Top positive review
1 people found this helpful
The new model has it going on
By Elizabeth on Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2018
This is our second Zmodo camera. We had the older model Greet doorbell camera, but we liked the updated look and wider viewing angle of this new Greet. At $60 it wasn’t difficult to decide if we should buy the updated model. We have this Greet doorbell camera paired with the Zmodo View 1080p, 180 degree camera. Fantastic doorbell camera, even without the additional cloud features. The cloud support adds so much more to the Zmodo experience. The app receives consistent updates and changes, so Zmodo keeps updating the customer experience with more features and better user interface. The first step of using the doorbell camera is to download the Zmodo app to your smart device. Once downloaded, create an account by selecting a username and password. A standard install could be done by just about anyone with simple tools, it even comes with all of the tools you would need, plus the screws and wall anchors. Just simply remove the old doorbell, connect the wires to the base plate of the doorbell camera, attach the base to the building, then attach the camera to the base and tighten the security screws. Done. Once installed we were having issues with connecting the beam unit to the Wi-Fi network. We quickly figured out that the router was the issue. The router we were trying to connect to was a dual band router that broadcast 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, with both channels having a similar name, but with a slight variation. The instruction manual even warned of this being a problem. It was an easy fix once we logged into the router. We change the name of the 5 GHz network and saved the settings. Once we have that squared away the beam unit easily connected to the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network. Please keep in mind that these devices will not connect to a 5 GHz network, only a 2.4 GHz network. The next step was to connect the doorbell camera to the network and that was done very easily using the Zmodo app and selecting the automatic connection setting. This step is very painless and the doorbell camera coonected as expected. From this point everything was connected and worked as it should. Both the beam and the doorbell camera neither firmware update and that was done easily through the application. The doorbell camera provides an excellent picture during the day as well as at night. The night vision is fantastic. The camera was mounted on the front of a house that faces south. Even with sun directly shining on the camera, it still provides an excellent picture with a very nice wide angle. The mounting point is about 20 feet from a busy road way and that causes many false motion alerts from vehicles that drive by, but that was expected. Testing the doorbell ring alert in real time provided a slight lag between the time when the button was pressed and the phone started ringing but the lag time was only less than 10 seconds. This could have been due to our lower than average internet speed. All in all we love the doorbell camera and the functionality of it. We would certainly recommend it to anyone that’s interested in it and have also recommended it to neighbors, friends and family. For us, the Zmodo camera lineup provides a budget friendly solution to home security. Zmodo beats competitors cloud feature pricing and you are not held hostage and required to buy the cloud feature to use your device, like with Ring. With the Zmodo cameras, you can use them without the cloud service and motion alert clips are available for 3 days. Zmodo live video viewing is also free. Buying the value priced cloud service feature adds even more, if you decide. The Zmodo customer support is good, but not perfect. We’ve had to RMA an older Greet doorbell camera and it was a fast, smooth proces. You must pay for shipping to their RMA department in IL, but you will receive and new product in return. We are excited to see what Zmodo has in store for future devices. We would like to see smoke detectors carbon monoxide detectors and lighting controllers added to the Zmodo lineup that can be used with the nicely designed and user friendly Zmodo app.
Top critical review
14 people found this helpful
AVOID AT ALL COSTS! NOT WORTH 1/4 THE EFFORT I PUT FORTH!
By Flashman on Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2018
This product is not worth $5, and anything more than that is ridiculous. In the interest of full disclosure, I will let everyone know up front that I'm returning this after just a few days. The product was delivered on time, and the packaging is nice. They do include a screwdriver and little level, which is a nice touch. After that though, things go down hill. The documentation is impossible to follow easily. It's a smallish (4"x4") foldout, that doesn't seem to go in the normal directions when unfolded. Starting out with the Ding/Greet 1.5 Doorbell Camera: • 720 Video Quality is OK, certainly acceptable for the price. • Night vision works pretty good. • Installation was easy as well. • Sound quality of the mic/speaker is lackluster. Could be much better, but there are some power constraints that make this a little understandable. Overall, there should be enough wattage to support a better quality sound system though. • Setup was horrendous. I'm an engineer for a large manufacturing company, and have been in IT related roles for over 20 years, and I couldn't make this work without several calls to tech support. Initially, the device needed a firmware update to connect to my account. You do the firmware update via the account that it's connected to. Kind of a problem, when you can't connect it to your account. Tech support was able to get me through this trial, and I forged ahead! The last issue I had was that it was causing my chime to buzz. Tech support sent me two different wiring schematics that contradicted each other, and neither worked. I had the option of having the system buzz, or not using my indoor chime. Obviously, this isn't acceptable. I had kind of made the decision to complete a trial before continuing with tech support, but the saga continued enough that I didn't pursue a true fix for this issue. One may exist, but I'll never know! Read on.... The Beam WiFi Extender: This device claims to extend your WiFi and is capable of speeds up to 300Mbps. Once again, setup proved beyond my (not unsubstantial) capabilities. The thing takes forever to actually be ready to connect to, and I tried about 10 times before using the 24/7 chat. The person I was chatting with obviously had a script, and he followed it to the best of his abilities. Initially, he was able to get me rollilng, by disabling my Mobile Data on my phone (this is typically needed with lower quality WiFi radios, and I really should have known this one). After I got the device connected to my WiFi, which I confirmed by looking at the connected clients on my network, I was never able to get it added to my account. I believe this also needed a firmware update, but I wasn't able to connect it, so don't know for sure. Tech support recommended all of the basic things (are we REALLY still rebooting routers???) to no avail , and I gave up. I don't know how this device performs, or if it even does anything, since it never worked for me. The kit also includes two door/window sensors that I wanted to try, but without the Beam device, they're unusable. Last thing to note, and this is pretty concerning to me. You have to create a ZModo account to use ANY of these devices. That's understandable from a setup perspective, I guess, but the problem is that now I have a ZModo account that you CANNOT cancel. They tout being very concerned about privacy, yet don't have a way to cancel an account? Since I don't have any of these devices connected, it's less concerning, but I wasn't even able to remove the now disconnected, awaiting UPS, doorbell from my account. The real concern comes with security breaches. Too many people are still using the same password for all of their online accounts (including banking and other financial services!!). One breach of an account that you've completely forgotten about, from a company that I have little to no faith in, is all it would take. Simple fix is to allow you to disable your account, and then change the password to something random on their end. Overall, it just seems janky and half complete, like their products. TL;DR - Don't bother with this product. I don't plan to be using any of their products any time soon. It's unfortuante, but save your $$, pay more, and get a working product.
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