I have a Tapo battery powered one that's linked to a 'hub' indoors that can save the footage to an SD card. It does try and sell you cloud storage every few weeks, but you can ignore that.
I'm a big fan of my Tapo. I opted for a battery powered model due to it's placement location so I need to charge it every 6 months. A big selling point for me is that you use a storage card, or the yearly subscription to save video (subscription is something like $27/year).
Love my Tapo. I think it's $100 but I going it on sale for ~$80. It has an app, local storage, great camera, and the option for a cloud service if you prefer ($26/year). It also has a chime that can be placed anywhere in the house.
Tapo by T-Link
NYT wire cutter top pick
Easy easy set up
Uses micro SD card so no subscription if you don't want cloud fees
But has a cloud if you want
TP-Link Tapo
Pros: Works great. Isn't a subscription item. Doesn't cost a million dollars.
Cons: Either you self host or you're at the risk of losing data if the SD card inside of it ever disappears.
Recording continuously by the way isn't a doorcam, that's a security cam. Fundamentally different style of device. You would need to hardwire it, can't be battery powered. The amount of data would be overwhelming, and isn't really practical for remote access.
I also have zero complaints. A simple tp-link doorcam with a simple consumer router. Battery powered so it never goes down. Charges once every 6 months. Paired with a simple TP Link consumer grade router. The router has cloud access but I rarely need it. I've never even heard of a wifi outage from a simple consumer router.
Top Smart Doorbells on Reddit
1
Reolink
Wired Video Doorbell Series
82% positive of 559 users
No subscription, local storage, HA-friendly; no mechanical chime.
Midwest_humble
