After considering competing doorbells from Ring, Eufy or the older wired Nest, decided on this one. The design and the vertical viewing angle that allows almost a head-to-toe view right in front of your door were the deciding factors. I also thought it would be very nice to be able to continue to use the mechanical gong. The nice thing is that a battery doorbell (both at Google and at Eufy) can also use the lower voltage of 8V AC for existing wiring for existing wiring. I did buy a transformer that can handle 2A. Most 8V AC transformers deliver a maximum of 1A, which is less than what Google specifies in VA. Connecting and installing was super easy! Also very nice that no 'chime kit' is needed: All circuits to be able to continuously take current and to 'close' everything when you press the bell so that the gong goes off, are in the doorbell. After connecting and adding the bell to the Home app, the bell could be put into use fairly quickly. The HDR image and the wide vertical viewing angle mean that the space in front of the front door is shown very nicely and high (the viewing angle in width, on the other hand, should have been slightly larger). Also being able to limit the detection area (so that walking past people who don't come into our front yard are not filmed) is very handy!
So far the positives, because now there is also a very critical note, which actually makes me still strongly inclined to return this doorbell and still go for an Eufy (despite that it is actually not the convenient one for us). viewing angle). Aside from the need to subscribe to recordings (which I knew beforehand), my opinion is that Google just hasn't finished the whole software side of the doorbell yet! Opening the Google Home app and going to live view is very cumbersome and calling up live view takes several seconds. You also cannot set a time schedule to switch off the mechanical gong in the evening and at night, for example. But the most annoying thing is that if someone presses the bell, no separate notification channel is used and you are not 'called', for example. This means that, when someone rings the doorbell, there will be a 'normal' notification that easily merges with all other notifications from other apps. If you then press the notification, you will simply arrive at the home screen of the Google Home app. So NOT in live view! Come on Google. This is unacceptable! Just get a popup that makes it look like you're being 'called'. Or at least let the notification go directly to the live view! Recalling the history of events and viewing recorded videos is also very messy. You can't easily scroll through a video and it quickly jumps to a later or earlier event. And then there is another point that is important to me: I would have liked to integrate the doorbell into Home Assistant. Google has been offering a very handy API for some time, with which you can integrate the NEST products with other software. But to my dismay, all of Google's new battery-powered products, including this doorbell, aren't in that API yet (probably because Google is dropping the Nest ecosystem on newer products). Well.... then this doorbell becomes very much a product that is really only fun if you already have Nest speakers or displays at home. Because if you want a ring signal in other places in addition to the mechanical gong and you can't arrange this via your own home automation software, then you only have Nest speakers as an option...... And of course Google support does not make any statements about this. when that API support comes, and when the much-needed improvements to the Google Home app are coming.