Eufy Dual Video Doorbell review: Dual cameras, dual security

Video doorbell innovations are hot and fast. Each new product touts a “better” way to keep an eye on that precious piece of property: your front porch. With everything from dog food to diapers, smartphones to sushi being dropped on our doorstep, keeping an eye on that precious cargo is a top priority (seriously, if someone messes with my sushi…).

With its latest battery-powered video doorbell, the Eufy Dual ($259.99 with a HomeBase 2 or $199.99 as an add-on to an existing Eufy camera system), Eufy has come up with one of the best solutions yet.

The Dual has two cameras, one to keep an eye on the floor – where packages often end up, and one in the more traditional role at the top. This solves the problem most doorbells have: they either give you a long, skinny image so you can see packages and people, but not much context beyond that. Or you get a broader view that offers more side-by-side context, but misses much of the threshold itself (and the package that sits there).

The Dual isn’t the first doorbell to try this trick, but it’s the best I’ve tested. The downward-facing 1080p camera has a 120-degree field of view with a 16:9 aspect ratio, while the 2K camera at the top can see up to 160 degrees with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Combined, you get two video feeds that give you a blind spot-free view of your porch. It also has dual motion detection, using passive infrared to detect people and radar for distance and angle. Plus, onboard machine learning can tell you if there’s a person and/or pack and deploy some innovative tricks to keep an eye on your future holdings.

And the best part? There are no mandatory recurring fees. You get free local video storage on the included HomeBase 2 (16GB offers up to 90 days of clips), free smart notifications, and the AI ​​features are also free. There’s a cloud storage option if you want it (starting at $3 a month), but you don’t lose any other features if you choose not to pay, unlike almost every other video doorbell.

But (and there had to be a but) because it’s a battery-powered doorbell, there’s a blind spot as the camera wakes up. During testing, the camera caught people only as they approached the porch. This is fine for a visitor, but less useful for a parcel delivery person or someone with bad intentions as if they are fast, the camera will only see them walking away. This “back of head” problem plagues many battery-powered buzzers. Eufy says adjusting the detection distance (up to 20 feet) can help, but even at the furthest setting I still missed the start of most events.

The Dual’s minimal 4x digital zoom won’t help you track down that license plate either, and the 2K video is a bit dull and muddy. The doorbell camera only works on 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and you have to hardwire the Eufy HomeBase to a router.

I was also disappointed with some of the AI ​​features – the facial recognition didn’t work for me at all (apparently because I wear glasses). The Package Guard and Loitering features — which allow the doorbell to say things like “Excuse me, can I help you,” when someone approaches your package or hangs around your porch too long — were annoying rather than helpful. I liked the option to trigger smart responses from the live view screen in the Eufy app – you can choose from standard messages like “Leave it at the door” or create your own.

I also liked the Package Live Check Assistance, which places all packages in a blue box and collects recent delivery events for quick viewing. It worked reliably and proved to be a valuable feature for managing deliveries. Also useful is the Uncollected Package alert, which lets the doorbell check for packages at a certain time if you have forgotten to collect something.

However, these are nice, non-must-have features for a doorbell. More important are video and audio quality, speed of notifications and access to live view, and accurate motion detection (so you don’t get bombarded with notifications).

The Eufy Dual does well in most of these areas. The time between tapping the notification and viewing a live feed was between 3 and 5 seconds in my testing, impressive for a battery-powered doorbell, and likely due to the local storage and video processing. I didn’t get any false person alerts during testing. But it did mistake my porch chair for a package, and it had trouble recognizing smaller packages, such as those in flat envelopes.

The view from the front door was excellent. While the black bar separating the two camera feeds took some getting used to, the stacked camera view gave a better overall view than the other option – picture-in-picture. I could see my entire front porch, as well as a clear view of the approach to my front door and the road beyond.

The audio is very good; it uses full-duplex, which means I can easily chat with a visitor without lag or stepping over each other. However, the video quality isn’t as good as I’d hoped from a 2K camera – a bit dark and slightly blurry. The Ring Video Doorbell 4, on the other hand, offers more vibrant and colorful video.

The night vision was very good – clear and bright – making it easy to decipher faces. The lower camera does not use infrared night vision; instead, two small LED lights light up with movement. I liked this feature because it casts some light on the porch at night without dazzling visitors.

There are many customization options for video, including adjusting the recording duration (8 seconds to 120 seconds, the camera does not record 24/7) and the re-trigger time (how soon recording starts again after a motion event — 2 seconds is the minimum) — all of which affect battery life. You can also adjust motion detection and sensitivity, and choose to be alerted to people only or all motion (there are no animal or vehicle options). Each camera can have one activity zone to alert you only to events in that area. Notifications are customizable, with the option of a thumbnail snapshot containing the notification – but in testing that only came through about two times out of ten.

Overall, there are a lot of settings to tinker with in the feature-packed Eufy app. However, some of them take some digging to find, and the app suffers from poor grammar and clunky English translations. There’s also no timeline view that you can scroll through quickly when viewing the camera feed; you have to click on a separate tab to see event videos. Conveniently, Eufy has a web portal for accessing video.

Since it’s a battery-powered doorbell, installation is easy. After you have linked it to the app and Eufy HomeBase, you can attach the mounting bracket (straight or angled) to any desired location. There is, however, the option of plugging it into your existing doorbell wiring, eliminating the need for charging (recharging the battery requires taking the entire doorbell down), and adding the option to activate your existing doorbell. Usually I’d recommend getting a real wired doorbell if you have wires, but Eufy’s unique video options are good enough for me to leave that advice out here if the features appeal to you.

However, this doorbell is huge, at 6.5 inches tall, significantly taller than the gargantuan Wyze Video Doorbell Pro I recently reviewed. But Eufy has put a lot of thought into the design, and the beveled edges and rose gold-ringed camera lenses make this feel less hulking. But there’s no getting around how big this is, and if you want something more discreet and you’ve got doorbell wiring, there are better options (the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 is currently our top pick).

That size accommodates a large battery that Eufy says will last 3 to 6 months. Based on my experience with Eufy cameras, this will hold up. In testing, it lost less than 5 percent in the four days I had it on battery, with some heavy use.

The Eufy has multiple options for a chime: the HomeBase itself can act as a chime, use an existing chime if you wire the Eufy, and/or pair with Amazon’s Echo speakers to announce when someone’s at the door. The Eufy itself also makes noise when you press it. Thanks to Amazon Alexa integration, you can use motion or ringing a doorbell as a trigger for a routine (I set one up to turn a light bulb red when someone was at the door, and it worked reliably). It works with Google Home and Alexa smart displays to fetch a live feed from your doorbell on demand, although it was slow and unreliable with the Echo Shows in testing, but it worked fine with Google Nest Hub displays.

In the field of battery-powered doorbells, the Eufy is a strong competitor. Its direct competition based on price and features is the Ring Video Doorbell 4, which doesn’t give you a great view of your porch, but doesn’t require a separate hub. The Ring also has a pre-roll feature that uses a second camera to catch more of your visitors as they get closer, plus a removable battery. But Eufy’s battery life is better. During testing, I had to charge the Ring once a month. While the Eufy is $50 more expensive, there are no monthly fees. You pay $3 per month to view recorded footage with Ring.

For something cheaper with a full view of your porch and free video recording, the Wyze Video Doorbell Pro is $90 and includes free video storage; plus, when wired has 3 to 6 seconds of pre-roll, but there’s a monthly fee for smart alerts and restrictions on those free included clips.

Overall, the Eufy Dual solves a specific problem and does it well. A few of the AI ​​features need some work, but the main ones – such as packet detection – are impressive. My biggest complaint is that there is no solution to the ‘back of the head problem’. With that fixed, this video buzzer would be hard to beat.

Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy/The Verge

Update February 18, 4:20 PM: Added more details about Eufy’s data management practices and local video storage and processing.

Correction Thursday, February 24, 1:20 PM: Due to a typo, the wrong price was listed in the main section of the article, the doorbell costs $259.99. We regret the mistake.