Eufy Video Doorbell E340 review: The best value dual-camera doorbell

Video doorbells with twin cameras are becoming more common and the Eufy E340 is one of the more reasonably priced models. It’s typically available for around £180, but I’ve frequently seen it discounted to as little as £150, and it doesn’t need a subscription to run.

As far as dual-camera doorbells go, it’s the best value option we’ve seen so far, and although it isn’t our outright favourite video doorbell, it is the best pick for those who get lots of Amazon deliveries.

Eufy Video Doorbell E340 review: What do you get for the money?

The Eufy E340 is stacked with features. For £180 you get a doorbell with twin cameras, one of which faces down at your step so you can see if a courier has left a package on your doorstep.

It has a built-in battery, which lasts a quoted six months per charge, is easy to set up, and has 8GB of internal storage for storing video clips on. Unlike Ring, Nest and Arlo doorbells you don’t have to pay for a cloud video storage service.

If you already have wiring for a mechanical chime and own a Eufy Homebase or compatible chime, you can save £20 by purchasing the E340 without the chime in the box. 

Other features include colour night vision and a dual LED lighting system that illuminates both up and down when you approach the doorbell at night. That’s helpful if you don’t have a motion-sensitive porch light and also acts as a security light to deter unwanted visitors.

If you choose to wire up your doorbell, it can be set to pre-record for four seconds prior to movement being detected, ensuring you don’t miss fast moving visitors. There’s also a whole smorgasbord of smart detection features, including person detection, facial recognition (in beta) and package detection.

It’s a baffling selection of features, but of all them, the “Delivery guard” package detection features are the most interesting. They’re designed to notify you when a package has been left on your step and even protect against porch pirates who approach the package when you’re out. One further feature allows you to see when a package was delivered by simply tapping on it in the live view.

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Eufy Video Doorbell E340 review: How easy is it to set up?

The first thing you’ll need to do before mounting the doorbell is get it set up with the app on your home network. This is a pretty straightforward job but you need to make sure your phone is connected to the same network as the doorbell. Once the doorbell is connected to your Wi-Fi, the app takes you through the physical installation process step-by-step.

It’s a similar process for installing the chime unit provided in the box. Just tap the plus symbol to add the chime to the app and the software will take you through the setup process and link it to your doorbell. The chime unit also has a microSD card on its side, and if you think you’ll need the extra storage, or you simply want to store your video clips somewhere other than the doorbell, it’ll also offer to format the card for you once you insert it.

In short, it’s all very simple. The only technical thing to be aware of is that the E340 only supports 2.4GHz networks and your phone needs to be connected to the same network as the doorbell for setup to work.

Getting the doorbell up and running after this is relatively easy, too. The app is cleanly and clearly laid out and I found it easy to navigate. The most challenging aspect of it is that there are so many settings to consider. Aside from all the aforementioned smart features, you also have settings to adjust relating to motion detection sensitivity, video and audio quality, smart speaker streaming and more.

Eufy Video Doorbell E340 review: What does it do well?

So how well does all of this work? The answer is reasonably well. Human detection works reliably, and so does package detection. Note, though, that it won’t work with all types of deliveries. I threw a couple of mid-size boxes – one brown, one white – and it detected both of those, but it failed with a smaller box and a padded envelope. To be fair to Eufy, the app does warn you about this, saying it “works best with packages 10in each side or bigger” and that you “probably won’t be notified of envelopes, tubes, groceries or meals” but it’s a little disappointing nonetheless.

When you combine it with reliable person and motion detection, then package detection is probably a bit unnecessary in any case. If you check the recorded video whenever someone approaches your door or rings the doorbell, you’ll see it on the second camera anyway – and while I’m on the subject, this camera is the E340’s best feature. I cannot overstate how useful it is to have a separate, high-resolution view of your doorstep; it gives you a much more detailed view than even the widest angle single-camera doorbell can. 

Image quality is great, too, both from the 2K main camera and the 1080p downwards facing camera. With HDR supported, even strongly backlit subjects are exposed correctly and both colour and monochrome night vision work well too, delivering a clear view of those at your door at night.

And of course it’s also handy that the doorbell can be run without a subscription. By default, video clips are stored in the doorbell’s own 8GB internal storage. Alternatively, you can shunt them off to a microSD card in the chime unit, or pair the doorbell with the optional HomeBase S380 hub (£159) and store them there.

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Eufy Video Doorbell E340 review: What could it do better?

The E340’s big weakness is that it’s quite slow at delivering alerts through to the smartphone app. Over local Wi-Fi, I found it took 6.2 seconds to show the alert and then another 5.3 seconds on average to launch to the live stream, for a total average response time of 11.5 seconds. I measured similar speeds when I disconnected my phone from the Wi-Fi and connected to the doorbell over a mobile broadband link.

It’s more than twice as slow as our favourite doorbell, the TP-Link Tapo D230S1, which took an average of 1.2 seconds to pass ring alerts through to the app, and took 3.9 seconds on average to launch the live stream for a total average of 5.1 seconds. The most responsive video doorbell I’ve tested is the Ring Video Doorbell Plus, which took an average of 1.3 seconds to alert a doorbell press and a further 1.1 seconds to launch into the live stream.

Other than this, there really isn’t much to complain about. It’s also worth noting that I didn’t experience these slow response times with the chime, which rang almost instantaneously once the doorbell button had been pressed.

Eufy Video Doorbell review: Should you buy it?

Despite my concerns over sluggish performance, the Eufy Video Doorbell E340 is well worth considering. It really crams in the features, image quality is excellent, it comes with a chime in the box and you don’t have to pay a subscription to store and access triggered video clips. 

Our pick of the video doorbells remains the TP-Link Tapo D230S1, however. It doesn’t have a second camera to keep watch on your step, but it’s cheaper, quicker and can also be run without needing a subscription. As such, that makes the Eufy our second favourite video doorbell at the time of writing, and the best for anyone who gets a lot of Amazon deliveries.