Arlo also has a contactless doorbell – can’t we just update existing doorbells to do this?

“Finally, a doorbell for the era of the pandemic,” we noticed, as Alarm.com yesterday presented its contactless video doorbell for less than $ 200. But what was once a curiosity has now become a trend: Netgear spin-off Arlo now has its own contactless video doorbell, up to the same product name.

Arlo doesn’t have a price, a release date, or even an image of the new doorbell, which made me wonder: why does it have to be any different from the doorbells that Arlo (and Google’s Nest and Amazon’s Ring, etc.) already offer today?

Here’s how Arlo describes the idea:

Taking advantage of precise proximity sensing technology to measure a visitor’s distance, the Arlo Contactless Video Doorbell zeros at a visitor’s approach. Once detected, the customer hears an audible chime and sees a visible light, signaling that the doorbell has been “pressed” and the owner has been alerted – all before they make physical contact with the device.

Most smart doorbells already have cameras with some form of motion detection. Some even let you fine-tune motion detection areas, and many already have lights and sounds that let the visitor know when they’ve pressed the button.

Why not just run a software update on existing doorbells, the ones that ring automatically when the camera detects a visitor? It can also play an audio message like “We are ringing the doorbell for you, please wait a moment”. Arlo video doorbells already support sending pre-recorded audio messages.

The humble webcam became the most important gadget of 2020 when the pandemic hit, and most manufacturers of DSLR and mirrorless cameras have responded to the shortage of webcams by releasing software that allows you to transform them, too. in webcams. Do doorbell makers think they can get enough people to buy a brand new doorbell just for that, at a time when people aren’t supposed to come to their homes? If I’m right and the existing cameras can do it, it might be more effective to try and sell more of these existing models by creating some goodwill.

Arlo introduced its first battery-powered doorbell late last year.