If you are not expected, you are not welcome. I don't answer unexpected knocks anymore.
this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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I don't answer my door at all anymore. If I know them, they'll text before coming over, or at least from my driveway. If I don't know them, why would I answer the door? I don't even get up. Eventually, I'll go out the door and see if they left any garbage on my door handle.
That's what the peephole is for. Folks in movies and TV shows all the time opening the door and getting conked because they didn't use the peephole.
If it's a package delivery, you can open the door when they've taken the picture, that way it won't get stolen.
If it's someone you really want to see, oh sure how often does that happen? It's probably not.
By the way, it's a good idea to silence your phone as you hide there, in case they decide to call you when you don't answer the door.
If you would still like to see them on your terms, you can call once they're gone, and suggest a place to meet, not your home so you can leave when you're done.
The exact reason I installed video doorbells. Take a quick look at my phone, use the mic to politely tell them I’m not interested.
Are there any good ones that are local network only or open source etc? I like the idea of them except for the part about becoming part of Amazon's spy network
Well, “good” I think might be subjective TBH. I have 2 Aquara G4 video doorbells. They support SDCards for local video.
They also support Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. Aquara also has their own cloud infrastructure.
I’m in the Apple ecosystem and use HKSV and local SDCard as a backup. The Aquara app is pretty decent but they annoy you with “do you want you use our cloud storage” notifications. All of which can be ignored.
I use the Home app on my phone and they work well with that. Only use the Aquara app to check battery and firmware updates.
Open source gets a little tricky with Aquara G4. I don’t completely remember if they are compatible with something like Home Assistant. I kinda gave up on HA and put no effort into the doorbells.
The new model the G410 just got released and may have better protocol support, meaning they may play better with open source HA, Scripted (spelling), etc.
They’ve been solid devices but again may not completely fit your requirements.
I guess for me the ideal would be, I can install linux on it and run a MotionEye server. Second best would be it doesn't connect to remote servers by default and has a well documented local api.
Understood what you are looking for but, unfortunately, I don’t know enough to provide a better answer.
Best bet would be to ask one of the Linux communities here on Lemmy.
I do hope you can find something that suits your needs, good luck!!
Well thanks anyway for sharing what you know
Relatable.
Nobody I want to talk to is knocking on my door without an invitation.
A door cam tells me if I need to up armor and get ready for reluctant overwhelming violence and laughter.