Ezviz DB2 battery-powered doorbell review: The best-value video doorbell?

When it comes to sheer value for money, the Ezviz DB2 is the video doorbell to beat right now. It can be hardwired or used wire-free (depending on your preference), it comes bundled with a chime, and can be used indefinitely without any subscription or ongoing payments thanks to its microSD slot. With decent image quality and an easy-to-use app, the DB2 is a great choice if you haven’t a lot to spend.

Ezviz DB2 battery-powered doorbell review: What do you get for the money?

As I’ve already touched on, the Ezviz DB2 offers a good selection of features for the money. Mainly this is thanks to the inclusion of a chime, which you often have to buy separately with rival products. However, the box also contains everything you need to get the DB2 up and running quickly and easily.

If you’re replacing an old doorbell, it’s possible to power the DB2 via existing doorbell wiring (it’s a good idea to have an electrician do this for you unless you know what you’re doing). Otherwise, you can simply mount the plate to which the unit attaches and recharge the doorbell periodically. Ezviz claims the DB2’s 5,200mAh battery will last up to four months between charges, depending on the number of events that are triggered on a day-to-day basis.

The mounting plate can be either stuck or screwed to your door frame or the wall and there are two angled plates that allow you to point the camera downwards or in a particular direction to maximise the field of view. The good news is that the DB2 offers an impressive 176-degree field of view, so you should have no problems seeing everything that you want to from its 2K (1,920 x 1,444) camera.

The camera also has an infrared mode that’s automatically enabled at night so it can capture images in the dark. Naturally, the quality isn’t as good as the video it captures in daylight, but it’ll mean you have a better chance of identifying unwanted intruders than with no night mode at all. If you don’t have any existing wiring, setup is straightforward. All you need to do is plug the chime in to a power socket within four metres of where the doorbell is mounted and follow the instructions on the iPhone or Android app.

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This relatively short range isn’t ideal if you want to mount the chime where you’re certain you’ll hear it – it’s not especially loud – but you do get a notification on your phone, so it’s not a complete deal-breaker. I also found it operated just fine at the limit of its range at around four to five metres away.

And that’s important, because the chime is the hub of the system. The doorbell communicates with your Wi-Fi router via the chime and the chime is also where you store your recorded video clips, on a microSD card up to 256GB in capacity. There’s the option to store your clips in the cloud, too, but since Ezviz charges £5 per month to store clips for up to seven days, you’ll soon save money if you stick with local storage.

Once you’ve set up the doorbell, the app lets you choose between infrared detection or “human shape” detection and you can alter the sensitivity between low, medium and high to determine how readily it alerts you that someone is at your door. You can also enable “loitering” detection and choose the time period before you’re notified someone is outside your house; oddly, this feature isn’t available if you have human detection enabled.

Sadly, there is no facial recognition, as you get with Nest’s video doorbells and there’s also no option to set motion detection zones, as you can with the Eufy Video Doorbell (£150). However, by enabling the loitering setting, you can ensure the Ezviz app only notifies you when someone stands at your door for an extended period rather than alerting you each time a pedestrian walks past.

As you might expect, when someone presses the doorbell, it not only activates the chime but also triggers a ring tone on your phone. At this point, you can watch a live stream from the camera before choosing whether or not to speak with the person, or simply start speaking with them right away.

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Ezviz DB2 battery-powered doorbell review: What do we like?

In practice I found that the EZVIZ DB2 worked really well. The image quality is very good, even when using the default Standard resolution. For the best quality, you’ll need to enable Full HD or Ultra HD from the camera’s settings; these can take a short time to buffer but the stream typically loads within a second or so.

The DB2 did a good job of detecting when someone was at my door, too, and the delay between someone pressing the doorbell and me receiving a notification was always acceptable. In addition, when I needed to interact with delivery drivers to ask them to leave parcels on my doorstep or with a neighbour, they never had problems hearing me.

The Ezviz mobile app is easy to use, too. From the homescreen, you can tap the DB2 doorbell from your device list. Here, you can quickly see all “events” including doorbell presses and infrared detections. Tapping an event enlarges its thumbnail image, so you can quickly assess whether it’s worth further investigation, and selecting Playback lets you watch the clip back in full.

When watching a clip back, you can press either the Snapshot or Record buttons to save the media directly to your phone. Similarly, when you choose the “Live View” option from the doorbell’s main screen, you can record a clip, take a snapshot, or use the talk button to interact with anybody outside your house via the doorbell’s speaker.

Besides it being easy to use and effective, however, the main lure of the Ezviz DB2 is undoubtedly that low price. Costing just £99 with a chime, it’s around a third cheaper than our favourite overall video doorbell, the Eufy Video Doorbell 2K. If you’re on the fence about whether to buy a video doorbell, that puts it firmly into impulse purchase territory.

Ezviz DB2 battery-powered doorbell review: How can it be improved?

That’s not to say the Ezviz is completely without flaws. The limited range from the doorbell to the chime could be a deal breaker for those with larger homes who want to place the chime where they’ll hear it. Thankfully, this needn’t be too big a problem if you have notifications enabled on your phone.

And, although it isn’t especially ugly, the Ezviz DB2 isn’t as sleek or attractive as those from Nest, Ring and Arlo, either. The main gripe I have in this respect is actually the DB2’s bulk. Measuring 58 x 32 x 150mm (WDH), it’s a chunky thing and will take up a fair bit of space on your doorframe. The Ezviz app can also be a little buggy. For instance, I found some thumbnails were broken for both infrared detections and doorbell presses, which isn’t ideal if you’re not able to watch the video back immediately.

Finally, as I’ve already touched on, you also don’t get some of the premium features you get with some of the DB2’s rivals, such as facial recognition and, more critically, the option to adjust motion-detection zones.

If you live on a busy street, this will give you less control over when notifications are triggered. And while you might be able to get around this to a certain extent by using the loitering settings – to prevent notifications being sent when people walk past your front door, for example – there are circumstances where it won’t help. If someone decides to stop for a chat outside your house, for instance.

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Ezviz DB2 battery-powered doorbell review: Should I buy it?

Overall, however, it’s difficult to find much fault with the Ezviz DB2 when you consider its low price. It’s quick and easy to set up and offers great image quality and reliable infrared detection. At just under £100 with a chime, there’s nothing else we’ve tested that can compete with it when it comes to sheer value for money.

If you’re happy to spend a little more, the Eufy Video Doorbell lets you set motion-detection zones too but, otherwise, there’s not much to split the two. Indeed, the DB2 offers everything you need to never miss another Amazon delivery when you’re out and to give you better peace of mind when you’re on holiday.