August Doorbell Cameras

Sometimes less is more, a phrase which August Home takes to heart. Focusing primarily on smart access solutions (indoor cameras, who?), August’s product line is pretty minimalistic, but that’s okay. Their flagship smart locks and video doorbells are where it’s at, and the one million user milestone that they have under their belt1 is a testament to that fact.

Reports indicate a rising interest in smart locks and video doorbells for optimal home security, with a market growth of $1.19 billion from 2020-2024.2 If you’re all about what’s trendy, then leave it to our team to give you the 411 on what we loved about the August View and the August Doorbell Cam Pro and how August competes with other brands, especially in terms of price.

But At What Cost?

Thankfully, there was nothing too complicated about the costs of August’s video doorbells when we placed our order. The August View is on the higher end at $229.99 while the August Doorbell Cam Pro costs $199. For a side-by-side comparison of the August View and August Doorbell Cam Pro specs, see the chart below:

Want to find out more on how the August View and August Doorbell Cam Pro performed? Read our full review here.

Other Pricing, Explained

Since the August View and the August Doorbell Cam Pro are purely self-monitored, we didn’t have to pay more money for the cost of professional monitoring. Just like how August’s equipment pricing is short and sweet, we were pleased that this was also the case for the storage and protection plans. That being said, we wanted to have access to older livestreams, so signing up for a subscription plan was a must in our book.

Storage

The August Video Recording monthly subscription was a necessity for us given that there is no local storage on either of the video doorbells. Through their private and secure cloud, we could store and access older livestreams for up to 30 days via the August Home app. Specifically, we signed up for Premium Plus, which gave us 30 days of cloud storage; Premium only offers 15 days of cloud storage, which wasn’t enough for us.

Protection Plans

When the one-year warranty fails, August’s partnership with Extend saves the day. The protection plans vary price and duration-wise, but there are no hidden fees or deductibles. From what we gathered, the plan covers free product replacement or repair due to normal wear-and-tear, mechanical failures, power surges, or electrical failures. We decided to sign up for the one-year protection plan, which added $23.99 to our total bill. Although we’re usually pretty good about keeping equipment in good condition, we liked the safety net that these protection plans provided.

Payment Plans

Affirm is a payment alternative that lets customers pay for their devices over a period of time rather than upfront. While we didn’t personally use Affirm to pay for our August video doorbells, we can tell you that their payment options vary based on the shopper’s credit score, so while we were given our own breakdown of payment plans in the chart below, we can’t say that they’re reflective of each person’s order.

How August Scored Brownie Points

And now, we move onto the August View and August Doorbell Cam Pro features that we loved:

• Chock-full of smart home integrations: A few smart home integrations of note are Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Nest, all of which we tested out with both the August View and August Doorbell Cam Pro. When we paired our Echo Show 8 with the August doorbell cameras, we asked Alexa to show us who rang our doorbell on our smart display, which was pretty cool. We could use the August Home app to check and speak to visitors as well, but we liked skipping the extra step of pulling out our phones and instead viewed the livestream on our Echo Show 8 — hands-free.
• More color options with August View: While the August Doorbell Cam Pro is limited to the standard silver and dark gray, the August View went all out with its color options: satin nickel, oil rubbed bronze, satin brass, midnight gray, matte black, white, red or blue. This wasn’t a “beggars can’t be choosers” situation, but we ended up picking midnight gray to play it safe.

• No contracts: Nowadays, monthly subscriptions are the go-to for home security brands, but that’s not the case with August’s video doorbells. Of course, we liked that we weren’t shackled to a contract, and if we canceled our storage plan, there would be no hard feelings or cancellation fees. No installation, activation or hidden fees, either — a prime example of “no strings attached”!
• DIY installation: In the same vein, most home security brands market DIY installation for their products to showcase user-friendliness. The August View is no exception as it’s wireless and we simply had to screw it by the front door. The August Doorbell Cam Pro, on the other hand, required us to get more hands-on; we had to hardwire it to our existing doorbell after removing it, but still, neither required paying hundreds for professional installation, great news for our wallets.

The Smart Home Integration Experience

Ah, smart home integrations — what would we do without them. As proud users of several smart home devices like the aforementioned Echo Show 8, the Nest Hub Max and the Nest Yale Lock, as well as voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, we were more than happy with August’s video doorbells’ compatibility with third-party brands. So, what exactly did we have Alexa and Google Assistant do for us with the August View and August Doorbell Cam Pro? Here’s a sneak peek into our smart home life:

Alexa

• When our hands were full, whether one of us was tending to our kids or cooking up a storm in the kitchen, we asked Alexa to show us a livestream of our front door on our Echo Show 8. One week, we received numerous packages so we told Alexa to “answer the front door” and the two-way audio microphone was activated. From there, we greeted the delivery folks and told them to leave the packages off to the side rather than in front of our door. All of this was done hands-free, so there wasn’t any need for us to drop what we were doing and pull out our phones to view through the mobile app.

Google Assistant

• To switch things up, we integrated our Nest Hub Max with the August View and August Doorbell Cam Pro, which worked out perfectly when we utilized Google Assistant. All we had to say was, “Hey Google, show me who’s at the front door?” More often than not, we’d have some of our friends visit and we weren’t always readily available to answer the front door right away. Considering our children as well, we didn’t want them to go running to the door either out of sheer excitement.

Another example of utilizing smart home devices was when we paired our Nest Yale Lock with the August View and August Doorbell Cam Pro. Yes, we know that August is known for its smart locks, but we wanted to spice it up and see how two different brands complemented each other. To our delight, we were able to lock and unlock the front door, speak to visitors or delivery folks and view who was at our doorstep all from the August Home app. This was especially convenient when one of our kids came home from hanging out with one of our neighbors, and we simply unlocked the door from the app so they could come in safe and sound.

Here’s a list of other third-party brands that have partnered with August:

• Honeywell
• SimpliSafe
• Logitech
• Yonomi
• Wink
• Xfinity
• Brilliant
• Leviton
• SmartThings
• Control4
• IFTTT
• Stringify
• Z-Wave

Comparing to Competitors

Like we mentioned earlier, video doorbells have become an increasingly hot trend in the market, so of course there will be competition. First, let’s take a look at how August stacks up to other leading brands like Ring. When we compared the cloud storage pricing based on the plan that we signed up for, we felt that Ring won that battle. For 60 days of cloud storage, Ring only charges $3 per month while August charges $5 per month for the same time period.

Equipment costs wise, we’d say the August View and the August Doorbell Cam Pro fall somewhere in the middle when compared to Ring’s wide array of video doorbells. Ring’s Video Doorbell Elite, for example, the most expensive video doorbell from their product line, has a price point of $349.99 while August View costs $229.99. The latter includes 1440p HD resolution, the highest resolution that we’ve seen from any video doorbell to date. Ring’s Video Doorbell Elite? Only 1080p HD with a tricky hardwiring installation process and limited color options to boot. However, Ring also has cheaper options, like their original Ring Video Doorbell priced at $99.99. But since this shoots in only 720p HD, you really get what you pay for.

Now that’s not saying these brands are without faults, as August faced performance issues with August View before putting it back on shelves last fall3 and Ring’s video doorbells were susceptible to horrifying hacker encounters.4 What we will say about August is their prompt response to the performance issues and how quickly they put August View back on the market. This goes to show that user feedback is just as important, if not more so, than however many video doorbells they can churn out.

Final Words

What’s great about August’s video doorbells is that there are two options, and that was all we needed — no long list of video doorbells with an increasing price tag for upgraded features. We leaned toward August View as the video doorbell that met our needs, coupled with the fact that installation was easier than the August Doorbell Cam Pro’s hardwiring. Being able to integrate many smart home devices in our home increased convenience tenfold.

What’s not so great is how much we had to pay for cloud storage per month with a lesser amount of days compared to other brands. That was our only gripe, but for everything else about the August View and August Doorbell Cam Pro that shined brightest — no contracts, no hidden fees, no fuss — we truly enjoyed our experience with both video doorbells.