The eufy Video Doorbell E340 is our pick for best video doorbellfor one concrete reason: it has a second camera aimed straight down at the step. So it shows the parcel as clearly as the person, it records locally with no plan, and it runs wired or on battery. Everything below follows from those three facts — including the one place the design bites back.
The second camera is the whole argument
A normal doorbell has one lens, mounted at button height and aimed out at face level. It sees a visitor from the chest up and it misses the ground — which means it misses the parcel on the step, the note taped below the handle, and the small dog at the door. The usual workaround is a taller frame that drags the ground into the bottom of a wide-angle shot, where the lens distortion is worst and the pixels are most stretched.
The E340 does something different: a dedicated second camera pointed down at the doorstep, separate from the forward camera on the visitor. The result is a properly framed, properly exposed image of what is on the ground, rather than the smeared corner of a fisheye. If package deliveries are the actual reason you are shopping for a doorbell — and for a lot of people they are — this is the feature that earns its money, and almost nothing else in the category does it with a real second lens. The only listing that matches it is the same doorbell sold as the E340 + HomeBase 3 bundle, which adds a base station in the box.
Wired or battery: the same doorbell, two different products
The E340 will run either way, and the choice changes the doorbell more than people expect.
Wired, into an existing doorbell transformer, it has a constant supply. It can stay awake, it can drive an existing mechanical chime, and there is no cell to recharge. This is the E340 at its best, and it is why it heads our main video doorbell rankingrather than the battery one. A wired install does carry the whole transformer question: a video doorbell draws power continuously, where a mechanical bell drew it for half a second, so the transformer has to meet eufy's published minimum voltage and capacity. An old, small transformer that rang a bell for thirty years can sit below that floor, and the symptom is not a dead doorbell but an intermittent one that reboots mid-call. Check the figure on eufy's support page against what is printed on your transformer before ordering.
On battery, it ignores your wiring entirely, which makes it an option for a rented door or a house with no transformer. But a battery doorbell sleeps until its motion sensor fires, so you lose the continuous standby recording a wired unit can hold, and — the part that catches people — in battery mode there is no circuit to ring an indoor chime. More on that below, because it is the single most important thing to understand before you buy this doorbell to run on a cell. If battery is your plan and an audible indoor bell matters, the bundle with a HomeBase 3 included is usually the better buy; the full field is on the battery doorbell roundup.
What keeps working with no plan, and where the video lives
The E340 records locally with full playback and no subscription. Depending on how you set it up, that is either on-device storage in the doorbell or a paired eufy HomeBase indoors, and either way the footage is yours — there is no monthly fee to keep it, to play it back, or to get alerts. That is the entire commercial difference between this and a cloud-only doorbell, where the recording lives on the manufacturer's server and the bill continues for as long as you own the hardware. The general version of that argument is in local storage vs cloud security cameras, and the doorbells that pass the no-subscription test are indexed at best video doorbells without a subscription.
If you already own a eufy HomeBase, the E340 is the cheaper way into the dual-camera design, because it can record to the base you already have rather than making you buy another one. If you do not own a HomeBase and you want the base station included, that is precisely what the E340 + HomeBase 3 bundle is. The head-to-head between eufy's local-storage approach and Ring's cloud one is at Ring vs eufy, which is the cleanest statement of the two positions in this category.
The chime catch in battery mode
This is the E340's one genuine weakness, and it is worth stating loudly because the product photography does not. A wired doorbell can ring the mechanical bell already in your house. The E340 wired can do that too. But the E340 on batteryhas no chime circuit, and eufy does not put a plug-in chime in the box — so in battery mode an audible indoor bell is not part of the package. You get app notifications and the sound from the doorbell's own speaker, and that is all, unless you add a compatible eufy indoor device to chime through.
For a household of two with phones in hand, that is livable. For a family, for a home office at the back of the house, or for anyone who puts their phone on silent in the evening, it is a real gap — the doorbell rings and nobody hears it. This is exactly the problem the HomeBase 3 bundle solves, because a paired HomeBase is one of the devices eufy lists as a chime for this doorbell, and it is why a battery-first buyer is often better served there. If you want a battery doorbell that simply includes a plug-in chime, the Tapo does, and it records to a microSD card with no plan as well.
Fit and install: what to check before you order
This replaces the existing button, so the practical questions are physical. Measure the flat area on the frame where the doorbell will sit and check for anything that will foul a unit wider than the button it replaces: a storm door that swings across the frame, a narrow mullion, or brick that will need a masonry bit. Two eufy cameras stacked in one body make this doorbell taller than a plain single-lens unit, so the clearance check matters more here than usual.
If you are wiring it, work through the transformer check above — voltage and capacity against eufy's published minimum — and remember that doorbell wiring is a low-voltage Class 2 circuit, so the bell wire itself is not dangerous to handle, but the line-voltage side of the transformer is, and that job belongs to whoever does your electrical work. If you are running it on battery, the first thing to do after mounting is trim the motion zones so the sidewalk and road are excluded; that single adjustment is what decides whether you recharge a couple of times a year or every few weeks. Most doorbells also ship with a small angled wedge in the box — it is not packing material. If the door is set back in a recess or the frame faces slightly away from the path, that wedge is the difference between framing the visitor and framing the wall.
The honest cons
- Dual-camera video eats more storage. Two streams take more space than one, so plan your HomeBase or on-device capacity accordingly. It is the direct cost of the feature that makes this doorbell worth buying.
- Battery mode loses the continuous timeline. Like every battery doorbell, it sleeps until motion wakes it, so there is a brief wake-up delay and no rolling pre-roll buffer. If you specifically want a 24/7 timeline, wire it or buy a wired camera.
- No included indoor chime on battery.Covered above — the single most common reason a battery buyer is happier with the HomeBase 3 bundle.
Who should skip it
Anyone building a eufy system from scratch on battery. If you do not already own a HomeBase and you intend to run this on a cell, the E340 + HomeBase 3 bundle gets you the base and the indoor chime for less than buying the doorbell and a HomeBase 3 separately. Buy the bare E340 when you already have a HomeBase, or when you are wiring it.
Anyone who needs a guaranteed audible bell and will not wire it. In battery mode this doorbell rings a phone, not a hallway. If a bell you can hear upstairs is non-negotiable and wiring is off the table, buy a battery doorbell with a chime in the box.
Anyone chasing the absolute lowest price. The E340 is mid-priced for the category, not the cheapest. If budget is the deciding number and you can accept a single wide lens instead of a dedicated downward camera, the cheaper options are on the battery roundup.
The thing this doorbell cannot tell you
Whether a door or window elsewhere on the house is open. A doorbell watches one approach, the front step, and reports motion in front of a lens — it has nothing to say about the back door, a ground-floor window or the garage side door, and it cannot report that a door was actually opened. A few contact sensors close that gap for a fraction of the price per opening and report a plain binary fact instead of a judgment about pixels. They are ranked at best door and window sensors, and the wider category, wired and battery, sits on the doorbells hub.
How this review was compiled
Products we claim to have tested: zero. We have not put this doorbell on a door, and we are not going to imply otherwise. What this review is built from is eufy's published product and support documentation, its installation guide, and the general engineering of battery-powered cameras and low-voltage doorbell circuits — every one of which is a source you can open yourself, and they are listed below. Our scoring rubric and the weightings behind it are published in full at methodology, so you can disagree with our conclusion using the same public material we used to reach it.
The alternatives worth comparing
eufy Video Doorbell E340 with HomeBase 3 — if you are buying the system, not the doorbell
The same doorbell, sold with a HomeBase 3 in the box. That base is the difference: it gives you expandable local storage and an audible indoor chime without a separate purchase, which is exactly what the bare E340 lacks in battery mode. It is more expensive than the E340 alone and redundant if you already own a HomeBase, but for a battery-first buyer starting fresh it is usually the better pick, and it is why the bundle, not the bare unit, wins our battery doorbell roundup.
Tapo 2K+ Video Doorbell — if you want no plan and a chime in the box
The most forgiving install here. It runs wired or on battery, includes a plug-in chime, and records to a microSD card with person and package detection free. The compromise is the camera: a single wide lens with a tall field of view shows the doorstep, but with less detail than the E340's dedicated downward camera. If a chime in the box matters more than the best possible view of the step, the Tapo is the more honest recommendation.
Where the E340 sits between them
The HomeBase 3 bundle is the better battery buy because it includes what the bare unit gives up. The Tapo is the easier no-plan install. The bare E340 is the one to buy when you already own a HomeBase, or when you are wiring the doorbell — because wired, it keeps the second downward camera and local recording while adding a real indoor chime through your existing bell, which is the combination that makes it our overall best video doorbell. The rest of the category is indexed on the doorbells hub.
