How to stop paying Amazon for doorbell storage

If you own a Ring doorbell, almost everything useful — saved clips, motion history, snapshots — sits behind a Ring Protect subscription paid to Amazon. The way to stop paying is to use a doorbell that records locally and integrate it with software you control, like Home Assistant plus Frigate. Here’s how to do it honestly, without the magical-thinking shortcuts you’ll see elsewhere.

What “local storage” actually requires

To keep footage off the cloud you need two things:

1. A camera/doorbell that either records to its own storage (microSD, or a hub) or exposes an open video stream over RTSP/ONVIF.
2. Somewhere local to record and review that stream — typically Frigate (the popular open-source NVR that integrates with Home Assistant), Blue Iris, or a standalone NVR/NAS.

A quick myth to kill first: a smart speaker cannot store camera footage. A HomePod, HomePod mini, Echo, or Nest speaker is an audio device (some act as smart-home hubs or border routers), but none of them are a place your doorbell video lives. Local recording happens on an SD card, an NVR, a NAS, or a machine running Frigate.

Option 1: an RTSP doorbell + Frigate

This is the cleanest local-first path. A doorbell that exposes RTSP can stream directly into Frigate for recording and object detection, with no subscription; if you’re starting from zero, see how to build a Frigate NVR from scratch.

• The Amcrest AD110 (and the higher-res AD410) are wired doorbells (they use your existing 16–24V doorbell wiring, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi) that support RTSP and ONVIF and a local microSD card. They are well-documented with both Home Assistant’s amcrest integration and Frigate, which makes them a reliable choice for a fully local doorbell.
• The Reolink Video Doorbell (Wi-Fi or PoE) supports RTSP and ONVIF, records locally to a microSD card (or a Reolink NVR/Home Hub/NAS), and works with Home Assistant via the official reolink integration. One real-world caveat: Reolink doorbells don’t love many simultaneous stream connections, so if you run both the HA integration and Frigate you may need to use the go2rtc/restream approach to avoid dropouts. Stick to those wired models if you want to feed Frigate directly: the newer battery-powered Reolink doorbell does not expose RTSP/ONVIF on its own and only gains third-party protocol support through a Reolink Home Hub.

With either, you point Frigate at the doorbell’s RTSP URL, record continuously or on events, and review everything in Home Assistant. No monthly fee.

Option 2: a doorbell with its own local storage (Eufy, with caveats)

Eufy markets itself on “no monthly fee,” and that part is true: many Eufy cameras and doorbells record locally to onboard storage or a HomeBase hub rather than to a paid cloud plan.

Be aware of the nuance, though — Eufy is not an open local-first device the way an RTSP camera is:

• RTSP support is model-dependent. Some Eufy models expose RTSP (often only when wired/powered), and several, including some doorbell models, do not support RTSP/NAS at all. Check the exact model before buying if RTSP matters.
• Home Assistant integration is unofficial and cloud-dependent. The popular eufy_security HACS integration works by logging into your Eufy account through a reverse-engineered API (you’ll generally want a secondary Eufy account so it doesn’t log you out of the app). Because it relies on Eufy’s unofficial API, vendor changes can break it.

So Eufy can avoid Amazon’s fees and keep footage local, but it’s a semi-closed ecosystem, not a clean RTSP-into-Frigate setup.

Option 3: a PoE camera at the door + NVR/NAS

If you don’t need a “doorbell” button per se and just want reliable local video of your entrance, a wired PoE IP camera that speaks RTSP/ONVIF (Amcrest, Reolink, and others make these) recording to a NAS or a Frigate box is the most reliable option. PoE gives you one cable for power and data, and a NAS/NVR gives you as much retention as your disks allow — all local, no subscription.

A note on what triggers what

You don’t need a doorbell to know someone is at the door. Many people pair a local camera with a separate door/motion sensor (Zigbee contact or motion sensors, for example) in Home Assistant to drive notifications and automations, while the camera handles the video. That keeps the “someone’s here” logic fully local and independent of any one camera’s app.

Quick verdict

To stop paying Amazon: pick a doorbell that records locally. The most open path is an RTSP/ONVIF doorbell (Amcrest AD110/AD410 or a Reolink) recorded by Frigate in Home Assistant. Eufy can also avoid fees with local HomeBase storage, but its RTSP support varies by model and its Home Assistant integration is unofficial and cloud-login-based. Either way, the footage lives on your hardware, not Amazon’s. For more options, see how to replace Ring with fully local cameras and local doorbell cameras without subscriptions.