Zmodo Greet Review – Answering Your Door While You’re Away Just Became Possible

Zmodo Greet allows you to answer the door even when you are not home. This is particularly useful in cases such as when you are expecting something delivered to your home but cannot be there to receive it.

You can instruct the delivery guy to leave the parcel at your doorstep or to leave it with your next-door neighbor. Zmodo Greet can also help scare off would-be burglars who might be lurking outside your door trying to see if anybody’s home. You can tell them to run away, even when you’re at your office.

The Zmodo Greet also has a smart motion detector that detects any motion it sees and automatically records 30 seconds of video. It will send you an alert so that you could see what’s moving outside your door and act on it. It does not even wait for someone to ring the doorbell.

These video clips are stored on the onboard 8 gigabyte storage and you can view it on your smartphone any time you want.

Aside from the recorded video clips, you can also watch a live stream of everything that your doorbell sees using the smartphone app.

Easy to install

Some video doorbells such as the Doorbird D101 are notoriously known to be a hassle to install. Not the Zmodo Greet.

If your current doorbell works between 10VAC to 33VAC, you can just use the same wiring to connect your Zmodo. Once connected, you only wait for it to power on.

Then download the free Zmodo app and connect the doorbell to your Wi-Fi network, and everything is good to go. All setup instructions to pair your doorbell to your Wi-Fi network are found in the free app.

Two-way communication

With its built-in speaker and microphone, the Zmodo allows you to talk to your visitor outside the door using the smartphone app.

So when somebody rings the doorbell while you’re enjoying a soak in your tub or while you’re attending to something you cannot leave right away, you can just quickly grab your phone and tell your caller to wait for you to open the door after a few minutes.

Unique features

A unique feature of the Zmodo is that your visitors are able to call you on your smartphone just by pressing the doorbell. You then have three options, you can pick up the call, you can ignore it, or you can play a pre-recorded message for your visitor to hear.

Another unique feature is the Zmodo’s ability to pan the camera. You can get the best view of who’s standing or what’s happening by your front door by panning the camera left and right. You can control the camera just by swiping your smartphone screen.

Specifications

Dimension	4.92 inches by 2.36 inches by 0.98 inches
Weight	0.3 lbs.
Camera	720 pixels high definition color
Viewing Angle	155 degrees
Zoom	4x digital
Frames per minute	25 fps, 720 pixels
Audio	Two way with internal microphone and speaker
Night vision	Can see up to 10 feet, infrared
Notification	Alerts are sent when video is taken
Storage	8 gigabytes built-in storage
Wi-Fi	2.4 GHz WPA/WPA2 Wi-Fi
Works with	iOS v7 or higher and Android v4.0 or higher
Weatherproof?	Yes, adheres to IP51 standards
Temperature rating	Works within 14 degrees Fahrenheit to 122 degrees Fahrenheit
Power	16 to 36 VAC

Advantages: What you would love about the Zmodo Greet

You have an onboard storage, which means that you do not need cloud storage to keep your video clips.

Unlike with Ring, where you pay a monthly fee, Zmodo Greet allows you to capture and view videos without a monthly subscription. That makes it very convenient because automatic video recording, storage and playback are very crucial features set in a smart doorbell; it feels wrong to have to pay more for it.

Zmodo also offers a three-year warranty, which is pretty cool if you run into problems with it.

The ability to pan the camera is also something that you do not see in a lot of other video doorbells. Not only does it allow you to get a better angle when checking who your visitors are, it also helps you be more flexible in the placement of your doorbell.

It also helps if you encounter problems with your camera being against the light, where it gives you dark photos or videos where you cannot see the person’s face. A slight adjustment to the camera’s lens can help take care of that problem.

Another advantage is that it automatically sends you a picture or records a video when it senses motion or when somebody rings the bell. That makes it a good alternative to having a separate security camera for your front door or porch.

Another thing that Zmodo Greet does right is the good quality of night-mode pictures. It makes use of infrared LED lights and a CMOS sensor so you get good quality photos and videos even in low lighting conditions.

Further, you can set quiet hours during which time the doorbell will not send you notifications. This ensures that you get a good night’s sleep or get a few hours of quiet, disturbance-free time when you are at home.

What could have been better?

The Zmodo Greet seems to have some connectivity issues as a lot of customers have reported needing to restart the app a lot of times in order to get connected to the doorbell again.

Additionally, while the Zmodo Greet looks expensive and beautiful, there is a problem with the construction. The screws are quite small and weak.  After mounting your Zmodo Greet, you can easily knock it out of place. This is certainly not a good thing for a security camera.

Nevertheless, by the time somebody gets up to it and takes it out of its mount, the doorbell would have snapped a photo or recorded a video of the person.

Lastly, the motion sensor they have put in is too sensitive. Passing cars are also recorded, so you could expect a lot of false warnings. There is no way for you to adjust the sensitivity either.

And if that is not enough, there is a significant lag from when the motion sensor detects any movement and for the camera to start recording video.

So if the motion sensor is activated by a passing car, the video would probably show you the car’s rear part or no car at all. In the event that the camera does detect an intruder, the person could have easily walked out of range before the camera starts recording.

Alternatives

If you do not want to be bothered closing and launching the app time and again, then get a SkyBell, which pretty much goes for the same price and set of features, but with a more reliable connection. However, the Skybell does not have the panning ability.

You could check out the Ring Video Doorbell or the Doorbird D101. These might have more expensive price tags but they do a better job with their smartphone app and connectivity.

Doorbird D101, however, does not automatically record videos so it may not be the security camera doorbell that some customers might want.

The final verdict

The Zmodo Greet is a good product that allows you to have a video doorbell you can operate via smartphone. It has several very useful features, including automatic video recording and the ability to move the camera to view a bigger area around the porch or your front door.

It pretty much does what other more expensive smart doorbells can do (For the latest prices and discounts, check here).

Plus, it does a good job of mimicking an outdoor security camera that detects motion and records videos of that movement.  In short, it can do things that other smart doorbells can dream about.

However, a lot of people are turned off by the fact that for a smart doorbell that also doubles as a security camera, it might be the first thing that a burglar would steal because it is very easy to pry it away from your door.

Plus the connectivity issues might be a problem especially if your Wi-Fi router is far away from the door.

Having to constantly check up on whether your app is still connected to the doorbell might help you decide to go for another smart doorbell.