I purchased the new ADC doorbell camera, VDB770. It is a big improvement over the sky bell in terms of picture quality and false motion alerts. The field of view is also much better. Overall I am very pleased with the new doorbell.
One concern I have…When I am remote (away from my house), and I receive a push notification to my iPhone 11 pro that the doorbell either detected an object or the doorbell button was pushed, it takes approximately 6-8 seconds for my phone to connect to the doorbell and see the live image in the app. When you add the approximately 5 seconds it takes the doorbell to push a notification to my phone that it initially detected an object, there is about a total of 11-13 seconds from the time the doorbell detected an object to the time I can actually interact with the person at the door. That seems like a long time. Is this normal? Can you ask ADC about this?
Thanks again. Overall, I recommend the new doorbell.
Looking at history, the camera detected motion, then sent off the push notification within about 2 seconds each time. After that, if there is a delay between receiving the notification and acting on it, and viewing live feed, the phones connection (cell vs wifi) will have an impact here.
I am noticing the cameras signal strength is a little low (69% atm) but still above the minimum. Adjusting distance from router or switching from 5Ghz to 2.4 would to increase range of the network would likely have a positive impact. .
You’ll want to look at your upload speed at the install site as well (2.5Mbps is the bare minimum) Keep in mind you have other cameras on the network as well. Depending on what your provided up/down speeds are, this can all have an impact.
Hi, thanks for your review of the new doorbell. I was about to do the same by upgrading from the Skybell Slim, but found at that in August, they released a new firmware update for the skybell which allows you to change the motion detection system from 1.0 to 2.0. Switching to 2.0 (medium sensitivity), for me, was like day and night. My false positives have dropped by at least 95% (my front tree with high winds would set it off), now, it works as it should. When someone walks up to the step, I get an almost instant notification and the clip starts when the person is about about 15 feet away from the door bell.
Did you have 2.0 enabled on your old Skybell? Just wanted to know how the skybell 2.0 compares with the new doorbell thanks
Gotcha. I have 400/20 internet speed and a speed test via my phone or computer at the install site verify I am getting good speeds at the location. I did not think of the delay of the cell connection. I forgot to mention, when I am in my house on WiFi, I am able to connect much quicker to the doorbell, 2-3 seconds. So your observation is spot on. I have a mesh network so the doorbell can connect to either 2.4 or 5. It’s seems to like 5ghz and usually my signal strength of the doorbell is 70-80. Like u mentioned, I think my signal strength is OK. Maybe I can force the doorbell to the 2.4 GHz network and see if that improves things. I don’t really have the ability to move around my router or node. Thoughts? Thanks!
@xeon. I did have the 2.0 enabled and like you mentioned that did help tremendously. The problem I had was the field of vision on the older camera. The way my front porch is configurated I had to use a wedge to mount the camera so that I could I have the doorbell camera look to the left a little more. By doing so it seem to change the height of the field of view. The portrait mode on on the new camera gives a nice vertical view of the entire area in addition to the expanded field of view. I still have to use a wedge, which came with the doorbell camera, but the view is very good. The HDR of the new camera helps with color and the built-in video analytics really does a good job capturing only true positives. It is built solid and just looks better in my opinion. I’m sure it will get better in time as well. You cannot change the color of the LED that is displayed on the doorbell which is not a big deal but I know you could do that on the skybell. @tyler, one more thing I forgot to mention. When I access the camera through the app and interact with someone through the doorbell and speak to them, it seems when I view that recording after the interaction is complete, you cannot really hear my voice coming through the camera like you could on the sky bell. The other persons voice at the doorbell is very clear. Does that make sense?
As far as signal strength goes, physically bringing the node or router would work. If you cant do that, switching to 2.4 could help if range is the issue.
Regarding the video recording, is your audio recorded at all, or is it muffled/garbled? Have you tested this? Is it every time or just sometimes?
I will try to force the doorbell to 2.4 and see if that helps. I will do a little more investigating on the audio issue with the doorbell camera and report back. Thanks again
@tyler Reporting back…Moving the node did nothing in terms of the response time from the camera to my iPhone while remote. My other 4 indoor and outdoor cameras all allow my to view live footage in the app while remote within 5 secs and the doorbell is close to 9 secs. Not sure why the extra time with the new doorbell, but it def is more and I tested it several ways on different phones with different carriers.
In terms of the audio portion on the recorded footage of a doorbell camera interaction, the audio coming from the person at the door is clear and normal, however the audio from me speaking to the person if very muffled and hardly audible. When the interaction actually occurs at the door however, the person at the doorbell reports they can hear me speaking very clearly to them through the doorbell.
Anyways, there’s the latest. Maybe something to look into. Maybe when others get the device, we can see how their device functions and compare.
however the audio from me speaking to the person if very muffled and hardly audible. When the interaction actually occurs at the door however, the person at the doorbell reports they can hear me speaking very clearly to them through the doorbell.
Can you send us an example test clip of this issue? You can send it to support@suretyhome.com
That will help a lot with reporting this to ADC and having them try to recreate.
Moving the node did nothing in terms of the response time from the camera to my iPhone while remote. My other 4 indoor and outdoor cameras all allow my to view live footage in the app while remote within 5 secs and the doorbell is close to 9 secs. Not sure why the extra time with the new doorbell, but it def is more and I tested it several ways on different phones with different carriers.
If you are home on the same wifi lan do you see a similar delay?
Do you have the “Speed up Remote Connection Initiation” checked for that camera? This is found in Live view settings. Video > Settings > Live View (with that camera selected in the select box.)
If you adjust Live View Resolution in that same settings area is there any impact?
@jwcsurety I reset the device and re installed to see if that would help, but it did not.
I sent you two clips in two email like you requested. In regards to your other questions, When I am home on my LAN, my other 4 cameras connect all within 1 sec of requesting the live view. The doorbell takes 3-4 secs, which is much less time than when remote but still 4X’s as long as the other cameras. All cameras obviously connect much faster when on LAN, with my 4 indoor outdoor all connecting within the same time period. ( about 1 second) The doorbell however connects slower than the others whether on LAN or remote. (3 secs on LAN, 8-9 secs remote) I currently have the “Speed up Remote Connection Initiation” checked but I tried it both ways with no change. I also tried all different configurations of the resolution with no change in connection speed.
UPDATE…I deleted the app from my phone, restarted my phone. The connection speed for the doorbell improved speed on LAN to 2 seconds and remote, 5-6 seconds. I will see if it holds those connection speeds. Not sure why that helped, but glad it did.
Thanks I got the example videos. I’m doing some testing as well to see if I can recreate what you describe for the audio.
That’s very odd about the app unless you got an updated version, perhaps. Around 5 seconds or so is basically what I am seeing when trying to connect to a test VDB770 here when out of the LAN.
@jwcsurety. Thanks for looking into it. In terms of the connection time while remote, looks like I just got lucky last night after a fresh install of the app. So far today, while remote, my connection time is near 8-9 seconds. I also get a message at the top of the screen while viewing the live footage, “slow connection may affect stream”. Not sure what that is all about. Checking the connection strength through the desktop version, I am usually 80% or higher. A Internet speed test at the device shows I am getting north of 100 mbps. Also through my router interface, The doorbell is connecting to 5.1 and it’s showing great signal strength. So I’m a little confused. I have ATT cell service so it looks like that must be a connection factor while remote. I don’t know.
So I did some testing and it’s not just your unit, I see the same thing regarding the sound. I think it may be intentional, to capture as much sound from the camera mic as possible without noise from the recipient.
I am just speculating because I haven’t gotten confirmation yet from ADC (waiting on a call back) but it sounds like the cam is actively muffling it, rather than accidentally, I could be wrong though.
I will follow up here as soon as I get clarification.
Did you ever successfully try setting that camera to connect to 2.4 exclusively? Bandwidth is not really the limitation based on what I see, I think connection quality is probably the only hurdle here, and signal strength is reported on the low side, normalized average strength of about 65%. That’s kind of expected on a 5Ghz network for an outdoor device depending how far away it is from the router/access point.
Is your IQ Panel 2+ closer to the ADC-VDB770? I am curious if you can try its access point and if that has any impact.
@jwcsurety Interesting theory…I wonder what ADC will say. I did connect the camera to 2.4 and it does seem to help. I will see how the camera behaves over time and report back. Please keep me updated on the audio issue.
Thanks again. Overall, I do really like the new camera.
So I did some testing and it’s not just your unit, I see the same thing regarding the sound. I think it may be intentional, to capture as much sound from the camera mic as possible without noise from the recipient.
I think you are on to something here. On most IP cameras with a talkback function you get mic “clipping” because the microphone is in the same housing as the speaker and if the gain levels weren’t normalized the public address volume would be deafening and you wouldn’t record any of the surrounding audio. Curious what ADC has to say. Any word on when you might be stocking these?