SwannBuddy 4K review: An AI video doorbell that can chat to visitors for you

The SwannBuddy4K video doorbell is the latest gadget from the Australian security experts at Swann. It has an RRP a penny shy of £170 (it’s never been more than £159 at Amazon), a price that puts it in competition with the likes of Google’s Nest Doorbell (battery) and the Tapo D235.

And it’s a pretty decent offering. It’s the first video doorbell we’ve seen to use AI responses, and Swann’s pedigree in commercial security means the doorbell leaves no stone unturned when it comes to features.

Check price at Argos

SwannBuddy 4K review: What do you get for the money?

Swann certainly packs in the value. For your money, not only do you get the doorbell itself, including mounting brackets, adhesive pads screws and wall plugs, but also a neat battery-powered chime unit, complete with a pair of AA batteries supplied in the box.

In terms of design and size, the new SwannBuddy 4K is solid too, although mostly  unremarkable. At 140 x 53 x 32mm and 171g it’s not as slimline as the Ring Battery Video Doorbell but it is considerably less bulky than the Tapo D235 and D210.

And while the fascia layout breaks no new ground, with the camera at the top, the bell button surrounded by a multi-colour LED below and a PIR motion detector at the bottom, I do like that the lens has a small peak that juts out at the top to help shield it from rain.

The entire unit is IP65 resistant, too, which according to the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) means it is dust tight and has been tested against “water projected by a nozzle … against [the] enclosure from any direction”.

And it has all the connectivity options you need. Have a look at the rear of the doorbell before you mount it and at the top you’ll find a rubber plug that covers a USB-C charge port, a MicroSD card slot and a reset button. At the very bottom of the unit, meanwhile, is a pair of screw connectors for an external mains doorbell power supply. If yours delivers between 8V and 24V it should work – that’s pretty much any doorbell wiring in the UK, in case you were wondering.

Swann’s Big Idea is its AI answering system, called SwannShield, which works thus: if someone rocks up at your door and presses the doorbell, SwanShield swings into action and initiates a conversation with the caller without you having to do anything.

The main point of this is to determine if the AI bot needs to replay your pre-set message regarding delivery instructions, but as you can tell from the transcript, which the system stores in the app for later review, it proved quite capable of telling the caller (me in this instance) that there’s nobody called Peter at my address and that No.12 is next door.

SwanShield is still in beta, so it will presumably get better as time goes by, but even at this stage it’s quite impressive and I can still see it being a handy tool, especially if you regularly need to direct delivery drivers to a chosen safe space and you can’t get to your phone because you are driving or otherwise preoccupied.

SwanShield lets you choose between three AI voice demeanours – polite, assertive and disinterested – and eight voice types and accents including Australian and British. Why you would choose anything other than polite is beyond me – unless you want the courier to think you are a rude so-and-so and throw your parcel back on the van or over the hedge.

Inside the SwanBuddy is a 6,500mAh rechargeable battery. As is always the case, how long you get from a full charge depends on how you set the system up. Disable motion detection and you can double the time between charges compared to setting it so that every passing leaf in the wind triggers an alert and a recording.

From my experience, I estimate the recharge period will be very similar to that of the Tapo D210, which has a 6,000mAh battery, so that’s once every six or seven weeks with average use. I regard that as perfectly acceptable. If you want more, look at the Tapo D235 with its huge 10,000mAh battery.

SwannBuddy 4K review: How easy is it to set up?

Set up is much the same as it is with the likes of the Tapo and Ring doorbells. Simply download the relevant app, set up a free account and follow the on-screen instructions. These ask you to scan the QR code on the back of the doorbell and put in your Wi-Fi password (2.4GHz networks only), confirm your name and address for the AI assistant so it knows if callers have the right address and, assuming you’ve charged the unit, you’re then good to go.

You don’t even need to link the doorbell to the chime provided in the box. Once I’d put the supplied AA batteries in the chime, it just worked and it’s louder than you’d expect, too. It comes with six ring tone options and it is seriously loud when the volume is turned up to max.

The metal mounting frame that Swann supplies is an unusually small thing that clips into the back of the doorbell and is secured by a small screw at the bottom. It isn’t the easiest to attach the doorbell unit to but, once in place, it feels very secure because the back of the doorbell unit sits close to flush against the door itself, with the mounting bracket completely out of sight.

Swann also includes a selection of security stickers in various languages to warn off the nefarious, screws and raw plugs, a USB-C cable (but no charger) and cables to help connect to a doorbell mains supply. There’s no angle bracket, though, so you can only mount the doorbell square-on to a door or wall.

Check price at Argos

SwannBuddy 4K review: What does it do well?

Swann doesn’t state exactly what it means by 4K, but saved videos are rendered at 2,032 x 3,712 at 15fps, while the vertical viewing angle is given as 165-degrees. That is ideal for getting a full-height view of whatever is afoot outside, and means you can see your doorstep right up to the base of the door.

So expansive is the SwannBuddy’s vertical viewing angle that it renders the dual-camera setup used by the likes of the Eufy E340 redundant. Although it’s worth mentioning that the Eufy can now be picked up for just £125, making it the cheaper option.

And image quality from the 4K camera is good, too. In daylight, video is sharp and colourful while at night it’s sharp and monochrome. There’s no daylight-nighttime switch and no option to shoot in colour at night, though: instead, the camera automatically selects IR mode when the ambient light drops below a certain level.

Once you’ve acknowledged a ring, you can either talk directly to your visitor or send them one of four pre-set voice messages, including, a little alarmingly, that you’ve called the police. Annoyingly, these are only available in an Australian accent, but aside from this, I had no issues: voice messages were clear, loud and easily audible no matter if they were live, pre-recorded or AI generated.

And there is plenty else to like, such as the ability to store images locally on a MicroSD card, so you can view, share and download via the Swann Security App without having to pay a subscription. Usefully, Swann includes a 32GB card with the doorbell, although cards of up to 128GB in size are supported.

There are subscription options (starting at £3.99/mth), which add online cloud storage for your video clips, rich notifications with embedded images and smart motion notifications that can distinguish between people, pets, cars and packages. It’s worth noting, however, that Tapo offers the latter for free.

And the Swann Security app is pretty decent. It is, perhaps, not quite as polished as the alternatives from Blink, Ring or Tapo, but ultimately it’s no less easy to navigate. It allows you to adjust all the usual subtleties such as video stream quality, microphone/speaker volume and chime volume. You can also tweak the level of motion sensitivity, select which parts of the camera’s field of view are monitored for motion activity or turn it off completely to get the absolute most from your battery.

SwannBuddy 4K review: What could it do better?

The SwannBuddy 4K’s’s biggest shortcoming is that it doesn’t work particularly well with third-party services, so you can forget combining it with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, IFTTT or Apple HomeKit. Swann dropped support due to a lack of use by customers.

It isn’t the most responsive thing, either. While the reaction time of the SwannBuddy 4K’s app to doorbell presses was generally good, it took an age to open the live feed from the app – around seven seconds on average. For comparison, a Tapo D210 doorbell in the same location and on the same network took around two seconds to do the same thing.

I wouldn’t describe the delay in launching a live feed as a deal breaker, though, and it has no impact on the system’s reaction time to motion events or bell-presses, but it is frustrating if you want to quickly check up on a motion alert when you’re away from home.

It’s also worth noting that, when it comes to distinguishing between sources of motion, the SwannBuddy4K isn’t as good as our favourite doorbells. The SwannBuddy4K tells you what has set it off, be it car, pet, package or person, and you can turn off certain push notifications, but you can’t set the camera to only ignore certain types of motion. Tapo lets you do that, and again for free.

Check price at Argos

SwanBuddy 4K review: Should you buy it?

What separates the SwannBuddy4K from the herd is the AI answering system. It’s the closest thing to being in when you’re out (and don’t have access to your phone) that I’ve come across. It’s genuinely useful and is one of the few occasions I’ve encountered a feature labelled “AI” that’s turned out to be worth paying for.

Away from that, the SwannBuddy has basics well-covered with good video quality by day or night, free video storage, decent battery life, a free chime and the option to be powered from a mains doorbell circuit.

The range of features and cost of video doorbells on the market today makes it almost impossible to pick an outright winner, but the SwannBuddy4K is certainly up there with the very best by offering a clever AI chat bot, a decent range of features and good quality.