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Comment by beAbU | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting how in some places in the world the presence of a doorbell is so important that there's a need to make it "smart". The success of smart doorbell products demonstrates this need nicely.

I have no doorbell. If a visitor does not know how to get hold of me or the other inhabitants of my property, then they probably have no business being there in the first place.

I am not alone in this. Most people in my street are the same (based on my very unscientific study last week while out on a walk), and probably most of my city is like this (again, based on my own unscientific study)

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> I have no doorbell. If a visitor does not know how to get hold of me or the other inhabitants of my property, then they probably have no business being there in the first place.

Sounds pretty cold. I've had neighbors come over to introduce themselves, some even with welcoming gifts when we bought the house and moved in. I'd hate to just shut myself out of the society like that.

When someone comes to my door, they're probably either salesmen or religious. It's awkward to send them away -- by design. The typical etiquette in my locale is to call or text ahead. If there's a delivery truck at the curb, then it's a delivery.

"Society" has done this to us.

I see how that works once your neighbors have your phone number, but what about that first introduction?

> I've had neighbors come over to introduce themselves, some even with welcoming gifts when we bought the house and moved in.

We met while shoveling snow, or across the fences. ;-) Still, that was 20 years ago.

It's not like we have a moat and drawbridge. Not answering the door is a generalization, that admits of exceptions.

I think some demand for smart doorbells is to handle the “unknown visitor” problem: notify the homeowner that someone is at the door even when they’re away from home, and the ability to disguise that the house is unoccupied.

Also lets you tell when people approach the door but don't ring, especially if you have some kind of person detection going. My mailman drops stuff on the porch all the time and never bothers to ring the doorbell which is annoying, but I get a little beep and a thumbnail inside from my home automation platform to let me know someone was on the porch.

Plus generally having a recording of your front porch area is useful for security. I've been able to pull video recordings of stuff to prove/disprove things happened, for instance when the mailman ran over a bunch of stuff in my front yard and drove off.

Our houses in the UK are so small that a knock usually suffices.

Doorbells feel anachronistic. Barely anyone on my street has one!

Do you never order any packages off the internet? Or receive certified mail from the tax authority? The reason smart doorbells in particular have taken off is that it’s an easy place to tap into a power source that’s already available outside of the home.

The delivery person has my number, because it's on my order / courier waybill. They typically phone me. I have a fence, so my door is not accessible from the street for a knock.

I have a postbox at my local post office. My official mailing address points there. My tax authorty and (and all other governmental or official correspondence for that matter) is sent via email. I get almost no paper mail these days, and most of what I do get is junk.

It's not really that people wanted the doorbell to be made "smart"; it's that advances in consumer electronics eventually enabled the existence of a security/surveillance camera that can be easily deployed to a high-priority location (your entrance) using the ~20V power supply most homes already have wired into the perfect location for it.

How does someone passing tell you you've left your headlights on. (Or a million similar examples).

Where do you live?

South Africa, in the suburbs of one of the major cities.

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