August View Review: A video doorbell for renters

This isn't August's first doorbell camera: the first Doorbell Cam arrived in 2016, followed by the Doorbell Cam Pro in 2017. With their square designs and oversized buttons they didn't look particularly like traditional doorbells, but they could tap into their wiring. If you already had a wired doorbell, so the theory went, you could unscrew that, replace it with a Doorbell Cam, and use the existing cabling for power.

If you didn't already have a wired doorbell, though, or you couldn't drill a hole and run new power cables – whether because you rent, or simply because of the nature of your front door – then they were both much trickier to install. The new August View addresses that with a battery, so that there's a good chance that there'll be no drilling involved.

You'll still have to fix the August View to your doorframe, of course. That's via a simple bracket and two screws, though an angled bracket is also included to help get the right perspective for the camera if your door is in an awkward spot. In theory you might be able to use double-sided adhesive pads, too: August suggests that, though doesn't actually include the tape. If someone steals your August View, the company will replace it free of charge.

Assuming a few screws are okay, the setup process is straightforward. The app walked me through charging the removable battery via its microUSB port, installing it, getting it onto my WiFi network, and then mounting the View on the door frame. Screws are included, plus plastic plugs should your wall require them. Finally you plug in the indoor chime, straight into a spare outlet. It has a range of up to 100 feet from the doorbell.

August's app allows you to manage multiple homes, and then multiple doors or locations within each home. After that, when someone presses the doorbell button you get a notification on your phone. The doorbell itself has a chime, and the plug-in chime will ring, too; there's the option to turn that off if you prefer. The button's light ring blinks slowly when the bell is chiming; on a couple of occasions I pressed the button but didn't get an alert on my phone, though August tells me that's a known issue that it's working on fixing now.

The motion sensor wakes the doorbell when someone approaches, so that it can quickly reconnect to WiFi. It generally took less than two seconds from pressing the button for a notification to arrive on my phone. There's a thumbnail image attached, but unlike with a Nest camera no animation of what's going on outside.

Tap the notification and, after a second or two as the connection is made, you get a live video stream from your door. August has opted for a fairly unusual 1920 x 1440 resolution, the same width as Full HD but with a taller frame. It makes sense, though, when you realize you can see packages that have been left on the step, or the faces of particularly tall visitors.

There's some fisheye distortion around the edges, unsurprisingly, and August seems to bias its brightness levels so that faces are most visible, even if that means the surroundings are over-exposed. You can pinch-zoom in to see details like name-badges. While the quality is reasonable, there are moments of occasional blockiness which seem to affect saved clips more than viewing the camera live. Viewing videos in the August app timeline view can also be oddly jerky, almost like a timelapse; the same clips, saved to my phone's camera roll, were much smoother.

The motion sensor automatically turns on the light ring around the doorbell button when triggered, though unlike the Doorbell Cam Pro there's no LED floodlight. Instead it uses infrared LEDs for night vision. You can also optionally receive notifications whenever motion is spotted. A Power Saving Mode trades night vision and streaming quality, as well as motion sensitivity, in the name of better battery life. Turn it off, and you can manually adjust motion sensitivity, night vision brightness, and video quality. In the video below, the night vision brightness was at its lowest setting, while video quality was at its best.

As for how long a charge will last, that depends on how frequently the August View is used. The battery itself is a sizable 6,500 mAh, which the company says should manage up to three months of use. Obviously if you frequently turn on the live video preview in the August app, that time will be cut down.

Still, a side benefit to using li-ion rather than the AA batteries in an August Smart Lock is much better power reporting. August tells me it should have a much more accurate idea of when the battery is in need of a recharge. When that time comes, you'll need to slide the whole doorbell off the wall: the microUSB isn't accessible with it mounted.

When you're viewing live video, either because someone rang the doorbell or because you switched it on manually, you can hear through the View's microphone. Press the mic button in the app, and you can talk to whoever is outside.

Like other smart home video cameras, August has a choice of free and paid subscriptions. Without a subscription, you'll get a snapshot of whoever pressed the doorbell button or triggered the motion sensor. August's "Premium" plan offers 15 days of storage for $2.99 per month, while its "Premium Plus" plan doubles that to 30 days for $4.99 per month. They're competitive fees.

What you don't get, unlike Nest, is facial recognition. August View will notify you if it spotted motion, and capture a photo or clip depending on your subscription, but it won't differentiate between, say, a car passing versus a person's face. Nor can it tell you who it spots, if it recognizes that face.

August argues that's a conscious choice, based on privacy. "We want to ensure that any offerings in this space addresses privacy and safety concerns before we bring this technology to our customers," the company says. That's admirable restraint, though I do appreciate the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor's ability to flag when it spots strangers in its notifications.

As for the broader smart home, currently August View supports Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant. Paired with an Alexa- or Assistant-powered device, you can be alerted whenever the doorbell button is pressed, or motion is spotted, through your smart speakers. Right now there's no way to actually view the video if you have a smart display, however.