The Philips 7000 Series Video Doorbell Impressed Me with High-Quality Features and No Monthly Subscription Fees

Philips may not be the first name you think about when considering a video doorbell. The brand is more commonly known, at least in recent years, as the brand that pioneered the smart light bulbs, along with producing a suite of household appliances.

I was quite excited to test out the Philip 7000 Series Video Doorbell, mainly because it promised to be a solid upgrade from our eufy doorbell. The 2K video quality, lack of subscription fees, Alexa and Google Home integration, and two to three-month battery life seemed promising to me.

After using the Philips 7000 Series for several weeks at home, I’m confident in saying it’s one of the best video doorbells, even if it has a higher upfront cost.

My One-Minute Summary

The Philips 7000 Series Video Doorbell impressed across the board. The picture quality was crisp and vibrant, even at night, and the doorbell has two cameras, one pointed at the floor and one forward, so I had a clear view of faces and packages.

There was a slight delay in the audio, but not enough that it posed issues when communicating, and it was always clearly audible, even when it was loud outside or in windy or rainy weather.

A stand-out feature is the incredibly sensitive motion detection. I had to turn it way down, as on its usual setting it picked up passing cars more than 15 feet away, but this is an excellent security feature for big properties where you'd benefit from a heads up as someone approaches your door.

Notifications are quick and accurate, even letting me know when someone placed a package.

Frustratingly, using the features to their full effect – like using the most high-resolution 2K picture quality or having motion detection on its most sensitive – will drain the battery more quickly than with others we've tested. This isn't too drastic, though, and it only takes around seven hours to charge it back to full.

Most importantly, all of these features (including local storage) are available without a monthly subscription. This is one of the most common pain points we hear from homeowners trying to avoid recurring costs, and it's nice that Philips is one of the few brands to not ask for more money after the purchase.

It is a little expensive up front, so a suitable alternative, which is more affordable, is the eufy E340. This is another great subscription-free pick that's typically less expensive, or the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus, which has a longer battery, but needs a subscription.

Philips 7000 Video Doorbell: Specifications

Philips 7000 Series Video Doorbell: Installation and Setup

The Philips 7000 Series is incredibly easy to set up, even if the number of things in the box might seem a bit intimidating when you first open it up. It comes with the wireless door chime too, which you’ll need to get everything synced up.

The first step is to download the Philips Home Access app, as there are no proper instructions in the box. Thankfully, the app is straightforward to follow, which is always desirable when setting up smart home gadgets. Just follow the steps, and everything should be connected in about five minutes.

Unfortunately, the wires for my doorbell got hidden somewhere in the door frame years ago, before we bought the house, so I’ve had to rely on battery power for my doorbell. On the bright side, it made the installation even easier. The process will be slightly more complex depending on whether you’re mounting it to wood or brick, but the idea is largely the same.

If you’re installing into wood, all you’ll need is a screwdriver, although a power drill is preferred. If you’re installing into brick, you’ll need a masonry drill bit, which is easy to find at your local hardware store. Aside from that, Philips includes everything you need to install it, even a window sticker to let your neighbors and delivery drivers know they’re being filmed, and it's nice to see Philips prioritize privacy as well as home security.

I chose to add the included wedge to my mount because my door has a full 180º view of the street, and I wanted to make sure I capture just what was happening in front of the door. My favorite thing about the installation was the included alignment paper, so I didn’t have to do any measuring. I just held it up to the door frame, marked the holes with a pencil, and went from there.

Start to finish, it took me about 20 minutes and was simple enough that I’m confident my completely technology-averse parents could handle it.

Philips 7000 Series Video Doorbell: Video Quality

Daytime: One of the selling points of the Philips 7000 Series is the optional 2K video feed, and it is certainly impressive. I never had any trouble seeing faces during the day, and the picture was much clearer than on my previous doorbell. Sadly, the 2K feed does drain the battery much faster than the standard feed, but the lower resolution feed is still good enough that we didn’t need to use 2K all the time. The 157º viewing angle meant I could see almost the entirety of my front yard, which was cool, albeit unnecessary for me.

The Philips 7000 Series actually has two cameras, similar to the eufy E340, which is one of our favorites on test. At the bottom of the doorbell, facing about 45 degrees downward, is a second camera that’s meant for packages. I really appreciated this feature as the main camera would let me see the people and delivery drivers as they approached the door, but once they dropped the package, I couldn’t see it anymore. It was nice to be able to see the package on the porch as well.

These two feeds are split by default, but you can enable picture-in-picture mode for them, which I ended up preferring because it didn’t have a huge black bar splitting the camera feed.

Night time: I was also impressed with the night vision. It’s still perfectly easy to make out faces and uniforms at night, and the motion detection works great, too.

Dynamic light: Because my house faces due south, I don’t get too much direct sunlight on the doorbell, but even during the brightest part of the day, the camera never struggled with harsh lighting. I was always able to see whoever came to the door, which is helpful because most of our packages tend to arrive in the early afternoon.

Philips 7000 Series Video Doorbell: Audio Quality

The two-way audio was perfectly fine for me. It didn’t blow me away, but it was good enough that I don’t have any issues with it. There is a bit of a delay each time, but it was never an issue. It could very well be because the doorbell is on the opposite side of the house from my router, and a good distance from the chime, but it was still perfectly usable.

There are some default auto responses you can use if you can’t talk at the moment (like when trying to put the kids down and the delivery driver feels compelled to ring the doorbell). My door is also far enough back from the road that I never pick up much traffic, but I can hear the weather on windy days. I was impressed that the audio was still clear enough that I could hear everything in detail, even with the wind.

Philips 7000 Series Video Doorbell: Motion Detection and Notifications

The motion sensor on the 7000 Series is incredibly sensitive, so I would make sure you define a detection zone as soon as you install it, otherwise it will likely pick up the passing cars, as it did on the street that’s a good 15 yards from my front door. Once I more clearly defined the zone, the motion detection was more manageable.

You can also enable radar detection if you like to increase the detection accuracy, and you can have it detect all motion in addition to just humans if you prefer.

Keep in mind that if you set the motion sensitivity to the lowest setting, you will likely only record anyone right as they're approaching the door instead of a few steps away. I ended up using this setting most of the time to try to extend the battery life, but I do sometimes worry that a porch pirate with enough motivation might be able to grab something off my porch quickly enough not to be fully caught on camera.

The notifications are accurate. By default, it notifies you when someone rings the doorbell, for motion alerts, and when someone places a package. Thankfully, it seemed to be smart enough not to notify me twice when someone both approached and placed a package, so I appreciate that extra touch.

Philips 7000 Series Video Doorbell: Power and Battery Life

Let me just say that if at all possible, I highly recommend wiring this doorbell up. Really the only frustration I’ve had with this doorbell has been the battery life. Philips claims it should last approximately 2-3 months, but I didn’t come close to that in my few weeks of testing. With HDR on, full motion detection and the highest sensitivity level, I had to charge it after about 2 weeks.

This is a major difference compared to other models like the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus, with a battery that can last 6-12 months.

Granted, if you turned off everything except the most basic detection features, and set the sensitivity to the lowest settings, then you could possibly get close to 2 months.

However, that entirely defeats a lot of the purpose of having a camera like this, particularly the 2K, HDR video feed. And since the battery is built in, you have to take it off the mount to charge it every time. It does only take about 2 hours to fully charge, but unless you’re diligent about charging it regularly and immediately putting it back on, you could easily go a few days without it.

Philips does make it easy to take off either with the included pin, or in the app. There’s a quick-release button in the app which detaches the doorbell right from your phone. I would say that if you know you’re going to be relying solely on battery power for your video doorbell, there are probably more power efficient options available.

Philps 7000 Series Video Doorbell: App and Smart Features

If you’ve used other video doorbells before, the app will be familiar. The home screen shows your two most recent events, plus quick access to the Live feed, all Events, Settings, and a Snooze option.

In the Live view, you can manually record footage, edit clips, talk, mute audio, or use one of the Quick Response audio options. You can also change the resolution and rotate the app to landscape mode if you want a better view.

There are three main tabs I the settings to adjust the motion detection, notifications, and power management options. Overall, the app is quite thorough and I appreciate how many options you have.

And what's more – all of these features are available without a monthly subscription. While others charge anywhere from $3.99 to $19.99 a month to use the essential functions, everything's available without a fee.

The only annoying thing is that there are few translation issues in the app, which was a bit surprising to me, because I didn’t even realize Philips had been sold to Chinese owners until using this app (I’ve tested enough devices now to quickly recognize machine translation). It’s certainly not a deal breaker, and I only noticed one or two.

Philips 7000 Series Video Doorbell: Privacy and Security

The only specific 'privacy' settings in the app are to always record audio by default and to set up zones where parts of the video feed will be invisible when recording. This is great if you have neighbors close by so you can respect their privacy.

You can also add users to the doorbell which can be great when you’re travelling so you can add a family member or trusted neighbor to just keep an eye on things.

There’s also an anti-theft siren that will sound a loud alarm if someone tries to manually remove the doorbell, a major feature recommended by security experts, and one that we love in the Arlo 2K Video Doorbell.

Just keep in mind that if you’re running on battery power, if you don’t detach the doorbell from within the app, you’ll want to turn this off before you physically remove it. Otherwise, it will trigger the alarm.

Philips 7000 Series Video Doorbell: Price and Value

There’s no getting around the fact that the 7000 Series is quite expensive. The retail price is $235.99 at Philips, which makes it one of the most expensive video doorbells around. However, I have seen it on sale for as low as $160 on Amazon, which makes it much more compelling. If you can find it for that price, then it’s worth it.

At that price, even with the higher resolution video and second package camera, it’s hard to recommend, especially when these same features can be found in the eufy E340 for $149.99, which also doesn't require a monthly subscription, but it doesn't include a chime.

Also, the fact that there’s no monthly subscription fee certainly offsets quite a bit of the cost as Ring, Blink, and several other popular video doorbells require a subscription to access the main features.

The downside of that is that there’s only 8GB of onboard storage with no option to expand beyond that, and if you’re using the higher resolution footage, that 8GB will fill up rather quickly. You can offload the footage manually, but that’s an extra step you really shouldn’t have to take (the eufy E340 automatically deletes the oldest footage that you don't want to save).

If you want just a basic video doorbell that nails the basics but doesn’t have any extra stuff, the Blink Video Doorbell is incredibly affordable. The Ring Doorbell Plus is a solid option from one of the biggest names in video doorbells, and it comes with swappable batteries. Just keep in mind the added subscription cost.

For more smart home upgrades that we've tested and love, see our guide to the best soundbars and the best robot vacuums.

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