I’m a smart home tech reviewer, and these are my top 3 subscription-free video doorbells for Halloween – with no scary fees

Is that a trick-or-treater at your door, a package delivery, or an unexpected guest? To find out you’ll need a video doorbell, so I’ve put together this guide to help you choose one that doesn’t come with any scary extra fees.

There are lots of affordable video doorbells around, but they’re not always what they seem. Although the doorbell itself might be cheap, many manufacturers lock the most advanced features (such as package detection) behind a subscription paywall. Want to save your videos and check them later? You might have to pay for that as well. That’s why I’ve put together this list of three top-notch video doorbells that give you full access to everything without locking you into a monthly payment plan.

You’ll notice that there are no Ring devices here. That’s because, although you can answer a Ring doorbell and see a live video feed without a subscription, your recordings won’t be stored anywhere, so if you miss a visitor, you can’t check who it was later. Features like package-detection are behind a paywall, too, as is the ability to go back and check old alerts. Take a look at our full guide to Ring subscriptions for more details.

If you live in the UK and have an Aldi nearby, the discount supermarket is currently selling a subscription-free video doorbell for just £19.99. It’s only available in-store, so you’ll have to put on your best costume and haunt the middle aisle yourself.

4K doorbells are now widely available, but usually burdened by subscription fees), and during our tests, we were thoroughly impressed by its motion-sensing capabilities. In terms of responsiveness, it was up there with the best home security cameras. Night vision is crisp as well (the doorbell is equipped with infrared sensors).

We found installation refreshingly straightforward, with a choice of mounting plates so you can choose one to suit your home, and it can be used with existing doorbell wiring or wireless from a rechargeable battery.

The 7000 Series isn’t the cheapest video doorbell around, but its price is competitive considering how much you’re getting. It’s around the same as the Ring Video Doorbell 2, which requires a membership to save and review video footage.

The only other drawback for us was a slight lag we noticed during two-way talk with visitors. Otherwise, the 7000 Series is hard to beat.

Read our full Philips 7000 Series Video Doorbell review

The Philips 7000 Series isn’t available in the UK, but the EP3x Pro is, and it’s the cheapest video doorbell in this guide with a list price of just $149.99 / £129.99 (about AU$220). You don’t get as much local storage for your videos, but 32GB with no subscription fee is nothing to sniff at.

Video doorbells are usually pretty straightforward to install, but we found the EZVIZ app particularly intuitive, and had the EP3x Pro up and running in just a couple of minutes. It makes checking your video clips especially easy as well, showing you a handy list of callers who have visited over the last 30 days, so you can easily see if you missed a delivery and when.

Again, there are two cameras (one for faces and one for packages), and footage is recorded at 2K. Rather than an infrared camera, the EP3x Pro uses bright LEDs to help record visitors after dark. It’s not discreet, but it means you get full color recording at night, which makes identifying callers easier.

One of this doorbell’s standout features is its ability to run from a solar charger, which drastically increases its battery life compared with conventional wireless doorbells. You can basically set it and forget it, which we love, and if anyone tries to pry it off the wall, they’ll trigger the anti-tamper alarm.

We sometimes experienced a short delay between a visitor pressing the button and us receiving a notification on our phone, but that was the only setback. Once we were connected, two-way talk worked flawlessly without lag.

Again, you can get extra cloud storage if you really want it (EZVIZ offers a service called CloudPlay), but frankly, there’s plenty of space on the doorbell, and no other features are behind a paywall, so there’s no need.

EZVIZ EP3x Pro Doorbell review

Another twin-camera video doorbell, this smart-looking model from Eufy is an excellent option if you’re looking for a subscription-free video doorbell on a budget. Although its list price is about the same as the Philips 7000 Series above, it’s often available at a steep discount, making it an exceptional value.

Like the 7000 Series, the Video Doorbell Dual records video at 2K, which is just fine for us, and is loaded with advanced features like package detection and the ability to play pre-recorded voice messages, all with no membership necessary.

It has an infra-red sensor that detects body heat from visitors, while radar motion-detection scans for movement. Better yet, its software includes AI person-recognition, and during our tests, it was able to accurately identify and label visitors in our video clips. We didn’t receive any false positives, and the detailed app notifications meant we could tell who was calling at a glance, without even picking up our phone.

All your footage is stored locally on the HomeBase 2 (bundled with the doorbell), which provides 16GB for your clips. You can buy cloud storage, too, if you really want to, but there’s no compelling reason to. When you can keep control over your own videos and access them for free, why do anything else?

We didn’t love having to take the doorbell down to charge it (there’s no swappable power pack), but it can be connected to existing doorbell wiring if you’d rather not run it from its battery.

Eufy Video Doorbell Dual review

If you’re in the UK, there’s one more great wireless doorbell to consider. Doro is a company that makes accessible tech with senior users in mind, but the Hemma is a superb wireless doorbell and chime bundle for anyone who’s put off by features they won’t use. If you just want a doorbell that’ll let you see callers and speak to them remotely, it comes highly recommended. In fact, it took the prize for best video doorbell in last year’s TechRadar Choice Awards.

The Hemma isn’t compatible with other smart home devices, so you won’t be able to take calls on your smart speaker or use it to trigger Philips Hue lights, but that’s fine. It’s totally self-contained and made for people who don’t have an existing smart home setup. There’s no subscription necessary (or even available) to use all its features, and it can be installed in minutes.

During our tests, we appreciated its accessible mobile app, sensitive motion detection that triggers an alert when someone is nearby, and crisp video footage. Its 1080p resolution isn’t super high, but it is the same as a standard Ring video doorbell and will be perfectly fine for most homes.

The chime is the loudest we’ve tested, which is great if you have limited hearing or are just in a different room. I also like the thoughtful inclusion of a siren to ward away unwanted visitors and an emergency assistance feature that can divert callers to a friend or relative – both great additions for vulnerable homeowners.

It’s not currently available outside the UK though, so if you live somewhere else then you’ll need to pick one of the other options above.

Read our full Doro Hemma review

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