Model Railway Forum

We are lucky to be able to see who is at our front door through the bay window, my daughter lives in a flat and doesn’t have that privilege.

Thanks for all the "pro's and cons" - I'll now go away and think about it.

Having now thought about it in great detail - we have decided to go with a basic "bing-bong" doorbell - replacing what we had. The Ring looks very good and the chances are one will be fitted in the not to distant future. The decision was nothing to do with cost. As mentioned in my original post, we have CCTV, three cameras, which give full HD colour pictures of the front of the house, the drive and the back of the house/garden. These are hard-wired to a mini VCR and screen. The system runs 24/7, stores the last two months of video, and can be viewed on our phones from anywhere in the world.
So once again, many thanks for going to the trouble of giving your views. Barry

Guess you already have most of the advantages Barry.

And some saved cash towards another loco.

teedoubleudee wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 10:08 am Personally I would stay away from these "smart" devices and other stuff like them. All videos are collected in the "cloud" and are stored somewhere for others to look at. Similarly "Alexa" and other voice activated smart devices also collect user info. Every voice command entered into such devices is stored and can be used to build a profile of the user through it's IP address. Big Brother is watching you!

It’s all a balance of risk as with everything in life. I am aware that profiling takes place but that happens every time you go on the internet, every online purchase you make even posting on here we all leave a trace of our online activities. Identity theft is perhaps the most serious in that you could suddenly be faced with big bills and a mare trying to sort it out. Hacking someone requires an investment in time and effort and frankly for most of Joe Public it is not worth the investment. You can spend considerable effort trying to hack someone only to find a big overdraft is all you find.

Phone and email scams are what catch out most of Joe Public because it requires little effort and much of it is automated. I could not care less who knows who comes to my door even if they are prepared to spend time observing my comings and going’s to attempt a burglary, I think very unlikely. Sensible precautions are the order of the day. I am not saying you are paranoid TWD and understand where you are coming from but the pursuit of total privacy would if taken to the extreme meant you never left home - certainly not without a tin foil hat .

Richard

Walkingthedog wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 9:36 am My daughter has one and it works very well. Was at our house the other day and her phone rang, it was an Amazon delivery ringing the doorbell. She told them to take it next door. Amazing.

Thing that came to my mind was she told the man who said he was Amazon delivery that she was out, more or less. So who ever he was, just went ahead and broke in. Any one can sound credible.

Ha ha, I'm definitely not paranoid Richard, at least my shrink doesn't think so! My attitude is why take risks in an ever increasing risky world? I was hit by a ransomware virus a couple of years ago wiping out my entire PC and causing me a lot of hassle which taught me a lesson so where I can I now use a VPN and malwarebytes live monitoring on my internet connection. If that makes me paranoid so be it.

Don't know about anyone else on here but the rate of scam calls, (mobile and landline) SMS messages and emails has increased ten fold during lockdown to the point I've stopped answering calls directly and let them go to voicemail or answering machine.

To get back to the OP's video door bell question, I believe Barry has the best set up above using security cams around the house. I had the same set up when we lived in Essex but since moving up to Norfolk I've never felt the need to re-install them here so they are still in a box in the loft (just in case )

I’ve started answering scam calls with Thames Valley Police. They hang up quick. If you don’t say anything the call goes dead. Think some are voice activated.

Tempting fate now! - I haven't had any scam or nuisance calls for a long time. I got a few have you been in an accident recently calls in 2018 on my contract mobile, I kept saying yes, I'm in hospital but can't remember anything about it. The landline has a feature that requires a new caller to leave their name until I 'authorise' them. Not had one since that was introduced. It was a little bit of a pain to start with but I get so few calls on the landline that within a few weeks most callers I had (doctor, dentist, garage & a few friends) were authorised quickly.