I’ve been back and forth on getting a webcam / smart doorbell for a while now. Plenty of friends and coworkers have done it. I didn’t think we necessarily had that constant flow of people at our front door, so why would we need it. However, I finally came around after I found out more people at work had them. That’s right — peer pressure. It’s not just about drugs and bullying teenagers who recently moved from Newark to Reseda California.
After dallying with Amazon’s Alexa, I’ve been moving to Google’s ecosystem. You’ll see below the original doorbell and chime. I went in with the Nest Aware doorbell, and it’s a pretty good product. Installation itself was pretty easy. However, I was surprised to discover that the actual chime components were broken. They’ve always worked, but poorly. I decided that, you know, while I’m here, might as well fix it.
I ran to Home Depot to get a replacement chime. Easy enough to find, but then it turned out that trying to mount it horizontally wouldn’t work, so I ended up hanging it vertically. Not an issue, since they can mounted either way, except now I would have to paint the areas that had been covered by the old chime. One project always leads to 3 or 4. Hours later, after the paint had dried, new doorbell, new chime, and everything was mostly awesome again.
I’ll admit the 35 degree angle on the doorbell isn’t great, as it picks up activity inside the dining room. I’m considering purchasing and installing an after-market mount that will angle the doorbell at least 45 degrees. Future enhancement, people. For now, let’s enjoy what we have.
