Drill-free video door phone mounts are perfect for tenants

Installing smart home equipment can be challenging if you don’t own your home. An inexpensive no-drill doorbell bracket makes it trivial to use a smart video doorbell without disturbing anything and risking your deposit.

Why use a doorbell bracket without drilling?

Although your landlord might be open to you installing smart home equipment, it’s a pretty safe bet for most people that drilling holes in things, swapping out hardware, or making modifications to existing doorbell wiring is out of the question. What does it do? I installed a video doorbell a bit tricky.

Even affixing a smart doorbell to the wall with heavy-duty outdoor tape could cause problems, as removing it could damage the facade of your rental.

The solution? A no-drill doorbell bracket that attaches to the door itself and not to the building structure. Although they come in various shapes and sizes to suit different door station styles, the basic design is the same.

The mounts are made of metal in a square U shape. One side of the U features a metal box to house the chime unit and the other side of the U has a tension screw to secure the assembly to the door.

Simply load your video doorbell, place it in the metal box, slide the entire assembly over the edge of the open door until the base of the U is snug against the door, then tighten the tension screw to prevent sliding.

Design is great for renters who want to avoid damaging their apartment or rental house, but at the same time, it’s great for anyone who doesn’t want to change the exterior of their home for whatever reason. Do you live in a historic home and don’t want to mess with old wiring or drill holes in the beautiful wood or stone around your door? This solution is also great for you.

Selecting a doorbell bracket without drilling

The design of the no-drill doorbell brackets is quite simple. As long as there aren’t any obvious manufacturing flaws like sharp edges, poor welds or joints, or poorly dimensioned doorbell mounting chambers, there really aren’t that many differences between the various models, although a few do stand out.

One of the most popular models on the market is the Doorbell Boa. It hit the market early, has a solid design, and a few years ago it went viral on TikTok, helping move a billion and one units.

If you’re looking for a solidly built mount that’s compatible with Ring Doorbells from Generations 1 to 4 (but not Pro models), Arlo, Blink, Eufy, and more, it’s a solid choice. As long as your doorbell is physically smaller than 4 inches wide, 6.5 inches tall, and 1.75 inches deep, it will work.

In addition to the steel box-style design that Doorbell Boa (and its many clones) uses, there are also a variety of doorbell-specific models, some with handy features like angle adjustments.

This doorbell mount, for example, has a very low profile, is designed to work only with Blink doorbells, and features a 90° pivot that allows you to adjust the view up to 45° in any direction.

If your door is right next to a wall, that’s a great way to get a better view of your patio or walkway rather than the wall of your garage or the like.

Don’t forget to buy a wireless doorbell

In addition to reading the specs to make sure the bracket is compatible with your doorbell (and the correct size for the depth of your door), there is one final consideration.

Because the video doorbell is wireless and not connected to your physical doorbell, you’ll need some way to be notified indoors if the doorbell rings.

If you have smart speakers and they support notifications from your video doorbell, that’s a simple solution. When your Nest doorbell rings, for example, it’s easy to make your Nest speakers announce, “Someone’s at the front door.”

You may also want to purchase a plug-in doorbell to complement your video doorbell. Most of the major players in the video doorbell market sell wireless add-on doorbells for their doorbells. You simply plug in the doorbell, pair it, and it turns off every time the doorbell is pressed. You’ll find models for Ring, Arlo, Eufy, Wyze, and others.

The great thing about using a smart speaker or wireless doorbell in conjunction with your video doorbell and a convenient no-drill bracket is that when it’s time to move, you can just pack everything up and take it with you.