Doorbell cameras provide a safe and convenient way to see who is knocking without having to open or even approach your door. With the $199 August Doorbell Cam you get a crystal clear video image of your visitors, along with an instant push notification. You can enable a live video stream at any time, and lock or unlock your August Smart Lock depending on who is at the door. It also acts as a Wi-Fi bridge for the Smart Lock. However, certain key features are not yet enabled, including motion detection, video recording, and support for IFTTT (If This Then That) recipes.

Design and Features
The August Doorbell Cam£220 at Amazon UK doesn't look anything like a doorbell camera. It doesn't look anything like a doorbell, either. The square housing measures 3 inches on each side and 0.8 inches thick. It snaps on to a 3-by-3 inch mounting plate that is 1/8-inch thick, and has four wired terminals for the doorbell housing and two external wires that connect to your existing doorbell wires. There are four holes for mounting the plate to your house. The kit includes a mounting wedge for angling the camera up or down, mounting screws and anchors, sealing putty (if necessary), an Allen wrench for securing the housing to the mounting plate, and a spacer for use with the optional Smart Keypad.

As with the August Smart Lock, the Doorbell Cam is available in two colors, dark gray and silver. It has a large 2-inch round button in the center that activates the buzzer and camera, a small 1,280-by-960 HD camera with a 120-degree field of view in the upper right corner, and a motion sensor in the upper left. Below the buzzer button is a speaker and microphone array for two-way audio communications between the doorbell and your phone.

The motion sensor was not enabled at the time of this review, nor was the ability to record video, both of which are major features for a video doorbell, and are available with devices such as the Ring£89 at Amazon UK and the Vivint Sky. That said, both features are coming soon, according to the folks at August. The camera does not use infrared LEDS to provide light for night vision; instead, it uses low-light technology to provide color nighttime video.

The Doorbell Cam uses the same Android and iOS app as the August Smart Lock. When someone presses the button you get a push notification on your phone that takes you to the app. Here you can view live video and converse with whoever rang the doorbell, or deny the call. If you have an August Smart Lock you can lock or unlock the door with the press of a button, but there's no support for other home automation devices, and there's no IFTTT channel like you get with the Smart Lock. For video on-demand, press the Watch Live button. To speak with whoever is at your door, press and hold the microphone button. Tapping the gear icon opens the Settings page where you can enable the doorbell chime, adjust speaker volume, check the doorbell's Wi-Fi signal strength and battery level, and reset the device. Tap Troubleshooting Help to launch a Web-based support page with detailed installation tips and FAQs.

Installation and Performance

Installing the Doorbell Cam was a bit of a challenge. As per the instructions I removed my existing doorbell and connected the two mounting plate wires to the two doorbell wires using the included Dolphin connectors. I attached the mounting plate to my wood siding, then snapped the doorbell housing onto the mounting plate. I observed a very faint red doorbell LED in the center of the button that turned green momentarily before going dark.

According to the instructions, I removed the camera and placed it next to my router to establish a Wi-Fi connection, but couldn't get the camera to connect. I reattached the camera to the mounting plate and waited a few minutes before trying again. After three attempts I was finally able to establish a connection, but I was unable to view live video and received an error message informing me that my battery was low. As it turns out, the internal battery comes from the factory uncharged (a fact that should be noted in the installation documentation but isn't), and did not provide enough power to complete the installation. After an hour or so of charging I was able to view live video without issue.

The August Doorbell Cam delivers the sharpest daytime HD video quality we've seen from any doorbell camera we've tested. Image detail is crisp, and streaming video is clean with excellent color. Nighttime video is also sharp, with good contrast and decent color. Push notifications appeared within seconds of the doorbell being pressed, and two-audio was adequately loud and intelligible.

Conclusions
With the August Doorbell Cam you can see who is at your door no matter where you are. It uses the same app as the August Smart Lock, so you can lock or unlock your doors instantly depending on who is out there, and it acts as a Wi-Fi bridge so you can control the lock from anywhere. Moreover, the camera's ability to provide video on demand means you can monitor the area around your door at any time. The camera also delivers sharper video than the DoorBird D101, the Ring, and the SkyBell. However, until August enables the Doorbell Cam's video recording and motion detection features, the Vivint Sky video doorbell is your best option, though it requires a subscription to the somewhat pricey Vivint monitoring service.