Arlo Video Doorbell 3rd generation: wired or battery at $79.99?

The Arlo Video Doorbell 3rd generation is $79.99 in the US, and preorders opened on Nov. 11 through Arlo and Amazon. Arlo expects it to ship in late November 2026. The hardwired version, sold as the Arlo Wired Video Doorbell (3rd Gen), carries the exact same $79.99 price.

So far Arlo has announced US pricing only. There’s no UK or Canadian price or date yet, so buyers in those countries should wait for local listings rather than assume the dollar figure carries over.

Both models come in Black, Sand Dune, White and Greystone. Sand Dune is the surprise: a beige finish meant to blend into lighter brick, stucco or siding, where a dark rectangle can look out of place beside the door frame.

The battery model is the flexible one, and the wired model is the smarter one. That’s the short version.

The battery-powered doorbell runs on a rechargeable battery, so it suits renters and homes with no doorbell wiring at all. If you do have wires, you can hook it up for a slow trickle charge, and in that setup it can also ring your indoor chime.

The wired doorbell needs a compatible existing doorbell connection, but in return it never has to sleep to save power. That constant supply makes two extras possible:

• Arlo Foresight: every clip includes a few seconds from before motion set the camera off. Without that buffer, plenty of recordings start just as a visitor is already walking away.
• 24/7 recording: with Arlo’s Ultra Secure plan, the wired model can record around the clock instead of only when something moves.

If you have working doorbell wires, the wired model gives you more for the same money. If you don’t, the battery model gives up those two features and very little else. Arlo says either one is a do-it-yourself install.

Apart from power, the two share the same camera and app features:

• 2K video with up to 12x zoom
• A 180-degree view, wide enough to show a parcel left right under the doorbell, not just the courier’s face
• Night vision for after-dark clips
• Video calls and two-way audio, so a ring reaches your phone and you can speak to whoever is at the door
• A built-in siren you can set off from the Arlo Secure app
• Weatherproofing for sun, rain, heat and cold
• Dual-band Wi-Fi that switches to the stronger band on its own when one fades
• Support for Google Home, Amazon Alexa, IFTTT and Samsung SmartThings

If you want the doorbell to sound inside the house without any wiring, Arlo sells a separate plug-in accessory, Chime 2, that plays ring and motion alerts in whatever room it’s plugged into.

The previous Arlo Video Doorbell 2K (2nd Gen) sold for $80 and was a single doorbell you could run either on its battery or on existing wires. It already had 2K resolution and a 180-degree field of view, so the headline specs haven’t jumped.

What changed is the lineup. Arlo has split one do-everything doorbell into two dedicated models at the same price, which lets the wired version add features that need constant power, like the Foresight pre-roll and the round-the-clock recording option. The four finishes are the other visible change, and Arlo is leaning on them as a main selling point.

One thing to check: the 2nd gen model’s battery can’t be removed, so when it wears out, the whole doorbell is finished. Arlo hasn’t said whether the new battery model changes that, which is worth confirming if you plan to keep the doorbell for years.

For 2nd gen owners, there’s little reason to upgrade unless you have doorbell wiring and want pre-roll or continuous recording. For anyone coming from an older 1080p doorbell, or from no doorbell camera at all, the 3rd gen is the Arlo model to look at right now.

The $79.99 buys the hardware. Many of the clever features live inside Arlo Secure plans, grouped under what Arlo calls its Early Warning System. There are three tiers: Ultra Secure, Smart Secure and Smart Aware.

Depending on the plan, the system can tell people, vehicles, animals and packages apart, add a one-line caption to each clip, summarize activity and rank which alerts are worth your attention, a feature Arlo calls Threat Assessment. Arlo also lists fire detection, and for threats it judges critical, some plans can arrange for help to be sent.

Arlo CEO Matthew McRae framed the launch around context, arguing that people now expect a front-door camera to do more than report motion. That’s fair, but it’s also exactly where the ongoing cost sits.

Arlo didn’t print plan prices with this launch. For reference, buyers of the 2nd gen model grumbled about an $8 monthly fee billed once a year. Check Arlo’s current plan details, and whether every service is offered at your address, before you assume a feature comes with the doorbell.

At $79.99, Arlo undercuts the best-known 2K rivals by a wide margin:

• Ring Battery Doorbell Plus: $180, a 140-degree view, 6x zoom and a battery pack you can swap out.
• Google Nest Doorbell (Wired, 3rd Gen): $180, a 166-degree view, HDR and Gemini help in the Google Home app. Google’s free tier keeps up to six hours of event history in short clips.
• Wyze Wireless Duo Cam: $120 with a chime in the box and microSD storage up to 256 GB, so it can save clips without a subscription.

On paper, Arlo’s 180-degree view and 12x zoom beat both $180 models. Ring and Nest still have the pull of their wider home ecosystems, and Wyze stands out if local storage with no monthly fee is what you want. If you dislike subscriptions, add the plan cost to the box price before you compare.