so what do we think of those doorbell cameras ?

It's been a while, but doorbell cameras can be pretty handy. They give you peace of mind knowing who’s at the door without having to peek through the blinds. Plus, you can check in from your phone, which is convenient when busy.
 
Haskyni said:
It's been a while, but doorbell cameras can be pretty handy. They give you peace of mind knowing who’s at the door without having to peek through the blinds. Plus, you can check in from your phone, which is convenient when busy.
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Yes. I’ve had a Ring for years. I love being able to ignore solicitations. Sometimes, I’ll even talk and tell them I’m not interested and don’t leave a flyer.

The most interesting thing that happened is my Ring showed a ghost one night. My son and I went out to see if we could spot anything with our own eyes but it only showed through the Ring cam. Seems like it could have been a high tech prank of some kind. Ultimately, it’s a mystery that we can’t explain.
 
Hate em. Generally not a fan of surveillance culture. And for my job I have to develop, manage, train, and workshop a lot of pickup and delivery processes. And the number of times I’ve had to deal with obnoxious remote camera conversations with Donna the Nextdoor admin plus the annoyance of being constantly surveilled just makes it a major ick.

There’s something about the power dynamic of being supervised from elsewhere and being expected to respond to a camera attached to a speaker being monitored by someone locked inside their castle that really makes me wanna put on my class warfare hat.

Screening phone calls and avoiding human interaction and dismissing people from the front door through a surveillance robot — while also expecting that gig work servants will do your bidding — is peak collapse of society energy.
 
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Lerxst said:
That whole post ignores the reality of what these various security measures are intended to accomplish. None of them are intended to be absolute means of preventing all criminals or attempts. In many of these cases you're looking to provide a deterrent that'll cause a thief to look for a lower risk/easier target or motivate them to change plans and abandon their attempt when they discover the camera/alarm/etc.
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Yeah. Home security systems are the gas powered leaf blowers of crime “prevention.” You’re just hoping to push the problem into someone else’s yard.
 
dodgechargerfan said:
Best use ever just happened. Political door-knocker rang the bell.
I didn’t have to get out of my chair.
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See this is what I’m talking about re: collapse of society. I once opened the door for a political canvasser who a couple cycles later became the candidate herself. She came in and my wife and I chatted with her for about 10 minutes. She usually swings by during campaign season to say hi and check in.

This is a minor thing, but I’m guessing if I ever needed something that a member of the state legislature could help with, having a very minor personal connection might go a long way. Sometimes local pols can be super helpful if you need to fast track a document renewal or resolve a nagging local pothole or signage problem.
 
I should install a couple of home security cameras at the house and my next doorstudio/poolhouse, but its just more tech crap to deal with and Im already overwhelmed and annoyed with too many hi tech gizmos so I just cant be arsed. Theres not really a crime problem in my neighborhood, and Im mostly a homebody anyway. If I go out of town for an extended time my ex always comes and stays with the cat.
Plus I have a couple of close neighbors that always notice what's going on.
 
jrockbridge said:
Yes. I’ve had a Ring for years. I love being able to ignore solicitations. Sometimes, I’ll even talk and tell them I’m not interested and don’t leave a flyer.

The most interesting thing that happened is my Ring showed a ghost one night. My son and I went out to see if we could spot anything with our own eyes but it only showed through the Ring cam. Seems like it could have been a high tech prank of some kind. Ultimately, it’s a mystery that we can’t explain.
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What did the ghost look like.

We caught this on our Ring.

Screenshot_20240925_062447_Gallery.jpg
 
We've got a video doorbell, primarily for proving whether or not a delivery did happen after several cases of stuff never arriving that delivery firms claimed were successfully delivered to us.
 
Andrew Sak said:
What did the ghost look like.

We caught this on our Ring.

View attachment 97746
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Our ghost kinda looked like an ectoplasmic alien. We were outside looking at the image on our phones and trying to see what might be causing the ghostly figure. It was not static. It moved. But, we could not find anything outside. I even took the extra step of wiping down the ring with lens wipes. The moving image persisted.

We brushed it off as some techie playing a digital prank. Although, I don’t know what it would take to pull that off. Seems like it would have to be someone who hacked the system or an inside job. They probably had a fun time watching my son and I outside trying to figure it out. Or, it was actually a ghost in the machine. I’ve never seen a ghost before or since.
 
jrockbridge said:
Our ghost kinda looked like an ectoplasmic alien. We were outside looking at the image on our phones and trying to see what might be causing the ghostly figure. It was not static. It moved. But, we could not find anything outside. I even took the extra step of wiping down the ring with lens wipes. The moving image persisted.

We brushed it off as some techie playing a digital prank. Although, I don’t know what it would take to pull that off. Seems like it would have to be someone who hacked the system or an inside job. They probably had a fun time watching my son and I outside trying to figure it out. Or, it was actually a ghost in the machine. I’ve never seen a ghost before or since.
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My picture was real. I zoomed in on what I sure hope was a bug. Most likely a bumble bee.
 
Peen Simmons said:
See this is what I’m talking about re: collapse of society. I once opened the door for a political canvasser who a couple cycles later became the candidate herself. She came in and my wife and I chatted with her for about 10 minutes. She usually swings by during campaign season to say hi and check in.

This is a minor thing, but I’m guessing if I ever needed something that a member of the state legislature could help with, having a very minor personal connection might go a long way. Sometimes local pols can be super helpful if you need to fast track a document renewal or resolve a nagging local pothole or signage problem.
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To be clear, they were wearing badges for a candidate/party that I would never support.
I could see that on the camera.
 
Peen Simmons said:
See this is what I’m talking about re: collapse of society. I once opened the door for a political canvasser who a couple cycles later became the candidate herself. She came in and my wife and I chatted with her for about 10 minutes. She usually swings by during campaign season to say hi and check in.

This is a minor thing, but I’m guessing if I ever needed something that a member of the state legislature could help with, having a very minor personal connection might go a long way. Sometimes local pols can be super helpful if you need to fast track a document renewal or resolve a nagging local pothole or signage problem.
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Apart from that, it's much more fun to tell some politics weirdo you don't like to fuck off and never darken your doorstep face to face.
 
I heard Dave Grohl's wife caught him kissing his GF goodnight on their doorbell camera. Lots of people are saying it. Big, strong Foo Fighters fans with tears in their eyes.
 
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