While I’m not sure how you, dear reader, feel about the subject of a Smart Home, for me it seems like that fabled dream, closely resembling that of Star Trek TNG. You enter your quarters, and call out “Computer” to run a bevy of actions. For myself and others that have gone the route of Homekit, there seems to be a slow adoption with vendors. Apple themselves have even been a little slow, but they’ve finally added Home Kit Secure Video, which opens the Door(bell) to the Video Doorbell for Homekit.
I was more than a little surprised to find that Logitech took their Circle View camera and made a Doorbell variety. I’ve set up and spent a couple of weeks with the Logitech Circle View Doorbell and have had the full HomeKit Secure Video experience. What did I find in this technical deep dive?
The Installation
Like most HomeKit products there is always a bit of installation involved. The doorbell was actually something I’ve had a bit of experience with before. I’ve both tried and failed to replace a doorbell chime…. safe to say I’m not much of a Handy Man, though I can assemble Ikea Furniture. I was already prepared to bribe the Handy Man of my family, luckily it seems Logitech already had this base covered.
There are two version of the doorbell – one with just the device and one that comes with the device plus professional installation. I opted for the professional installation – which is fairly easy to redeem. On the product package there is a code that you can redeem with Hello Tech. It was also surprising just how quickly they came out. I actually got same day service. Installation looked from a distance pretty easy to do, the toughest part was trying to hook up the existing chime. Sadly ours was a little too old school and wasn’t compatible. The good new is with Homekit the HomePod Mini can be used to make the chime noise.
The Setup
Apple is kinda known for its ease of use, and while it was easy enough to add the device to my HomeKit app, there were a lot of extra details I wasn’t ready for. Now to get the most out of the Logitech Circle View Doorbell, you need to make sure you have a HomeKit Hub. If you aren’t aware you can use the Apple TV 4K, iPad. While you can also use the HomePod Mini, it lacks some of the nicer features.
What I was expecting was to receive a notification for any incoming deliveries. Sounds simple enough right? Nope….
The default settings is simply to only record when someone presses the doorbell. Which is fine, that makes total sense. The finer details were all located inside Apple Homekit.
The first mistake I made was turning on just the Motion Sensor, not realizing where the camera was pointed – the field of view is very important. The camera actually had the street in view and my neighbors across the way. So literally any motion would trigger it, including passing cars. With the Homekit Hub you can customize the area of focus, which was nice – I literally created a square to watch for any motion. I also turned on the facial recognition, which really made things way more interesting.
I would recommend really considering where you are pointing the camera – I have kids, and well, if they’re playing out front, get ready for them to trigger the notifications. I also recommend disabling the option to record the sound automatically.
The Design
With any device that’s going to be attached to my house, design is an incredibly important thing. This actually matters a bit more than it should, but I think Logitech knocked it out of the park on this one. The Circle View is sleek and very compact, and even has indication lights so you know what the device is doing.
When the Circle View is recording you will see a Red Light. It also comes with a couple of mounts so you can optimize what your camera sees. I actually used the diagonal mount so it would focus more on the walk up areas to the door.
Usage
Certainly wish I had this up during the Christmas rush, seemed like I had deliveries showing up on the hour, especially with the Covid Lockdown. I was certainly excited to see a FedEx driver push the button – though I was completely confused when another driver just ignored it and went with an old fashion knock.
When the doorbell is actually pressed you get a notification on your Apple Watch and iPhone. If you have an Apple TV it will actually do Picture and Picture and show who’s at the door. From there you can actually have a conversation with whomever is at the door. Face recognition is also pretty awesome, if someone approaches the door and the camera recognizes the face, you can be notified who’s actually at the door.
Overall
On a whole I’m pretty impressed with the Circle View Doorbell, It does much that I expected it would do. Motion activity and facial recognition is quite amazing. I also love how it looks on the front door. And I love even more that it has privacy in mind – being part of the Apple HomeKit is a huge deal, and one of the many reasons I’ve yet to purchase an Amazon Ring or Alexa. Looking forward to further ventures into the Smart Home, but still being smart about avoiding Big Brother…