I had similar, looked at various solutions and ended up spending a Saturday with a rotary hammer and a diamond cutoff. Put a low voltage ring in the brick for a Ring Elite PoE. So all the way thru the brick fascia and into framing behind, like butter.
Wiring on the back is concealed by removing trim, drilling about a 1 1/4" hole in lath & plaster, and fishing Smurf tube to the basement.
Rings wired doorbell is supposed to work with chimes, even a mechanical chime. They also have a wired Elite that is PoE, that does not appear to work with a chime. They make chimes that plug into an outlet and will ring when the doorbell is activated. None of Ring doorbells are ONVIF, however.
Rings wired doorbell is supposed to work with chimes, even a mechanical chime. They also have a wired Elite that is PoE, that does not appear to work with a chime. They make chimes that plug into an outlet and will ring when the doorbell is activated. None of Ring doorbells are ONVIF, however.
Ring Elite is the best thing that ever happened to Ring. A new 4K model comes out in December. I already know homeowners who will be upgrading, myself included.
Get a proper outdoor-rated CAT6 (550Mhz) and just run it. 🥹
Ring Elite is the best doorbell to date. I installed over 20 of them, and every single one still works. I wish Ring would offer a trade-in program in December when the new Elite comes out.
You need a camera with WRD and HDR.
WDR adjusts pixel-level exposure in real-time, preventing sun washout while keeping surroundings visible—crucial for direct sun pointing. HDR builds on this for even better dynamic range in extreme light like Arizona summers. Avoid basic cameras; they blow out in glare as you’ve experienced.
The best ones I’m seeing available now are the Ring 4K Elite and the Eufy E340.
Ring’s latest wired doorbell 4K products offer excellent picture quality and fast/reliable alerts, especially with a POE connection, but they don’t offer good integration with Apple Home. Also, Ring products only record locally with the addition of the $250 Ring Alarm Pro base station and the most expensive Ring plan ($200/year).
Assuming you have wired power to your doorbell and aren’t reliant on battery power, and can wait a few months, keep an eye out for the upcoming Aqara G400 doorbell (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/e9_Kv7tUmao). It will offer good integration with Apple Home including recording directly to NAS storage or the Apple iCloud, with video alerts on AppleTV. It should be available to purchase by the end of April.
All the Ring wired-only cameras (not the battery models with a wired option) save extra video to before and after the detection event, which avoids what you describe. Unlike Ring’s prior cameras based on 5-year-old technology (I.e., every Ring camera released before August 2025), the new wired-only 4K cameras released in September/October 2025 don’t miss motion. These are the first Ring doorbell cameras that are more advanced (in terms of electronics and sensors) than what Reolink and Ubiquiti have offered for 2+ years.
Top Smart Doorbells on Reddit
1
Reolink
Wired Video Doorbell Series
82% positive of 570 users
No subscription, local storage, HA-friendly; no mechanical chime.
OpponentUnnamed
