Buy PoE Video Doorbells Now? Get Your Comprehensive Buying Guide in 2020
If you’ve got Cat 5/6 Ethernet cables in your house, and wanna pick a smart doorbell to watch out for your home, PoE doorbells would be the best option.
You won’t waste your existing Ethernet cables. And most importantly, PoE video doorbell cameras offer you much more stable Internet connection, compared with the wireless video doorbells.
PoE smart doorbells only require a Cat 5/6 Ethernet cable to realize both power and Internet communication, which reduces the wires needed, and simplifies the installation process.
Picking the best PoE video doorbells among hundreds of options would be quite troublesome. But we have done the research for you.
Our smart doorbell experts have gone through a lot of reviews written by reputed tech editors, check out real customers’ reviews on Amazon, and even tested the doorbells by ourselves. And finally –
We’ve summarized the all-around PoE doorbells buying guide:
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Best PoE Doorbell Selection:
#1. Pick Best PoE Doorbells Within Minutes
- Smooth PoE Connection
- High Definition & Night Vision
- Motion Detection Alerts
- Secure Video Storage
- ONVIF/IFTTT Compatible
1. Pick PoE Video Doorbells with at Least Cat 6 Ethernet Connection
Smart doorbells with Cat 6 Ethernet connection can provide you speed performance of up to 250 MHz compared with Cat 5/5e (100 MHz).
In other words, you’ll get faster connection speed when you opt to Cat 6 PoE video doorbell.
And Cat 6 Ethernet cable plugs and ports are compatible with Cat 5/5e.
2. Choose PoE IP Doorbells with High Definition and Night Vision
A good PoE powered doorbell doesn’t just provide clear day-time videos, but also sharp images at night.
Based on the statistics, about 65% of home burglaries happen in the daytime. But home intrusion happens at night typically would end up being much more dangerous.
That’s why you should insist on getting a PoE IP video doorbell that can shoot crystal images both day and night.
If someone breaks into your home, your smart PoE Ethernet doorbell can capture the intruder’s clear face so that you can keep the videos or images as evidence.
PoE doorbells with 1080p Full HD and at least 15ft night vision would be a nice bet since you can see everything outside your front door easily.
3. PoE Smart Doorbells with Motion Detection Alerts
You don’t need to keep staring at your smartphone to access your PoE doorbell to check if there is anything unusual.
With motion detection alerts, you can only be alerted when there are motion events. Upon you receive the app push alerts, you can tap your phone to see who and what triggered the alerts.
For example, you will receive instant alerts when a visitor presses your PoE doorbells or triggers the sensor. You can open your app to talk to the visitor in real time with the two-way audio function after getting the alerts.
4. Pay Attention to the Video Storage
Typically, there are 2 most popular video storage ways for a smart video doorbell: cloud and local SD card storage.
PoE doorbells that offer cloud storage sometimes need you to pay monthly fees so that you can store and play back the motion-triggered videos remotely.
If you don’t want to pay monthly fees, you can check some nice options for video doorbells without subscription here.
The most outstanding feature of PoE doorbell with cloud storage is that you don’t need to worry about losing video clips even the thief stole your smart “guardian”. You can still keep the videos as evidence if your doorbell got stolen.
But the cost is that you’ll need to pay extra fees for such a secure video storage way. (The monthly subscription fee ranges from $3 to $20.)
PoE IP doorbell cameras with SD card storage free you from binding monthly contracts for accessing the recorded videos.
You can get the free local video storage simply by inserting the SD card into your smart video doorbell.
But the worrying point is that you will lose everything recorded on the SD card if the thief stole your doorbell. You wouldn’t have clear videos to hand over the police to catch the bad guy!
So PoE video doorbells with cloud storage would be a much more secure way for video storage.
5. Check the Third-Party Compatibility
A truly connected smart PoE doorbell should work with third-party smart devices, such as smart locks, security cameras, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, etc.
By picking an ONVIF PoE doorbell, you can connect it to other devices seamlessly.
For example, when you connect your doorbell to a smart lock, you can open the door for your visitors via your smartphone without getting up from your comfortable sofa.
By linking your doorbell to Alexa, you can give your command to Alexa to see the live view of your doorbell.
You can find the IFTTT and ONVIF compatibility details of your PoE doorbell on the FAQ part on doorbell online store.
In order to save your time on checking the best PoE doorbells on the market, we’ve listed the most popular option that has been tested and reviewed by our security experts and tech editors from top-tier media.
#2. Smart PoE Doorbells for Your Choice
Here we list the most popular PoE doorbell option among the customers and we will add other options once we have tested other doorbells.
If you have any suggestions, you can leave them in the comment below.
Ring Video Doorbell Elite: An Excellent PoE Guardian
The reason why we choose Ring PoE video doorbell Elite is that it provides 2 connection ways: PoE and WiFi connection.
Usually, the Ring Video Doorbell Elite is connected to Ethernet to get both power and Internet transmission.
However, if you don’t have PoE currently, you can still use this doorbell as a wireless video doorbell type.
Ring PoE Video Doorbell Elite Smart Features Overview
- Two-way audio with noise cancellation
- 1080p Full HD and excellent night vision
- Customizable motion zones
- Instant motion detection alerts
- Support cloud storage
You can watch the video below shared by Ring to see how to install this PoE video doorbell.
With this Elite recessed doorbell it can’t be angled down and too much blue sky is in the view, over exposing the image.
Hi there, the Elite is designed for flush installation. If you want an angled doorbell, you can choose Ring Video Doorbell or Pro.
If you want to choose another PoE doorbell, Doorbird doorbell is also a nice choice.
* Ring cameras list their operating temperatures (in very very fine print) as going down to minus 20 degrees Celsius. Here in Canada it frequently gets minus 30 or colder. I would not recommend a doorbell that only works half the time in the winter.
* I contacted a local security dealer about the Doorbird doorbell and was told that Doorbell only has 720p devices and the video quality of those was sub-par. Since Doorbird does not have a 1080p option, the dealer did not recommend them.
Hello there,
We will keep updating this post once other new PoE doorbell models that can work in the colder environment are available.
ONVIF support for the Ring Elite?
Hello John, after we have done a detailed research, currently Ring Elite doesn’t support ONVIF.
Only Doorbird doorbell supports ONVIF.
Thank you for your reminding 🙂
Hi,
Your article states ” PoE video doorbells among hundreds of options” You stated 2 options total as the best, but what about the other non-best options? Could you please provide a list at least of the names of other POE video doorbells; regardless of your preference to the only two you listed? I am having a hard time finding any others, apparently, manufacturers think people prefer wifi-based video recording but nothing replaces the reliability of an ethernet connection except maybe fiber!
Well said, that’s the issue
Hi, I have recently wired my house so that my new door bell and chimes would all be PoE, but after I discovered how expensive Doorbird PoE chimes are I changed my mind and bought Ring Elite instead.
Now I am left with two PoE outlets left in the house for no use (originally intended for the chimes), unless you can advise of a Ring compatible chime device that can be PoE or how to convert ring chime to PoE if at all possible.
Please help. Thank you
Vini