Any time someone says an ultra cheap monitoring device is subscription free I just picture an odd man running a curio shop telling me his wares don't cost money
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2025
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The actual hardware cost of these devices is actually minimal. Basically any wifi capable microcontroller, a camera and depending on implementation some storage (or a micro sd-card holder). So that price is only cheap in comparison to existing products.
For reference, said microcontroller with basic camera can be had for like 3$ or something.
Retail pricing dictates a $3 component cost is $12. And that $3 would have to include packaging and assembly costs. And the plastic case and button. £17 is tough to hit with all that, especially if there is an SD card included or any software development to ensure any kind of security.
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...and do they sell data, including video, to law enforcement and insurance?
Sincerely, A person who recently was in a fender bender and was not surprised at all when Progressive shared "incident footage" from a Ring camera across the street at a location completely unrelated to the fender bender
(They ARE selling your data, folks. NEVER trust big tech to act in your best interest)
I stopped my Ring subscription but kept the doorbell camera.
It wasn't until a year later when I was moving and the house was almost completely empty (still had internet/wifi setup) and I looked at the wifi app and saw that the ring doorbell still had significant data usage.
They were clearly still capturing my doorbell video.
They also, if you don’t turn it off, default to allowing other Amazon devices to use YOUR Ring to access the Internet.
It's a rebranded Tuya device, and they don't sell your data to any law enforcement or insurance.
They do however comply with Chinese laws and all your data is readily available for the Chinese government.
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From the listing:
Answer your door from anywhere in the world with this remote viewing Video Doorbell.
So I assume you're not expected to self-host this. Which means they have to run and maintain servers. And $16/person ain't covering the cost of this device + servers indefinitely.
It's a rebranded Tuya doorbell. So there aren't any subscriptions, though you will be giving them all your data.
Which means they have to run and maintain servers.
I'd bet money that it works just like similar devices from Reolink. Local recording to SD Card or NVR. If you want cloud recording then you're paying a monthly subscription.
This device from Aldi is at a very low pricepoint but it's specs are garbage. 480p recording? In 2025? C'mon...
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you can make very cheap to maintain peer to peer solutions
you can use a STUN server to discover your public IP and use a method called UDP hole punching to open a port others can connect to. STUN servers are very cheap to run: they don’t actually handle the data; just provide a kind of handshake service in the middle for coordinating
this is often used for peer to peer video chat etc
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any chance this can be done through your router/modem, where your phone app connects to external ip of router and is the "server end point" for your doorbell?
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It may not require a subscription fee, but that's really only a minor concern.
Having my video surveillance be uploaded to a cloud service and having to use some proprietary app to use my device is the real problems.
If you want security cameras, look for boring Power over Ethernet cameras that have an RTSP output. They connect to your network and provide a video stream out a specific port. Then you can plug that into whatever FOSS network video recording system you're using (Zone Minder or Frigate) and then you can access it like you access any other thing on your local network.
Never goes to a cloud, never leaves your house.
If it has local storage then it doesn't get uploaded anywhere.
It also has BT so the offline mode could be simply "record to SD card and view videos using some app via Bluetooth".
Online mode with notifications and two-way talking has to require internet access so I definitely wouldn't trust it, with or without subscription.
It's a rebranded Tuya device, which can actually be used in a local only mode.
I wouldn't trust connecting it to the Tuya online services though that is for certain.
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"Doorbell with a subscription" is something so utterly stupid, an absolute misdevelopment.
The fuck does it even need a subscription for, anyway? Is it not hosting the videos locally? Fuck that.
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I believe this is only for the European market though. Aldi has stores in the United States, but I don't believe it's available here.
Are these even legal in Europe (the part that is not the UK...)?
I'm no expert, but I believe this is down to the individual member states.
In my country (the NL) it is technically not allowed to film the public street with an automated camera, which effectively makes Ring and equivalents illegal to install in most places
Practically this is not really enforced though, so you see them everywhere anyway.
It's indeed not enforced here, but on top of that the police would really like to know that you have cameras filming public space.
Not so they can do something about it, but so they know they can come to you to ask for footage if something happens.
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Security researcher here. I'm assuming this to be some low cost chinese easily hacked thing.
The product page says it offers cloud storage. Though you maybe can use it offline by recording to an SD card.
So it may not require a subscription, but it still requires an online service... which kind of misses the point that people make about these things being privacy nightmares.
It wasn't the fee that people were worried about, it was the network video camera uploading to a cloud service which can be accessed by the secret police.
Yup, it's a rebranded Tuya device.
Do you have a recommendation for consumer-priced outdoor cameras/doorbells? Seems like a minefield.
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£17.
I always thought it would be cool to have a doorbell that, when pressed, would flash a red light on the person standing there and then a machine voice would say 'Target Acquired'.
how about i dont need a video doorbell and i can use my eyeballs and look out the window
Good luck doing that in my place.
i get it that tech is cool and stuff, but as ive gotten older, ive learned not to rely on it as much
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No subscription fee yet. Enshittification hits everything eventually.
It uses an SD card for data. But why read an article.
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