolink support hasn't responded to any of my questions, which is another minus for them.

I did notice that the unit seems to run very hot. Did I just get a dud?

So are there any alternatives? Should I just try buying another of these? At least returns (Amazon, Walmart) are easy.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I can't remember if I had to have an Amcrest account to set it up or not, as soon as basic setup was done, I blocked it from the internet. So it definitely doesn't have to phone home at least after the setup phase.