The actual hardware cost of these devices is actually minimal. Basically any wifi capable microcontroller, a camera and depending on implementation some storage (or a micro sd-card holder). So that price is only cheap in comparison to existing products.

For reference, said microcontroller with basic camera can be had for like 3$ or something.

I stopped my Ring subscription but kept the doorbell camera.

It wasn't until a year later when I was moving and the house was almost completely empty (still had internet/wifi setup) and I looked at the wifi app and saw that the ring doorbell still had significant data usage.

They were clearly still capturing my doorbell video.

It's a rebranded Tuya device, and they don't sell your data to any law enforcement or insurance.

They do however comply with Chinese laws and all your data is readily available for the Chinese government.

It's a rebranded Tuya doorbell. So there aren't any subscriptions, though you will be giving them all your data.

Which means they have to run and maintain servers.

I'd bet money that it works just like similar devices from Reolink. Local recording to SD Card or NVR. If you want cloud recording then you're paying a monthly subscription.

This device from Aldi is at a very low pricepoint but it's specs are garbage. 480p recording? In 2025? C'mon...

you can make very cheap to maintain peer to peer solutions

you can use a STUN server to discover your public IP and use a method called UDP hole punching to open a port others can connect to. STUN servers are very cheap to run: they don’t actually handle the data; just provide a kind of handshake service in the middle for coordinating

this is often used for peer to peer video chat etc

any chance this can be done through your router/modem, where your phone app connects to external ip of router and is the "server end point" for your doorbell?

If it has local storage then it doesn't get uploaded anywhere.

It also has BT so the offline mode could be simply "record to SD card and view videos using some app via Bluetooth".

Online mode with notifications and two-way talking has to require internet access so I definitely wouldn't trust it, with or without subscription.

The fuck does it even need a subscription for, anyway? Is it not hosting the videos locally? Fuck that.

Are these even legal in Europe (the part that is not the UK...)?

Looked at my Florida Aldi, no luck.

The product page says it offers cloud storage. Though you maybe can use it offline by recording to an SD card.

So it may not require a subscription, but it still requires an online service... which kind of misses the point that people make about these things being privacy nightmares.

It wasn't the fee that people were worried about, it was the network video camera uploading to a cloud service which can be accessed by the secret police.

Yup, it's a rebranded Tuya device.

Good luck doing that in my place.