Ubiquiti - G4 Doorbell

I’m a big fan of the UniFi product line, and their G4 doorbell is on sale at a significant discount for Black Friday. Be careful though, looking into this stuff can quickly turn into a black hole.

The package camera is a great idea and the implementation is solid. That said, the G4 Doorbell has a camera module with a resolution that's artificially kneecapped. The image quality isn't terrible, but it's pretty close by 2025 standards. That's a product that's ripe for replacement. You can see how that replacement is going look, in an early form, by looking at the newest Access products.

Even the Standard G4 Doorbell is a great choice, that’s what I have and it’s super reliable!

Not saying a newer version isn’t coming out (I have no idea), though the G4 doorbell was discounted the same last holiday season too. That’s when I bought mine.  Love the doorbell!

I really like the Unifi system, and the G4 doorbell is my first I connected with HA. It rings through all the Google Nest hubs through the house. But wish there was an option with even better image quality especially at night. That might pull me over to try another brand if my doorbell dies.

I’m using UniFi G4 Doorbell with continuous recording to a UniFi NVR. Reolink is another one worth looking at.

there is just the g4. for outdoor and the g5 flex (only covered outdoor) the problem I see is the USB-C port...so i can't just put down power but need another solution somehow...that's where i see the main problem. the rest is POE

Had an Amcrest G4. It did okay but not great. Ended up going with the Ubiquiti G4 because I decided I want all of my security in a native ecosystem and I can rebroadcast to Homekit for convenience as needed Edit: Sorry missed the PoE part. Amcrest G4 is not PoE

I got the non-PoE WiFi model and power was pretty easy to fix, \~$20. The transformer on my existing doorbell wasn't enough to run both the G4 doorbell camera and my existing mechanical chime. I upgraded my doorbell transformer to a 16V 30VA and now I don't have any issues. Both the camera and mechanical chime work great. i was able to get this at my local HomeDepot. Amazon has a lot also if you need to order one online. [https://www.homedepot.com/p/Defiant-Wired-16VAC-30VA-Doorbell-Transformer-Compatible-with-Most-Video-Doorbells-18000044/322882044](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Defiant-Wired-16VAC-30VA-Doorbell-Transformer-Compatible-with-Most-Video-Doorbells-18000044/322882044)

FWIW I had a Unifi G4 doorbell since they released it. It died a couple of weeks back. I didn’t feel like I got my money’s worth. It worked fine for a while but eventually I was always fighting signal issues and dropping out. Eventually it stopped being able to activate the chime, so I just bypassed the chime box. It lasted 4 or 5 years, but I felt it should have lasted longer. One day I noticed that it was offline. I tried other transformers and power supplies, it was toast. So, I replaced it with a Reolink and brought it into HomeKit with Scrypted. So far so good. And it was on sale for $80 on Amazon for pre-BF sale. Works every bit was well with motion detection, and seems to perform a lot better in low light vs my old Unifi G4 doorbell. 

Except it is objectively not because Unifi is anything but affordable. I love their product and have them everywhere in my house, but they are not affordable by any means

And you sound like a person who is incapable of basic reading comprehension. OP asked for affordable options, which a $280 camera is not when you can get a Wyze or Reo for $80. And for what it’s worth, I have 8 G5 Turrets, 2 G4 doorbells, a 48 switch and the UMDP SE. but when someone asks me for affordable recommendations I don’t tell them to get a Unifi system because that’s not what it is.

As far as I know the motion detection settings apply to all cams at the same time. I have 2 G3 cams in my home to monitor our dogs when we’re gone. Would not want motion detection on those. I do have a G4 doorbell ( non pro) but cannot use the motion detection functionality

Doorbell from Ubiquiti, no subscription but needs the Unifi ecosystem ( eg a recording device)

I have a whole Unifi setup with my Doorbell. As far as I understand third party ONVIF cameras are supported by Unifi, not the other way around ( doorbell supporting ONVIF)

I can confirm both the G4 doorbell and G4 Doorbell Pro from Ubiquiti work with with mechanical chimes. Check their website documentation for the compatible chimes.

Yeah, for sure. As an alternative to UNVR ($300) or CKG2 ($200), you could also consider the Cloud Gateway Max ($200, newer without SSD and WiFi) or Dream Router ($200, older with 128GB SSD and WiFi 6). They also have a non-Pro UniFi Doorbell ($200) that primarily omits the bottom-facing camera (low frame rate, for doormat packages). This is actually what I use and it’s great.

I upgraded from the G4 Doorbell (non-Pro) to the G4 Doorbell Pro (WiFi), and I had the same symptom — functional doorbell with no chime. However, I have two mechanical chimes instead of one. I was already using a 16V 30VA transformer, but the second child and length of wiring must’ve made it insufficient. I ended up swapping the transformer for a 24V 40VA transformer, and the 16V chimes with 24V chimes (which was surprisingly easy to do because I found one that used the same plastic mounting bracket as my previous chimes). Everything works great now (and I know I have enough doorbell power for anything else in the future).

Reolink unless you already have a unifi protect console. I swapped from amcrest to unifi, it wasn't really needed but I wanted the finger print reader.

Unifi Protect doorbell has been good for me.

I moved to UniFi and their doorbell is 10000x better. The video quality is incomparable.

My Ring doorbell was useless. It missed events all the time, the intercom barely worked, and the video quality was garbage. I replaced it with a UniFi wifi doorbell and all those problems went away.

Yes, G3 Instant and G4 Instant are wireless, so is the G4 doorbell.

Love mine.

10000% Agree. You are trying to make one camera do the work of at least two cameras here. Get a wired PoE doorbell cam to do doorbell cam duty. Then get either as u/Curious\_Party\_4683 suggested a 4mm or greater lens, or a cameras with PTZ (with actual optical Z) and auto tracking. Reolink and Unifi make good options for both of those.

Some do. Eufy and Unifi offer dual camera options that they typically call a "package cam" I think the bigger issue is angle and height. A camera will have a wider and further view when you can get ya boi Pythagoras in on the game and angle that camera down. So it's hard to have a doorbell which must by it's very nature be lower down to see people and let them press the button.

This is exactly what ie done. I’ve put a 5GB drive in my gen 2+ cloud key and it supports my UniFi video doorbell + 2 wall mounted cameras and gives me more than 3 months of video retention. No subscriptions.

Protect is extremely fast to notify me and load video using the G4 Doorbell over wifi5.

Budget? I have an Ubiquiti doorbell with scrypted. Even without scrypted it’s a great overall doorbell with the ability to save locally. Setup is expensive though

Unifi is the best. Not cheap though

Yeah and it comes with a wedge piece to angle it better.

Unifi, Eufy, Aqara are all good options with local storage / NVR options.

Unifi Protect is probably the most reliable/user friendly. I've used lots of surveillance platforms, and nothing I've seen even comes close. I haven't tried their smart plugs yet, but for cameras, doorbells & sensors, it's fantastic.

UniFi. Video is stored locally on either a Cloud Key or NVR.

I believe UniFi has way more industry trust than Ring, Amazon, Google in terms of selling customer usage data.

I stand by what I said. And I believe UniFi to be a better solution than Ring.

I use the UniFi G4 poe via Homebridge and it works flawlessly in HomeKit as if were native. So not native but operates like it if you don’t mind running Homebridge.

Go with UniFi. All recording is internal to your home.

Tired of buying unifi doorbells. I've RMA'd (under warranty) my original 3 and now one of the replacements just failed and it's not in warranty. Now the protect supports other cams, has anyone found a decent doorbell alternative? I've never owned any other doorbell cams. I've seen friends with rings or nests and was always a little jealous that the responsiveness and 2 way com was better. I am deep in the G ecosystem around the house fwiw... TIA

on different power supplies too Now I did start getting them from the first available batch years ago so they have been in use for a while. still a pita though!

Once I went with UniFi I’ve never looked back

Unifi is all local if you want it to be! Love unifi protect

This is what I will be moving to. But you need Protect as well for the doorbell don’t forget! Currently on Eufy WiFi but hardwired power.

Another vote for the Unifi system.

Unifi Protect with homebridge plugin works great for me

It used to be but the latest few homebridge unifi protect plugin updates are now on par . It’s also more intuitive to set up.

PoE is more secure and reliable. I’m 100% Ethernet all 11 cameras with doorbell. Buy a raspberry pi 5. Load the home bridge image on a microSD card. Put the card in and it will boot up and be ready to go. Homebridge is the most intuitive and has the least learning curve compared to other options. The latest plug-in is very mature and has the same performance as the others now like scrypted etc.

Yes as long as you setup a home bridge system and install the Unifi protect plugin. Or you can install home assistant and add the scrypted add on alternatively.

I guess you could start with that, but it’s a night and day performance difference when I upgraded from my Pi 4 to Pi 5 a few months ago. Video is instant now.

Unifi is great I’m all in on Unifi for my home and business.

Unifi Protect Doorbell with homebridge Unifi Protect plug-in is rock solid. Others recommend scrypted but homebridge plugin development is better than ever now. (Easier to setup too)

Yes I have seen that it has the same 2 part configuration as the old one. I also know that the new one has 5 GHZ wifi and a number of nice upgrades such as 2K resolution and better aspect ratio. The only think missing is no more free 7 days of cloud storage.

This, the power options are great, PoE, existing doorbell wiring (might require transformer upgrade), or USB. Can be entirely local only, with local credentials, or relayed remote access through Unifi. However, does require Unifi Protect whichcan only run on some Unifi routers or Unifi NVR.

Current user of G4 pro non-POE, upgraded from G4. Before that I was using Nest and then Ring. The video quality is excellent, on main camera and the package camera is not so, which is okay for it's purposes. Rings and motion detection is instant. It was a drop in replacement with mechanical chime. Placed about 20ft away from U7 Pro AP with excellent WiFi signal. I would say, POE version may not be worth if you have favourable conditions for non-POE version. But definitely worth comparing other doorbells in the market, especially when you are in Unifi ecosystem.

I have a unifi doorbell, without a chime. It doesn't notify during the night, or if the house is in do not disturb mode. I have my notifications through home assistant, so I can do all sorts of conditions and scenarios.

Unifi doorbell

And I can add on top of that, you can now open a door lock through the finger print leveraging HomeAssistant with this door bell so I you can it's the obvious better choice:) Edit: as mentionned below, only the g4 doorbell pro black had the fingerprint sensor

I use a Unifi doorbell cam piped in to HomeKit with Scrypted. Works with my mechanical chime (and HomePods!)

If you're in the Unifi ecosystem, or willing to invest into it, their doorbell is great! I got one wired over Ethernet and it also has almost zero latency. Meaning I can finally talk back when someone pressed the button!

I agree, I just put in the G4 doorbell, I was surprised at the size, but I love ubiquiti so I was good, but wife wasn't thrilled..

There are quite a number of Unifi doorbell users here. But since the Unifi doorbells are somewhere between 2 - 5x the price of the Reolink doorbell, it would have to be pretty damn special to consider....and it just isn't. It's just okay; perfectly functional, but nothing special and definitely nowhere near worth the ridiculous retail price.

It is actually factual. You have more ability to secure and locally manage with Unifi than Ring. Some of what you’ve said is correct on the security concern, but then you’ve gone into a hole of stupidity to defend it when it’s factually more capable - despite what you “believe”.

Holy shit you’re fucking dense. Someone - Unifi is a better solution. You - you can believe that, but I need proof?!?! Me - dude, there’s a lot more you can do with Unifi, it’s obviously a more capable system in all aspects, including security. You - proof!!! Proof!!! Proof!!! Unifi bad you wrong! Me - ok bud.

The Nest sucks. So glad to be moved on from it. If cost isn’t an issue, a UniFi setup + Homebridge is the best HomeKit doorbell you can get.

IMO, the lineup of available HomeKit doorbells is mediocre to begin with so it isn’t surprising that it beats most of the out-of-the-box options. The resolution is mediocre, requires a subscription for any decent usage, doesn’t have native HomeKit support, and I’m not sure if this is an issue other people have faced but both of my units got an annoying crack on the ring around the camera. It’s a pretty unit, but the big ugly crack that I had kinda negated that. Granted, I already ran a UniFi WiFi setup for my home network so my startup cost for replacing the Nest was just the doorbell. So it made a lot of sense from just a financial standpoint to do it and eliminate the subscription. Not too sure about other cameras as my experience is limited to both generations of the Nest doorbells and the UniFi doorbell.

The best OEM Homekit experience youll get is with an Aqara doorbell, however if you can deal with some tinkering a Reolink or Unifi doorbell combined with scrypted is absolutely rock solid, I've been running the Reolink Doorbell via scrypted for over a year as well as 8 other Reolink cameras and you wouldnt even know they weren't OEM, everything works such as facial detection, onvif , HomePod and Apple TV announcements

I didn't get it to work with ringing the doorbell but I can say hey Google show me the front door and it streams the doorbell camera on my TV.

For some reason my Google Home display never loads the stream but the TV will

I have a UniFi doorbell. The doorbell doesn’t connect to the internet, but the NVR does. They’re great.

Can confirm this, unifi + home bridge = HKSV Be aware you need additionally Unifi Protect hw

Came here to suggest this. Unless you're setting up a very expensive (Enterprise level) UniFi setup, the video will be stored locally (on a device at your home). Depending on just how security conscious you want to be, you can completely segregate the system from the internet or allow yourself streaming access from anywhere.

UniFi protect uses their cloud for authentication, but everything it records is self hosted. Very reliable as well.

I pulled wiring to replace my old front door intercom, and got the Unifi doorbell. Its expensive, and you have to already have a unifi system, but if you do, you can add chimes to other rooms very easily, via either PoE or wall outlet plug modules. I've got 4 of em scattered across the house, and it works quite well

I just swapped my G4 for the Logitech last week. Main reason was orientation. I couldn’t see packages on the ground in front of my door [with] the G4. Mine is also on the right side, I was able to get the security screw in with a little right angle screw driver, a pain, but it worked. My G4 would occasionally go offline in the summer morning sun, so I’m worried about the Logi. I found a little sun shade on Etsy I’m going to order. I do NOT have a mechanical chime, I just used a plug in power supply. I was a little worried when reading their install docs, but it worked like a charm. The vertical orientation is so much nicer on iPhone and Apple TV. Fingers crossed it works through the summer.

This video just convinced my wife to get a G4 doorbell to replace our nest.

Unsure on the lock front, still haven’t bit through bullet… If cost isn’t an option, then for cameras and doorbell you’ll find Unifi hard to beat. Unifi doesn’t natively support HomeKit but when router via HomeBridge, the Unifi kit outperforms all the native HomeKit hardware I’ve tried.

I am wondering though: what do people use for automation(s) when somebody rings the bell? I currently have a Unifi Doorbell and they have Blueprints. But I never could find some generic blueprint that could do the same (like snapshot/thumbnail, actionable buttons etc)

Unifi if you're in the ecosystem. Eufy otherwise. AliExpress (rip) if you like a project 

I use the Unifi doorbell and door and pass those into HomeKit with homebridge. It has direct sun hitting it in Texas for 1/2 the day with no issues.

Basically this. It’s a reasonable choice if you’re sold on Unifi Protect, and certainly has some minor features like dedicated package camera, animations on the little screen and the fingerprint sensor (currently in beta). May able have NFC, but I don’t think there’s any support yet. Those aren’t likely to overcome the cost difference for most people.

I also moved from Ring to UniFi Protect and have their doorbell. I hardwired the doorbell through Ethernet. Using wifi for cameras is not ideal.

Another vote for UniFi. Best mobile surveillance app there is.

This is true for cameras but less so for doorbells. An awful lot (almost all) of doorbells are 'smart home' products, that don't just have a basic web interface but rather force you to use some shitty app. Take the amcrest one- it'll work locally with a NVR, but you still have to configure it with an app, and if you cut off its internet connection to Amcrest cloud the LED blinks differently. Cameras there's plenty of options that are happy to work locally. Doorbells, not so much. Ubiquiti UniFi is one, I think Dahua also has one. Reolink too although you may need an app to set it up.

That may be the excuse, but what you want exists. Synology for example is a totally local NVR, but it'll do an app push to a phone when motion is detected. No idea if that alert can work for a doorbell. Ubiquiti does that well. NVR is local, does an app push to the phone when someone rings the bell. I've never tried it with the NVR not connected to their cloud though.

Bad video quality, terrible notifications, detection that half work, and a high failure rate. All that in a $300+ proprietary package. It is embarrassing the amount of complaints about it on here.

The Ubiquiti fanboy way, blame the user for anything gone wrong. Which goes against the other Unifi fanboy line of how easy it is to setup and use. The UI doorbell is embarrassingly bad and it is typical human behavior to not believe that when they have spent over $300 on junk.

I've got Unifi Protect all around, including their door bell. Absolutely love it, very glad I ran Ethernet everywhere

Both have both. Their doorbell cameras function pretty much the same as a Google nest or ring, but all footage is stored on a local NVR. Tbh, the NVR is the part that makes it a tough investment, but I like my Unifi doorbell so much more than I ever liked by Nest.

damn pricey here in canada($507 plus tax). My logitech just crapped out so I am looking for a new one. Hesitant on this because it feels like a G5 PoE could be reasonable soon-ish but who knows. Also don't love that you have to use their speaker. would much prefer a traditional chime connection like the logitech.

The unifi doorbell is great, although they do have a habit of promising/advertising features that never end up existing

The Reolink WiFi one is garbage. Nothing I could do to make it stable. Got the Unifi one and it has been great. Maybe the Reolink PoE one is ok, but the WiFi one couldn’t get through 10 minutes of recording without losing connection

I’d go UniFi but you do need to buy into their ecosystem. Though it is very good.