We are getting much closer to having our house finally framed in and I’m making my final purchases to add to our “old” alarm.com/2gig system. I was ready to pull the trigger on a skybell adc slim model but can’t find them anywhere. One vendor online said they were in stock, but when I ordered it they promptly emailed me and said they would be out of stock until at least september. My wife isn’t a fan of the round hd version and I’m a little leary seeing all the bulging battery pictures as well. Additionally alarming is I see no appearance of skybell on any type of social media since the end of 2017. With all that being said should I just hold off on anything skybell for now? Will the adc slim model ever be in stock again? Will there be another adc option soon? Thanks again guys!
With all that being said should I just hold off on anything skybell for now? Will the adc slim model ever be in stock again? Will there be another adc option soon? Thanks again guys!
We do not currently sell that model and we could not speak for other vendors regarding availability, but production lapses do happen sometimes. We have heard reports through distribution that Skybell had possibly moved their factory. I don’t know if this was the cause of or result of missing production demands.
I’ve not heard anything about other models being supported in the future, but I don’t think Skybell is going anywhere in terms of support by ADC.
If you are referring to the ADC-VDB105 and 106 there are lots of them on eBay, that is where my neighbor got one. (One of the huge advantages of being a DIYer with Surety!) The only downside he noted over mine (ADC-VDB101) is that it switches to black and white at night. In his case he had to go with the slim because of the siding near the front door, so he will just have to live with the night vision issue.
In terms of Skybell’s media presence they are certainly outspent by Ring at every turn, but they seem to be stable for the moment. The reason we are seeing product shortages is probably because in May they switched their manufacturing contract to Key Tronic Corporation out of Spokane, Washington. Key Tronic has been around for decades so I suspect it won’t take them long to ramp up production.
That’s good to hear, just seemed odd to me that they hadn’t made any of that public or any statements. So the round skybell (VDB101) model is much better as far as picture goes than the slim model?
In terms of image quality the ADC-VDB101 has a max res of 1080P. The ADC Slim Line models are 720P. However, overall quality of the stream will be affected by your wifi signal quality.
Both models have the same 180° view, auto-scaling, full-color image sensor. The HD maintains color in low light levels and the slim goes to black and white. I’d say it is more of a personal preference than one being necessarily better than the other. Because of my background in security and law enforcement I prefer to maintain color at all times.
Most CCTV cameras sold today switch to black and white in low light conditions (like the slim) in order to increase sensitivity to infrared light, usually generated by the camera itself through infrared LEDs. With the slim most of the reviews I’ve seen say the range of the infrared illuminators is about 8 feet.
I’d watch some YouTube comparison videos and determine if the reduced footprint of the slim outweighs the color issue for your particular application.
And, as Jason points out above, the maximum streaming resolution of the slim is 720p vs. the HD at 1080p but I can’t really tell the difference between these settings on my HD unit. That’s probably because when in 1080p mode I am dropping some frames of video at the higher bandwidth anyway.