We have a smart doorbell! Specifically, we have a SkyBell 2.0.
Brianna was onboard with this idea, because the UPS guy rings the doorbell three times a week with Amazon purchases, which in turn sets off a storm of high-pitched apocalyptic fury from our rat terrier, waking Link up from a nap he desperately needed.
The SkyBell allows you to turn off the actual chime portion of the doorbell from your phone, instead sending a push notification to everyone whose phone with the correct login credentials. When you get the notification (or any time you feel like it, actually) you can open up a video stream from the doorbell and even have a two-way audio conversation.
I didn't want to pay full price, though.
I managed to find an "open box" Skybell on eBay.com for 40% off. I've been buying lots of stuff "open box" from Amazon, so I jumped on this. Well, turns out there's a difference between Amazon's return department reselling a returned item after they have fully tested it, and some guy on eBay selling an open box item as-is.
It was dead on arrival.
Ridiculously, 4 days later Amazon had a 25% off sale on SkyBells. I hemmed and hawed a bit, having already blown a fair bit of money on this project. But I decided I wanted enough to pay twice. To my delight, the 25% discount somehow was applied twice to my purchase - I got my second SkyBell for 50% off!
I got it installed tonight:
And the video stream works!
So, after getting two fantastic deals, I have the smart doorbell I've wanted since we moved into the house, and I only paid 15% more than I would have if I had just purchased one at full price from the start.
:-/
Brianna was onboard with this idea, because the UPS guy rings the doorbell three times a week with Amazon purchases, which in turn sets off a storm of high-pitched apocalyptic fury from our rat terrier, waking Link up from a nap he desperately needed.
The SkyBell allows you to turn off the actual chime portion of the doorbell from your phone, instead sending a push notification to everyone whose phone with the correct login credentials. When you get the notification (or any time you feel like it, actually) you can open up a video stream from the doorbell and even have a two-way audio conversation.
I didn't want to pay full price, though.
I managed to find an "open box" Skybell on eBay.com for 40% off. I've been buying lots of stuff "open box" from Amazon, so I jumped on this. Well, turns out there's a difference between Amazon's return department reselling a returned item after they have fully tested it, and some guy on eBay selling an open box item as-is.
It was dead on arrival.
Ridiculously, 4 days later Amazon had a 25% off sale on SkyBells. I hemmed and hawed a bit, having already blown a fair bit of money on this project. But I decided I wanted enough to pay twice. To my delight, the 25% discount somehow was applied twice to my purchase - I got my second SkyBell for 50% off!
I got it installed tonight:
And the video stream works!
So, after getting two fantastic deals, I have the smart doorbell I've wanted since we moved into the house, and I only paid 15% more than I would have if I had just purchased one at full price from the start.
:-/
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