Life with my new Video Intercom

I love my MiChime video intercom but I have to say, it took me a while to get used to it. I wanted one initially so my eldest daughter, now staying home more, didn’t have to answer the door when I wasn’t there. I also thought I should be a bit more careful too about answering the door randomly to strangers, so I got one and put it in the hallway.  It was easy to fit, plugged in and connected straight away.  It looked great in the hall and I set the video intercom up so it would also take snapshots of people at my door when they pressed the bell.

All great until the intercom rang. I hadn’t considered how silly I would feel picking up the handset to talk to someone via video intercom, when my door has a glass pane in and I am viewable to the person at the door!  Very quickly, I started whizzing past the miChime intercom and opening the door, more concerned with looking good than being careful!

I moved the handset into the lounge after a few weeks.  But I hadn’t anticipated that the Amazon delivery man waving at the front window holding up a parcel would leave me embarrassed to pick up the handset - even though I had never seen him before - and therefore I continued to walk past the ringing handset in the lounge and opened the door anyway! 

My daughter seemed to be equally struggling but when we sat to discuss our surprising ‘video intercom avoidance’, we agreed that there had been a lot of problems in our area and that using the intercom was the right thing to do, we just needed to get more comfortable with it. We moved the intercom into the kitchen and agreed that as it was at the back of the house, we had a more reasonable reason to pick up the intercom as no-one could see us.  Our answer, “I am upstairs at the moment” if anyone was to ask why we weren’t going to the door. 

We have never looked back since.  Most door callers have been people we know, but there have been some door callers who I actually do think were acting fairly suspicious and knowing the door was safely shut made me feel much more relieved.   I find I love no longer having to hold tight to my dogs’ collar or worry after someone leaves that they seemed to have paid extra attention to my dog and could they be planning a return visit to steal him. 

I have since added an additional handset for upstairs too, so that when the door rings, we don’t start the crazy trip of coming downstairs, past the front door (where they can see me ignoring the door) and into the kitchen. It feels safer with my youngest child now too who has become conditioned to pick up the handset rather than answer the door so if the bell rings and I am in the bath or down the garden, I don’t have the worry she is answering the door to strangers.

I like checking the snapshots on returning home, knowing who had been to the door.  I am still puzzled at the number of daytime callers I seem to get whilst I am at work but should anything happen, I have their pictures timed and dated on the hand set! I also love that if I think I can hear someone at the door, I just press the monitor button and I can instantly see outside my door. And has anyone actually said to me, “Why are you not answering the door”? Of course not! 

I have since passed on the wisdom to my mum who also has a video intercom and had developed similar avoidance fears and being an old age pensioner of 80, she has far more reason than me to be careful about answering the door! So tip for anyone buying a miChime intercom, don’t keep it need your front door, put it in a room away from the door and you will definitely feel good about answering it!