The best video doorbells in 2026: Google Nest, Blink and Eufy reviewed

Doorbells have evolved. Today, they watch us as we approach, let the people inside the home know we’re coming sooner than our finger can hit the button, and give them a good look at our faces before they open the door. They’re essentially security cameras with a chime function.

If you haven’t already installed one of these handy tools, there’s a huge array available. Choosing the best video doorbell can be a bewildering task, with various factors to consider, including how much of your doorstep you want to see and whether you’re prepared to pay for a subscription. To help make the decision a little bit easier, I tested eight popular video doorbells to find the best.

At a glance

Best video doorbell overall:

Google Nest Doorbell (battery)

Best budget video doorbell:

Blink smart video doorbell with Sync Module 2

Best subscription-free video doorbell:

Eufy video doorbell E340

Why you should trust me

I’ve been testing products, including everything from vacuum cleaners and robot lawnmowers to computers and games, for various publications for more than three decades. I’ve also owned a video doorbell for several years, so I am well aware of their strengths and weaknesses. It gives me a good understanding of what I’m likely to be looking for in the next one I buy.

How I tested

The only way to test a doorbell is to stick it next to your front door and see how well it works. To achieve this, I mounted all eight of the doorbells I tested on a board at doorbell height and lived with this rigged-up contraption on my doorstep for a fortnight. Delivery drivers were rightly suspicious of the number of buttons and cameras, and struggled to work out whether it was them or the doorbells that were being tested.

I’m not sure whether my neighbours noticed them all or spotted the number of times I lapped my drive at various times of day and night to test the movement sensors. If they did, they were too polite to mention it.

I compared the doorbells by measuring how close I could get to the door before the motion detection was triggered, how much video was recorded and how useful that footage was. I timed how long it took for notifications to reach the doorbells’ apps on a smartphone and how long it took for the doorbell to send an alert or ring a chime (if included) when its button was pressed. I also tested the apps, examined the prices and considered the additional cost of subscriptions.

All the doorbells that didn’t need to be returned to the brands after testing are being donated to the British Heart Foundation.

The best video doorbells in 2026

The best of the rest

What you need to know

As you may expect, buying a video doorbell isn’t (just) about whether the colour matches the paint job on your front door. Smart doorbells are crammed with features designed to make you think they sound good, luring you into choosing one over another. However, you should also take into account how good they are at alerting you when people arrive at your door, and whether you’ll be able to tell who it is when you watch a video or live feed on your smartphone, as I did in my tests.

Battery vs wired video doorbells

If you have an existing wired doorbell, you can use its wiring to connect most video doorbells. There are two main benefits to a wired doorbell: there’s no battery, so it doesn’t need to be recharged; and it will ring the existing doorbell chime inside the house when the doorbell button is pressed. They’re a bit more complicated to install, though, so if you’re not a competent electrician, we’d suggest getting a professional to do it for you.

Battery doorbells are much easier to install, but charging them can be a faff. You usually have to remove the doorbell (or at least its battery) and charge it overnight. During that time, you will have no doorbell or camera. You’ll probably have to do this every month or so, but it depends on the battery and how busy your doorstep is.

Some doorbells can use a spare battery or come with regular batteries that can simply be swapped, so you don’t need to be without a doorbell while it charges. Others can be topped up using a small solar panel, either out of the box or as an additional accessory.

Installing your video doorbell

Installing a new battery doorbell is simple. Most come with a mounting plate to attach wherever you want the doorbell to sit. Screwing into a wooden door frame, if your doorway has one, is easy and convenient, but the doorbell can also be mounted on to a wall if you’re prepared to drill some holes and use a wall plug to hold the screws in place. Once the battery is charged, the doorbell attaches to the mounting plate.

If you’re replacing a wired doorbell, ensure you switch off the electricity first. This should be possible through your circuit breaker, and you should test it before you remove your old doorbell by ringing it – if it stops ringing, you’ve successfully shut off the power to it. The old wires should then attach to terminals on the new doorbell, but we’d strongly advise tackling this only if you know what you’re doing or getting a professional to do it for you.

Subscriptions and storage

One of the hidden costs of a video doorbell is the price of a subscription, which usually costs a few pounds a month and includes some form of cloud storage. Without a subscription, most video doorbells are little more than a regular doorbell with the video equivalent of a peephole that allows you to see who is at the door right at that second. A storage subscription elevates it into an archive of visitors, with video footage of everyone who’s been on your doorstep in recent days, so you can go back and check.

Having said this, some doorbells (such as the Blink and Eufy doorbells reviewed here) have their own storage, can accept a memory card or connect to a wireless hub that’s kept inside the house. This kind of doorbell can be used without a subscription and still store footage locally, though many still offer a subscription that can provide additional features, such as recognising the faces of your visitors.

Do video doorbells work with voice assistants?

Video doorbells integrate nicely with other smart home devices. The most useful add-on is a smart screen, such as Amazon’s Echo Show (available in various sizes from £64.99) or Google’s Nest Hub Max (£219). These screens can be set to alert you when your doorbell rings and immediately switch to a live video feed from the doorbell camera.

Smart speakers such as Amazon’s Echo Dot and Google’s Nest Mini can also be used in conjunction with a doorbell, though without a screen they can’t display a live view. You can still set them to chime, which can be useful for hearing the doorbell all around your house.

Video doorbells can also be controlled using Amazon’s and Google’s smart assistants. You can use voice commands to perform doorbell tasks, such as showing the view from your doorbell on your phone or smart screen.

Your doorbell doesn’t have to come from the same company as your smart device or favoured voice assistant; Google’s Nest Doorbell is compatible with Amazon Alexa as well as Google Assistant devices, for example. However, you tend to get more functions with a directly compatible system – Amazon’s Echo devices, for example, with a Ring or Blink doorbell.

How long do video doorbells generally last?

Quoting the battery life of a video doorbell is problematic even for the manufacturers. Amazon states only that the batteries in its Ring doorbells can last for “months”, while Google quotes the battery life of the Nest Doorbell (battery) as being between one and six months. Both are too vague to be particularly useful.

However, it’s hard for the manufacturers to be more specific because there are huge differences between how people use their doorbell. If you live on a busy street and have motion detection switched on, your doorbell will be activated by every passerby. Video doorbells can also be activated by movement from cars, trees and animals.

Other factors can reduce the battery life too. If you often use the device to view a live picture of your doorstep even when there’s no one there (which can be very tempting, especially when the doorbell is new), then the battery will run down faster. Battery life is also reduced in cold weather, so those living in chillier parts of the country might find that their battery doesn’t last as long, particularly during winter months.

When it comes to the life of the doorbell itself, manufacturers tend to offer warranties of between one and two years. We’d expect that to be a minimum lifespan, since given that the device has few moving parts, there isn’t that much that can go wrong.

The first thing that’s likely to fail is the battery, because it tends to deteriorate over time. That puts doorbells with removable batteries at a slight advantage, because a failed battery in a sealed device may be impossible to replace. You can extend a battery’s life by treating it well: wait until its charge is below 20% before recharging it, and try not to let it run down completely. That way there’s no real reason why a video doorbell shouldn’t last for years.

In some cases, it’s possible that a manufacturer’s support for a doorbell will run out before the hardware dies. For most doorbells, that’s about five years after the product was launched. Support is usually withdrawn by stopping software updates, which can leave a product vulnerable to hacking, or by changing elements such as cloud storage services that can render advanced features unusable.

What to do with your old video doorbell

If you’re upgrading from one video doorbell to another, there are several things you can do with your old one. The most obvious is to install it on a back or side door if you have one. Although you’re unlikely to see much action on the ringer, the camera can provide a useful extra layer of security, particularly if intruders have spotted and circumnavigated the doorbell on your front door by scaling a fence.

You could also use the camera as a regular security camera, either indoors or out. Most devices let you switch off specific doorbell features, such as the ringer, so you won’t be disturbed by people ringing it. You could also mount it out of reach, though it’s worth considering that you might have to access it every now and then to recharge the batteries.

Footage from the doorbell can be accessed and managed through the app as if it were a security camera. However, note that some subscription services might charge you more if you have multiple devices connected and want to store captured footage online.

If you want to get rid of your doorbell, make sure you uninstall it from your smart home setup before you physically remove it. Also, check the manual to find out how to do a factory reset so the camera doesn’t try to connect to your accounts if it’s reinstalled by someone else.

Older doorbells may still have some value, so you could try selling yours, donating it to a charity or giving it away locally. If all else fails, don’t chuck it in the bin. Check your local waste collection, as they may pick it up on bin day if it’s left in a separate plastic bag. Alternatively, take it to your nearest recycling centre and leave it with the other electrical items so it can be properly recycled.

For more, read the best robot vacuums, tested and 21 home organisation hacks

Andy Shaw is a consumer journalist and technology addict. As he has reviewed tech products professionally for more than 30 years, his favoured working environment is a small desk surrounded by big boxes. His greatest weakness is that he never, ever remembers how things came out of their boxes, so they rarely fit back in when it’s time to send them back

The article was originally published on 14 November 2024. Reviews published in the Filter may be periodically updated to reflect new products and at the editor’s discretion. The date of an article’s most recent update can be found in the timestamp at the top of the page. This article was last updated on 20 May 2026; more details were added on what to do with an old video doorbell, and prices were updated throughout.