Local doorbell cameras without subscriptions
Skip the cloud fees: the doorbell cameras that record locally to Frigate, an NVR, or a NAS with Home Assistant, and what local really means for each option.
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Most major doorbell brands gate basic features like recording history and person detection behind a monthly fee, and they route your video through their servers. These are the doorbells that record locally and skip all of that.
The good news: you can run a doorbell camera locally without paying Ring, Nest, or anyone else. Here’s how, with a look at what “local” really means for each option.
Short version: the Reolink Video Doorbell PoE if you can run Ethernet, the Reolink Video Doorbell WiFi if you can’t, either one recording to Frigate or a NAS. The DoorBird D1101V and the UniFi G4 Doorbell Pro are the step-up picks if you want premium door-entry hardware or already run UniFi Protect. I haven’t run any of these doorbells myself; the picks are based on the spec sheets and reports from the Home Assistant forums.
One important distinction up front: HomeKit Secure Video is not local storage. HomeKit Secure Video records end-to-end encrypted clips to your iCloud account, and it requires a paid iCloud+ plan with enough storage. It is private (Apple can’t view the footage), but it is cloud storage with a subscription. If your goal is subscription-free and on-premises, microSD, NAS, or an NVR is what you want.
The best local doorbell options
Reolink
Reolink Video Doorbell WiFi and Reolink Video Doorbell PoE are the strongest local options right now. Reolink joined Works with Home Assistant, and the official Reolink integration runs fully locally, with binary sensors for doorbell press, motion, and on-device AI detection (person, vehicle, package). No subscription, no internet dependency. The PoE version needs Ethernet but is the more reliable of the two, and the single-cable install is the convenient part.
Note one quirk: Reolink pushes ONVIF motion events to a local HTTP address, so Home Assistant needs to be reachable locally for instant events (otherwise it falls back to polling). For recording, both models support RTSP, so you can record to Frigate, an NVR, or a NAS; they also take an SD card and work with Reolink NVRs. Both are mains-wired, which is why RTSP is there at all: Reolink’s battery doorbell does not expose RTSP or ONVIF on its own and needs Reolink’s Home Hub to do it, so it is not a substitute for either pick here. Reolink’s lineup varies, so verify the exact model’s RTSP support before buying.
One more practical caveat from people running these with Frigate: Reolink doorbells do not cope well with many simultaneous stream connections, so if the Home Assistant integration and Frigate both pull the stream directly you can see dropouts. The fix is to let Frigate’s built-in go2rtc take the single connection to the doorbell and restream it to everything else.
Aqara
Aqara Smart Video Doorbell G4 is a reasonable choice if you already run Aqara gear. Its fully local storage paths are a microSD card (in the included chime/repeater) and NAS recording over SMB. Both keep footage on hardware you control.
Be aware of two caveats. First, the G4 supports HomeKit Secure Video, but as noted above, HSV stores to iCloud and needs an iCloud+ plan, so that path is not subscription-free or local. Second, the G4’s RTSP support is unreliable in practice. I haven’t run the G4 myself, but reports from other Home Assistant users of the RTSP stream failing in VLC, Frigate, and Scrypted are common enough that I wouldn’t buy it expecting clean RTSP into a third-party NVR. For local use, lean on the microSD or SMB options.
Amcrest
Amcrest AD410 Video Doorbell and Amcrest SmartHome AD-110 Video Doorbell are no longer sold new - Amcrest’s own WiFi doorbell category page lists nothing and the AD410’s Amazon listing reads “Currently unavailable”, both checked 2026-09-06, and Amcrest has published no end-of-life statement either way - so read this section as an existing-owner and used-market note, with the Reolink picks above as what to buy today. On capability they hold up, and they are still the better local-event-API story: both run on ordinary 16-24V doorbell wiring, record to a local microSD card, expose RTSP by default and support ONVIF, and have a local HTTP API for button-press and motion events that keeps working with the internet disconnected, so they work with essentially any local NVR, including Frigate, Blue Iris, or an Amcrest/Synology NVR. The AD-110 is 1080p, single-lens, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi only, and fine for apartments and small homes. The AD410 is 4MP (2560x1920, a 4:3 sensor rather than the AD-110’s 16:9) with a much wider 164-degree field of view, dual-band Wi-Fi, on-device person detection, and pre-recording - the better all-rounder.
Amcrest cameras integrate with Home Assistant via the official amcrest integration (which also covers Dahua-based hardware) for live feed and motion, and you can record to a NAS over RTSP. The community amcrest2mqtt project publishes the doorbell button and motion as MQTT entities for fast, fully local automations. The mobile app pushes cloud features, but you can ignore them and stay fully local.
DoorBird - the premium open-API pick
If budget is not the constraint, the DoorBird D1101V is the gold standard for local doorbells: an IP unit with an open HTTP/RTSP/ONVIF API, a local-push Home Assistant integration for ring and motion events, and full local video plus door-release control with no monthly fee. It is a premium device - roughly $670 and up depending on retailer and finish - built like commercial door-entry hardware, and the price is the trade-off.
UniFi G4 Doorbell Pro - if you run UniFi Protect
Already invested in UniFi Protect (I run it; see the local security cameras guide)? The UniFi G4 Doorbell Pro is the doorbell that ecosystem deserves: dual cameras with package detection, recordings kept on your own Protect console, zero subscription, and an excellent local Home Assistant integration via UniFi Protect. It is wired and needs a Protect-capable console, so it suits committed UniFi homes rather than a first purchase.
Eufy - no fee, but not open
Eufy’s “no monthly fee” pitch is true as far as it goes: its doorbells record to onboard storage or a HomeBase hub rather than to a paid cloud plan, so it does escape the subscription. It is not an open local device the way an RTSP doorbell is, though. Eufy’s own support desk states that the Video Doorbell Dual (Wired) does not support RTSP, and that the Video Doorbell Slim supports neither RTSP nor NAS storage. Where Eufy does expose RTSP it is on cameras rather than doorbells: eufyCam 3 and 3C, the Indoor Cam S350, the Floodlight Cam E340, the Garage-Control Cam. So a Eufy doorbell keeps footage on its HomeBase and inside Eufy’s app; it does not hand you a stream Frigate can record. The Home Assistant side is the community eufy-security-ws add-on plus the unofficial eufy_security HACS integration, which logs into your Eufy account through a reverse-engineered API (most people create a second Eufy account for it so the phone app is not logged out), and because it depends on that API, a vendor change can break it. I haven’t run one. If avoiding the fee is the whole goal, Eufy gets you there; if you want the video in your own NVR, buy one of the RTSP doorbells above instead.
Ring - not a local option
Ring (battery or wired) has no RTSP, no local API, and no NAS recording. It is cloud-first by design; the Home Assistant ring integration gives you notifications and clips pulled from Ring’s cloud, not a local stream you can record. Listed here only so you don’t waste time trying. If you’re coming from Ring, how to replace Ring, Arlo, or Eufy with fully local cameras covers the whole swap.
What about Hubitat or HomeKit?
If you’re on Hubitat, ONVIF cameras are your best bet. The Hubitat Elevation C-8 can work with IP cameras such as Reolink and Amcrest - Hubitat discontinued the plain C-8 in March 2026, so a new buyer wants the standard C-8 Pro - though Hubitat’s video handling is more limited than Home Assistant’s, so most people pair the doorbell’s video with Frigate or an NVR and use Hubitat only for events.
For HomeKit users, the Aqara G4 integrates with the Apple Home app, but remember that recording through HomeKit means HomeKit Secure Video, which is iCloud-based and requires an iCloud+ subscription. If you want HomeKit and local-only recording, run the camera through Home Assistant (recording to Frigate or a NAS) and expose it to HomeKit via Home Assistant’s HomeKit Bridge.
The recording stack
A doorbell is only as useful as where it stores video. For local-only recording with Home Assistant:
- Frigate: The go-to local NVR for Home Assistant. It handles recording, playback, detection zones, and on-device AI (optionally accelerated by an Intel iGPU, a GPU, or a Coral TPU). Works with any RTSP/ONVIF doorbell, including Reolink and Amcrest. See how to build a Frigate NVR from scratch for a full walkthrough.
- Scrypted: Another strong local NVR with good doorbell support and HomeKit/HA bridging.
- NVR or NAS recording: Reolink and Amcrest both record to a NAS (Synology Surveillance Station or generic SMB/FTP) or a standalone NVR. Set it and forget it. One licensing catch, because this guide is about avoiding fees: Synology Surveillance Station includes only a couple of camera licenses (typically two, one on some entry models) and every camera past that needs a paid perpetual Device License, and QNAP’s current QVR Elite includes two channels and bills per channel after that. Recording to generic SMB/FTP, or to Frigate, has no per-camera licensing at all.
- Camera microSD: Fine as a fallback, but don’t make it your only copy. Build a proper recording stack from day one.
Doorbell cameras that snapshot to a NAS
A doorbell can only land its video on your own NAS instead of a vendor’s cloud if it has a usable local stream, almost always RTSP. Once a doorbell exposes RTSP, an NVR running on your network (Frigate, Scrypted, or even Home Assistant itself) can pull frames and clips and write them to a NAS share. Doorbells with no local stream can’t do this, no matter what their app claims. Of the options above, the Reolink Video Doorbell PoE is the one to buy for this job, and an Amcrest AD410 or AD-110 you already own is the better local-event-API story.
Home Assistant doesn’t ship a built-in “record this doorbell to my NAS” feature. What it does have is the camera.snapshot and camera.record services, which can write a still or a clip to any path Home Assistant can reach, including a NAS folder you’ve mounted (NFS/SMB) into the HA config directory. You point an automation at the doorbell’s camera entity (typically fed by its RTSP stream via the generic camera or ffmpeg), trigger on a button press or motion event, and save the file to the mounted share.
For continuous recording and event clips, the cleaner approach is a dedicated NVR: Frigate (running as a Home Assistant add-on or standalone Docker) ingests RTSP, does local object detection, and records to a configured path, which can be a NAS mount, and Scrypted does the same with good doorbell support. In all of these, the NAS is the storage target; the camera just needs to hand you a reliable RTSP stream and, ideally, a local way to know when the button was pressed. Point Frigate (or an HA generic camera plus a snapshot automation) at the RTSP stream and write to your NAS.
Events and video are separate problems. Pulling RTSP gets you video, but getting a reliable button-press event sometimes needs the vendor API (Amcrest) or an MQTT bridge. Power is the next decision: PoE doorbells give you one-cable installs and steady power, while battery doorbells are easier to mount but worse for continuous recording. Finally, mount your NAS share (NFS/SMB) where your NVR or Home Assistant can write to it, and watch retention so you don’t fill the volume.
UniFi Protect needs one nuance here. If you’d rather run an appliance than wire up Frigate, it is a solid local system (I compare it head to head with Reolink in Reolink vs UniFi Protect), but it records to a UniFi OS console (a UNVR, or a UDM Pro, UDM SE, UDM Pro Max or Dream Router - not every UniFi gateway runs Protect), not directly to a generic NAS. What Protect can do is archive footage off to a NAS over SMB on a schedule. So the flow is doorbell to UniFi console to NAS archive, not doorbell straight to NAS. Home Assistant integrates it well through the UniFi Protect integration for events and snapshots.
If you don’t need the button
A doorbell is a camera with a button on it. If what you want is reliable local video of the entrance, a wired PoE camera that speaks RTSP/ONVIF (Reolink and Amcrest both make them) recording to Frigate or a NAS is the most dependable option of all: one cable for power and data, as much retention as your disks allow, and no doorbell firmware quirks. For the “someone is here” signal, pair the camera with a separate Zigbee contact or motion sensor in Home Assistant and drive notifications from that, so the trigger logic stays local and independent of any one camera’s app.