Rapid Review: Swann Smart Video Doorbell

Every part of your home can be made a little smarter. And that can start before people even enter your home with smart doorbells. The Swann Smart Video Doorbell takes the humble doorbell and gives it a 21st century facelift with alerts, motion detection and HD video so you can see who’s out there before unlocking the door.

What Is It?

The Swann Video Doorbell puts together a 720P camera along with night vision, motion detection, two-way audio and built-in video recording. There’s a remote speaker so you can hear it ring from anywhere in your home and has inbuilt storage so you can look back through footage the camera captures without signing up for a cloud service.

It’s easy to set up and mount by your door with all the required screws and anchors included in the box.

The remote chime unit can be mounted anywhere in your home with WiFi access and has 36 different chimes, including themed sounds for Christmas and other occasions. It’s easy to mount and has a volume control.

What’s Good?

The installation and configuration process was straightforward. Once the device is powered up and once you’ve installed the SwannBuzz app (there are iOS and Android versions) you can pair it to your local network.

Video quality, both during the day and at night is good. Sound quality was fine but it’s worth noting you need a strong wireless signal or you can suffer some latency.

The doorbell unit is quite modern and attractive. Although it’s a little larger than the Ring Video Doorbell 2, it still looks good.

Although I needed to create an account with Swann in order to use the app, there’s no need to pay for a subscription in order to look back through video footage the doorbell captures. The inbuilt memory – a fixed 8GB memory card – is rated to hold a rolling 30 day collection of clips so you can look back at past events easily.

The remote chime unit, which requires a pair of AA batteries that aren’t included, is quite loud on the highest volume setting and offers three dozen different chimes. Some are pretty irritating and go for too long but at least there’s some choice. There’s also a visual indication, with a flashing LED, when someone rings the doorbell.

What’s Bad?

I have to admit, I really like this product. It passes the “just works” test. But I get really annoyed when a product at this price skimps on providing a couple of AA batteries.

And there are reports of some users experiencing video dropouts and slow access to stored footage. Swann’s support techs usually put this down to weak WiFi signal. I didn’t experience this but if your router is more than 20 metres from the doorbell, you might want to consider ways to strengthen the wireless signal.

Should You Buy It

The Swann Video Doorbell has an RRP of $199. At the moment, you can save about $20 from that on Ebay by using the discount code PRINCE10 at checkout.

If you’re on the lookout for a boost to your home security, then the Swann Video Doorbell is well worth a look.