Tips for Choosing a Doorbell
Operating Range
This is by far the most important thing to look while buying a doorbell. Depending on the size and design of your home (consider the interfering walls as well), you should go for an appropriate operating range. Most of the doorbells support a starting range of 150 Ft and then it goes higher. Bigger the house, higher the operating range of the doorbell should be. So pick up a doorbell with sufficient range to cover most of the area of your home. However, if your house is small and no much wall interferences exist, then you can go for lower range doorbell.
Doorbell sound is heard from anywhere in your house, and that’s the whole purpose of a wireless doorbell. You don’t want the loss of signals because of poor operating range. So be very clear in your requirements.
Technology
Most of the wireless doorbells are Radio Frequency based ones and recently there are numerous products that run on WiFi and mobile compatible. You need to understand and decide if you need a smart video doorbell such Ring Pro as or DoorBird.
Ease of installation
A wireless doorbell should be easy to install. These doorbells come with double-sided tape for sticking, or one can screw it in the wall. Wire bell should also offer the flexibility of fixing it horizontally, vertically or keeping it in free position over a desk.
Doorbell sound options
Nowadays, most of the wireless doorbells come with wide range of doorbell sounds. You can experiment with various chime tunes and select according to your choice. There are door chimes which have specially designed chime sound for hearing impaired people. You need to check for these things. And if you are not particular about the sound options, then you can go with default sound provided by the chime unit.
Volume control adjustment Options
It’s always good to have a control on the sound level that the doorbell produces. You can have the flexibility of adjusting the volume based on the specific situation.
Flash Light / Illumination indicators
You should look for visual alerts that the door chime unit is offering. Lighting is of the particular importance of any of your family member is hearing impaired, or you have a young baby who doesn’t want to wake up every time someone rings a bell, a flashlight provision in the doorbell can be useful in these situations.
Design and Style of Doorbell – Decor
Select a doorbell which goes well with your home/wall decor. You have so much of verity in the market to choose from when it comes to design and look. Choose color and design that complements your home’s overall decor.
Integration with home security accessories
Lots of improvements have been happening regarding integration of home security features within the wireless doorbell. However, this can be optional if you have already a robust home security automation system in place.
A doorbell can work with motion sensors, multiple push buttons. You can take a decision whether you want these features or not.
Number of Push Buttons/Bells supported
Check, how many push buttons the doorbells supports. This is particularly useful if you have a huge house. Doorbells support up to 6 push buttons, and there are some doorbells which support unlimited push bells such as this one from Jacob Jensen.
So pick up the door chime unit based on your need for multiple push bell support.
Battery Options
Most of the doorbells come with disposable batteries. However, check whether the doorbell has rechargeable batteries and a charging plug within it.
Frequency Blocking and avoiding interference
Since wireless doorbells work based on the frequency exchange between transmitter and receiver, it’s important that your doorbell should respond to only its own push bell, not others. So look for whether doorbell has the option of blocking other frequencies, and in most cases they do.