Nooie Cam Doorbell review: Keep at eye on your front door 24/7

Affix the Nooie Cam Doorbell to your front door or any door you want to keep an eye on. The camera detects and records all visitors, even if they don't actually ring the doorbell. With 2K video and night vision, you'll get a clear picture of who's there.

Nooie Cam Doorbell works via an app on your smartphone, like the iPhone 12, where you'll get alerts when the camera detects people and whenever they ring your doorbell. The camera's field of view is 158°. If visitors do ring the doorbell, you can play a pre-set message or talk to them in real time with two-way audio without opening your door. You can pay for a subscription to keep your camera's recording in the cloud, which costs $1/month for 7-day playback or $3/month for 30-day playback. Don't want to pay for a subscription? Simply insert one of the best microSD cards into the doorbell instead.

The outdoor unit is weatherproof with an IP65 rating and houses a 10,000 mAh capacity rechargeable battery. You get two wall mounts: one flat and one at a 15-degree angle. The Nooie base station goes in an outlet inside your home; it doubles as a chime and Wi-Fi amplifier. It's compatible with both 2.4G and 5G Wi-Fi.

Note: After using this doorbell cam for an additional three months after the initial testing period of a week or so, I experienced numerous frustrations. I can no longer recommend this product at all. I've changed my rating and added a section at the bottom of the review to explain.

Nooie Cam Doorbell: Price and availability

Currently, you can purchase the Nooie Cam Doorbell on Nooie's own site or on Amazon. It runs $149.99 on Nooie's site. It's normally $149.99 on Amazon, but right now there is a $30 clickable coupon which brings it down to $119.99.

Nooie Cam Doorbell: What looks good

I've never had a doorbell camera before, and I have to say I really like it! The Nooie Cam Doorbell does a mostly great job capturing and storing video, and alerting me every time someone comes near my door and whenever someone rings the doorbell. It's also an effective intercom, with both two-way audio and pre-set messages you can choose. Plus, it works as a conventional doorbell with an audible chime. You can set an alarm to sound if someone tries to remove your Nooie Cam Doorbell.

I recently went out of town just for the day, and I paid the little girl next door to walk my dog while I was gone. The Nooie Cam Doorbell allowed me to see each time she came to get my dog and when she brought her back, which gave me peace of mind. I also really like being able to see when I get packages delivered, or when anyone comes to my door whether I'm home or not.

The camera does have a decent range and works in daytime or nighttime. The intercom is a handy feature, as I like being able to talk to my visitors from my iPhone. There are also two pre-set messages you can use: one tells the visitor to leave the package, the other one informs them you're coming to the door.

Unlike many camera doorbells, you don't need a subscription in order to save the video. You can just insert a microSD card, any storage level from 4GB to 128GB. If you do prefer a subscription, it's $1 per month for 7-day playback or $3 a month for 30-day playback.

Nooie Cam Doorbell: What doesn't look good

As much as I like having this doorbell camera, there are definitely some issues. First of all, it wasn't as easy to set up as I'd hoped. There is an extensive troubleshooting guide in the user manual, so I eventually figured it out. The app's user interface is not as intuitive as I would have liked. I still haven't figured out how to change the doorbell's chime tones, even after scouring the app, the user manual, the FAQs, the Nooie blog, etc.

The motion detection is a little slow. For example, my mail delivery person usually just drops packages on my doorstep without ringing the doorbell. The Nooie Cam Doorbell only caught the back of her at the edge of the frame as she was walking away. Speaking of the frame, though you get both a flat wall mount and one at a 15° angle, I would have preferred a 15° angle pointing the other way, towards my driveway rather than away. Because I have to use the flat mount, I don't get the best field of view.

Perhaps the biggest issue is battery life. After about a week's use, my battery is down to 73%. Extrapolating from that, I'll be having to recharge it at least once a month, which is annoying.

Nooie Cam Doorbell: Competition

There are plenty of camera doorbells on the market, the most well-known is Ring. There are a number of different Ring models from which to choose. In fact, I think "Ring doorbell" is starting to become the generic term for camera doorbells, like "Kleenex" has become a common term for "tissue" and "Band-Aid" for "bandage". You really can't go wrong with a Ring doorbell.

Nooie Cam Doorbell: Should you buy it?

• You want to see who's at your door
• You want to be able to speak to visitors without opening the door
• You don't want to pay for cloud service to store the video recordings

• It's out of budget
• You want long battery life
• You want an easy user interface

If you don't mind putting the effort in to set it up and you're good at figuring things out on your own, you'll like this effective doorbell camera that also acts as an intercom. This is a good option for someone who doesn't want to pay for cloud storage to save video captures, since it takes a microSD card for storage.

Once it's up and running, the Nooie Cam Doorbell is easy enough to use with the accompanying app on your iPhone. You'll get an alert when someone's at your door, whether they ring your doorbell or not. You can see them live, or you can play back the footage later. If they do ring the bell, you can respond with a pre-set audio message or hold a two-way conversation with your visitor. Store the video your Nooie Cam Doorbell captures two ways: cloud subscription or microSD card.

Nooie Cam Doorbell: Three months later

I continued using this doorbell cam for three months after the initial review period of about a week. In that time, I found this product to be a complete fail. The first thing I noticed was that even though I purchased and installed a 64GB mini SD card to store the video recordings (twice as much storage as the company recommends), I got a message saying I'd run out of storage and the camera was no longer recording anything. I was able to clear the cache and reformat the card which got it working again, but this actually happened several times and it shouldn't.

The larger problem is the battery. It died after just a few weeks and wouldn't recharge, so I reached out to customer service. I was told that they didn't have any more batteries in stock so there was nothing they could do! So I reached out to my media contact, who was appalled and arranged to have a new unit sent to me. They also promised that the customer service department would be updated on how to respond to similar inquiries.

So I installed the second unit, and it worked fine for a while, until the same problems occured: rapidly filled storage card and a battery that died within weeks. Again, I was unable to recharge the battery. I cannot recommend this product to anyone.