Join the community of enthusiasts of digital and scientific subjectsWith this connected doorbell, the manufacturer Arlo offers a two-in-one chime, capable of notifying you of the arrival of your visitors, but also of alerting you as soon as a person is detected.An effective product that has the added benefit of being super easy to install and use;our test.Replacing your "old doorbell" or your video door entry system with a more up-to-date model, offering all the advantages of a connected product, doesn't necessarily have to be a headache.It is certainly necessary to deal with certain prerequisites, but the solution proposed here by Arlo already removes some barriers to installation.Indeed, the Arlo Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free & Chime 2 solution – which we will call here “Video Doorbell” for simplicity – is a two-in-one and completely wireless product: battery-powered and Wi-Fi Fi. Let's see if this is enough to make the difference and, above all, to justify its high price of 240 euros (200 euros without the chime).Arlo is not at its first attempt and it shows.First of all, it is important to point out that our product, which bears the extension “chime” in its reference, means that it comes with a chime.Attention, the latter does not work on battery and it will have to be connected to a mains socket.Let's get back to our doorbell, which won't go unnoticed at your door: 14 cm high, 4.7 cm wide and almost 5 cm thick, the Video Doorbell could surprise you with its size.To tell the truth, if the object does not go unnoticed, this format gives hope that the manufacturer has had all the space necessary to place the Wi-Fi antenna(s), on the one hand… And a large battery on the other hand.This is housed in the body of the device and offers a capacity of 6500 mAh… all the same.Note that this is removable and must be removed from the Doorbell in order to recharge it.Not surprisingly again, the waterproof design imposes this kind of constraint.Note that the power supply for recharging is not provided, only the micro USB cable is.Note that you may be able to reuse an 8 V or 24 V power supply if it is already present: Arlo delivers the connection cables.Arlo announces a wide field of vision of 180 degrees, but in order to stick with different possible installations, delivers an “inclined” support allowing the camera to be slightly oriented to the left, or to the right, according to your needs.Finally, you will also find in the box a proprietary accessory allowing you to disassemble the doorbell from its base, vaguely resembling the small tools used to extract SIM cards from smartphones.Necessary to limit the risk of having your product stolen, it is better to avoid misplacing it, you would indeed be very annoyed to recharge your product.Finally, note that small switches allow the doorbell to detect its disassembly.As soon as the connection between the doorbell and its base is broken, an alert is sent to the owner.This is pretty standard, but we must admit that Arlo offers a neat design overall.First step even before the physical installation of the product: the software configuration.Once the procedure for associating the doorbell with the Arlo mobile application, it is time to adjust the positioning and therefore the framing of the camera.Although it has a wide-angle lens, we will see later that the installation height of the camera partly determines its proper functioning.As always with Arlo products, software setup shouldn't be a problem.This is particularly well illustrated from the eponymous mobile application.A step by step that is very easy to follow until the end of the configuration of this doorbell (for which you will have taken care to fully charge the battery).The association of the Doorbell to your Wi-Fi 2.4 Ghz network (it is not compatible with 5 GHz networks) goes through a simplified association procedure, using QR codes.Next step, the physical installation of the product.Whether with the stand flat or the one slightly angled, you only need to drill two holes ensuring the doorbell is plumb and at the correct height.Arlo recommends placing the mounting plate about 48 inches from the floor, not roughly “adult face height” like you would with a typical doorbell.Indeed, since it has a very wide field of vision included in a 1:1 ratio (square therefore), this arrangement will make it possible to visualize tall and short people properly.Home detection technology knows the difference between a human, adult or child, but also an animal or a car passing in front of your home.The icing on the cake, the algorithm would also be able to understand that your visitor is a delivery person thanks to an overlay of analysis making it possible to identify the presence of a package.The next step is to install the chime (aka the Chime) again via the mobile app.Arlo gratifies us again with a really well done tutorial.The user can choose between different ringtones, whether they are more of an electronic and modern genre or, on the contrary, very conventional.The small chime offers decent power and unless you have a very large house you should still hear it.Arlo also uses the Chime for deterrent purposes.You can indeed configure the system so that the chime imitates a barking of a dog, or that it reproduces a form of ambient sounds at home (door slamming, hubbub, etc.).To do this, you must associate the Chime with the motion detection functions, then select the noise you want to trigger.However, we have some doubts about the impact of this function.The soundtrack is pretty well done, with barking and growling, but unless you install the chime close to the door, the latter's speaker might not be loud enough to be heard from the sort of fool and therefore deter the intruder.Ditto for the security function which consists of transforming the Chime into a siren.This is easy to activate, but again the power of the built-in speaker is weak.However, if you pair the thing to other Arlo cameras, in addition to the doorman, you can however be alerted or awakened in the event of an intrusion.Let's talk a bit about video quality.Due to its particular format (as a reminder: 110° horizontal, 180° diagonal, in a 1:1 square format) and the layout recommended by the brand, the Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free is not a work of art .No, it's not pretty-pretty, but you didn't particularly plan to take your family photos with it, did you?Of course, there are automatic brightness and HDR settings in the app that will improve the rendering if the image is too dark or your "visitor" is backlit.The quality is ok, nothing more.We bet that Arlo's solution does not have much to envy to the image quality of our connected Ring doorbells, but the full-level view makes the difference.For the rest, the Arlo Essential Video Doorbell offers everything you need to limit the risk of false alarms.From the possibility of creating exclusion zones, to recognition functions that make the difference very well between the presence of a human, whether on foot or on a bicycle, or even a vehicle.The option of identifying the presence of a delivery person also works very well.A set of technologies that work both day and night.To finish with this part of our test, be aware that these types of products are not known to integrate high-performance Wi-Fi modules.Our access point is installed only ten meters away and that is enough to put the solution in difficulty.Moreover on this point, our Ring doorbell seems to offer a more efficient and more stable Wi-Fi connection than that of the Arlo solution.If you know the Arlo product line a bit, then you should also know that the manufacturer is quite fond of paid options.Admittedly, it offers multiple connected functions that you get used to very quickly, but these are paid for in the form of a subscription.As you can read in the screenshot above, it takes around 3 euros per month to benefit from the services mentioned above for a single camera and around 10 euros per month if you have several brand cameras.A competitive offer with regard to what other manufacturers such as Ring can practice.Over the years, this will increase the final cost of use, with no other option to reduce the bill.For example, Arlo could have offered the addition of a MicroSD card, or the possibility of associating its service with a NAS.Thus, even if the intelligent detection functions provided by the Cloud would have remained inaccessible, the consultation of the various past events would still be accessible to the owner of the solution.At this price level, it's a shame.With the Essential Video Doorbell Wire-Free & Chime, Arlo offers a complete kit to replace your "good old" doorbell with connected, efficient, high-performance and even, we can say, rather good at identifying the different types of events detected.The brand's know-how in terms of video surveillance products undoubtedly benefits this product here.And even if it should be considered that it is not really its main role - the recording times are shorter, for example - we can also consider that, ultimately, this doorbell / camera will undoubtedly be the first to capture images of malicious people who would like to break into your home.Its great ease of use and installation is also a hallmark of Arlo.The very detailed step-by-step guide us through a stable and ergonomic application.However, we hoped from Arlo – a brand born under the thumb of Netgear, a benchmark in the network product market – which would be able to integrate a more efficient Wi-Fi module than the average into its doorbell. .As it is, it doesn't do much better than our Ring doorbell, which is no longer very fresh.Last but not least: the price!You will have to pay nearly 240 euros to acquire this configuration, including the chime that we highly recommend for optimal comfort.It's expensive !Not to mention that you will have to add the cost of the subscription which will allow you to take advantage of all the services and functions of this kit.It's a flash sale not to be missed at Amazon today: the Dreame L10 Pro robot vacuum cleaner in black or white is only €331.49 instead of €449.99.An ideal price drop to try out these handy household appliances.The conversation with Google Assistant will become more fluid… but you will need to equip yourself with a Nest Hub Max to benefit from the new features.A study claims that Amazon leverages our conversations with Alexa to complement our advertising profiles and sell ads at full price.The Chinese brand took advantage of the announcement of its POCO F4 GT to present its new connected products, with pieces of artificial intelligence inside (AIoT): the POCO Watch and the POCO Buds, in the colors of the mobile game Genshin Impact.As expected with the Chinese manufacturer, both accessories are offered at very competitive prices.The brand offers a new model accompanied by an automatic dust collection base.The brand is launching a new lock that incorporates a fingerprint sensor, but that draws a line under remote connection via the Cloud.Apple is preparing to launch a new HomePod that is very different from the two previous iterations.It would indeed have Apple TV as well as an integrated camera to make calls via FaceTime.The manufacturer has just presented the Sweeva 3000M and Sweeva 3500M robot vacuum cleaners, two devices available from next May.Tired of vacuuming and mopping?Entrust this mission to the Roborock S7!This excellent robot vacuum cleaner, which is still among the best on the market, benefits from a promo code in addition to a nice discount of -23% at Rakuten!After the two Nest Hubs (first and second generation) and the Nest Hub Max, Google is about to launch a new connected screen model.