Annke Whiffle 1080P Video Doorbell Camera Review – How good can a £30 doorbell camera be?

I have reviewed a lot of video doorbell cameras over the years. As someone who works from home and receives a lot of packages, I have found these to be an essential piece of tech in my home as I get motion and doorbell notifications through to both my phone and watch, meaning I rarely miss the doorbell. And, when I am not in, I know who has been to the door.

In my situation, I have multiple CCTV cameras covering my property, so the security features are less important to me than the notifications, but of course, this is always a useful addition.

Pricing

I’d normally cover the price at the end of an article, but I’d say this is the main selling point here.

The Annke Whiffle has an RRP of just £60, making it one of the most affordable options on the market. However, at the time of writing (21/1/2024), it had a 50% discount, taking it down to just £30.

There are some options on Amazon around this price, but they are all completely random brands. While Annke may not be as popular as Eufy or Ring, and prefer to use them than a completely unknown brand.

Specification

• Sensor: 1/2.9″ CMOS  
• Focal Length: 2.8 mm
• Aperture: F2.0 
• Optical Field of View: 148° diagonal, 112° horizontal, 62° vertical
• Minimum Illumination: 0.01 lux             
• Input: Built-in microphone
• Output: Built-in speaker            
• Two-way Audio: Full duplex
• Audio Compressing: AAC          
• Video Compressing: H.264
• Lighting Frequency: 50 Hz, 60 Hz          
• Frame Rate: 15 fps
• Maximum Resolution: 1920 × 1080      
• Light Source for Night Vision: Infrared LED
• Wireless Standard: Wi-Fi: 2.4 GHz (IEEE 802.11 b/g/n)
• Protocols Supported: TCP/IP, UDP/IP, DHCP, RTMP, MUTP, OOK
• Capacity: 5000 mAh    
• Removability: Unremovable
• Working Time: 6 months (recording 20 pieces of 10-second video per day)      
• Power: Micro USB
• Storage: Micro SD card
• Dustproof and Waterproof: IP65

Design

The Annke Whiffle appears to be well-made and looks similar to most video doorbells, with a  camera at the top and a button at the bottom.

The mounting plate is detached using a SIM card removal tool, which will reduce the risk of someone maliciously removing the doorbell.

With the backplate removed, on the bottom of the doorbell is the power/reset button and a slot for the microSD card that is protected with a  rubber grommet.

Then on the side is another rubber grommet protecting the microUSB port for charging. I’d say the microUSB port is my biggest gripe with this camera. With USB-C now being ubiquitous, it is frustrating having to find the correct cable when you want to charge a device.

You get three mounting brackets, which is quite good considering the price of this doorbell.

Set-Up

Bizarrely, this camera does not use the Annke Vision app but instead the VicoHome app. This would be quite annoying for me if I were running other Annke cameras concurrently.

Apart from that annoyance, the setup is quite simple: just power on the device, wait for the app to find it, provide your SSID credentials and show the camera the generated QR code.

With the camera set up, you can go into the app and pair up the included chime which consists of pressing the button on the chime to put it into syncing mode.

I chose to stick the camera to the glass on my front door, which meant there was very little to do with the physical installation.

VicoHome App & Cloud Storage

When you first set up the camera, you will be offered a free trial of the cloud storage for a month.

This will cost £2.59 PCM and provides 15 days of recordings with up to 3GB of storage.

Annke/VicoHome has adopted a strategy similar to that of some other brands for their subscription service. It is not just the cloud storage this enables, the subscription walls off the smart detection (or intelligent notification as they call it) where the camera can identify people/cars/pets/packages. It also walls off activity zones.

I am not keen on this strategy, but again, you need to factor in the upfront price, and the £2.59 PCM is hardly extortionate.

They also offer a Plus and Pro plan, which extends the recordings for a longer period and provides greater storage.

With the subscription enabled, the app has all the features you’d expect from a decent-quality video doorbell. You can customise which notifications you get, for example, reducing them to people only.

You can also adjust the motion sensitivity and set up activity zones to reduce false positives.

By default, the doorbell was recording in SD, likely to save battery life, so I had to switch it to HD. With the cloud recordings at least, there appears to be no way to adjust the recording length or enable any advanced features like pre-roll.

Performance

The doorbell works well; I found that the notifications came through reliably and promptly, which is one of the most important things for me with these smart video doorbells.

With HD enabled and cloud recordings, the footage seems only to get recorded at 1280×720 and 15FPS rather than 1080P. This is not ideal and quite misleading, but the quality of the footage is good enough.

In my garden, I only ever record people when they are within a few metres of the door, so the 720P footage is adequate to identify the features of anyone coming to the door.

The night footage uses IR, and the video is B&W, just like most video doorbells. Again the quality is perfectly adequate.

Based on my usage, it appears that I will get three to four weeks from the battery, which is well under the quoted figure but it is roughly typical for budget cameras.

Alternative Options

There are a small number of doorbell cameras that are slightly cheaper than £30 and plenty of options going up to £60.

For a well-known brand, the Blink Video Doorbell is probably the best affordable option at £60.

Ezviz has the DB2, which is a 2K video doorbell priced at around £67.

I reviewed the SpotCam Video Doorbell 2 back in 2021, and this was £89 at the time, but it is not just £35. I had similar gripes with this, where the motion detection was walled off into a subscription. At the RRP, I’d say this camera is not worth it, but at £35, it is worth considering, but I think I prefer the Annke.

Then, for the random brands you have:

• XTU Wireless 2K  Video Doorbell at £50.
• KAMEP Wireless Video Doorbell at £40.
• CPVAN 1080P Video Doorbell at £40, which is almost certainly a white-label version of this Annke.

Overall

Even though I had a few criticisms of this camera, you need realistic expectations from a £30 video doorbell.

The issues I had included:

• Not using the existing Annke app
• MicroUSB charging
• Walling off intelligent motion detection into a subscription
• Cloud recordings at 720P, not 1080P

If this were a £100+ video doorbell, I wouldn’t recommend this camera, but at £30, you can’t really criticise it too much. It is amazing value for money, and it performs surprisingly well.

At the full RRP, I’d perhaps consider the Blink or Ezviz options, but even then, this is still a good choice.

Overall, the Annke Whiffle performs well enough and I don’t think there is anything else I’d recommend over this if you budget is £50 or less.

James Smythe( Editor-in-chief )

I am James, a UK-based tech enthusiast and the Editor and Owner of Mighty Gadget, which I’ve proudly run since 2007. Passionate about all things technology, my expertise spans from computers and networking to mobile, wearables, and smart home devices.

As a fitness fanatic who loves running and cycling, I also have a keen interest in fitness-related technology, and I take every opportunity to cover this niche on my blog. My diverse interests allow me to bring a unique perspective to tech blogging, merging lifestyle, fitness, and the latest tech trends.

In my academic pursuits, I earned a BSc in Information Systems Design from UCLAN, before advancing my learning with a Master’s Degree in Computing. This advanced study also included Cisco CCNA accreditation, further demonstrating my commitment to understanding and staying ahead of the technology curve.

I’m proud to share that Vuelio has consistently ranked Mighty Gadget as one of the top technology blogs in the UK. With my dedication to technology and drive to share my insights, I aim to continue providing my readers with engaging and informative content.