At seventy-two, Arthur bought a smart doorbell because his daughter said it would give him peace of mind. By Tuesday, it had given him fourteen notifications and a personal grudge against the postman.
The camera announced every visitor on his phone. It also announced the milkman, three cats, a leaf, and Arthur himself whenever he went out to inspect why the camera had announced a leaf.
His wife, Joan, thought it was wonderful. “Now we can see who is there without getting up.”
“We could always do that,” Arthur said. “There’s a window beside the door.”
“Yes, but this lets us ignore people with evidence.”
Their neighbour Mrs. Pike tested it first. She rang the bell to borrow a ladder. Joan watched the screen, whispered, “We’re not in,” and remained perfectly visible through the window beside the door.
Mrs. Pike borrowed the ladder from someone else. Arthur received a notification saying “Person detected,” which he felt was a harsh but fair assessment.
On Wednesday, their grandson Ben offered to set up custom replies. One button would say, “Please leave the parcel.” Another would say, “We’ll be right there.”
Arthur requested a third button: “We have already donated to your cause.” Ben added it, although he pointed out that it might confuse the grocery driver.
That afternoon the doorbell caught a man carrying a large brown box. Arthur pressed “Please leave the parcel.” The man set it down and went away. Inside were six replacement doorbell batteries Arthur had accidentally ordered while trying to cancel a trial subscription.
On Thursday the camera informed Joan that someone had been standing on the porch for twelve minutes. It was Arthur, trying to remember whether he had come outside to collect the paper or check the camera.
“Do you need me to let you in?” she asked through the speaker.
“No,” he said. “I need you to tell me why I came out.”
“Check your phone.”
“I left it inside.”
By Friday, the couple had developed a routine. Joan watched visitors on the tablet. Arthur watched Joan watching visitors. Neither answered the door. The newspaper boy began placing the paper on a chair and waving straight into the lens like a television presenter.
Then the doorbell sent an urgent alert: “Unknown person at front door.”
The stranger wore Arthur’s coat, carried Arthur’s shopping bag, and had Arthur’s face. Joan looked at the screen, looked at her husband sitting next to her, and realized the recorded clip was from the previous afternoon.
“This thing is showing us yesterday,” she said.
Arthur studied the timestamp. “Then we’re ahead of it. That’s reassuring.”
Ben arrived on Saturday to fix the settings. He found forty-seven saved clips, mostly of Arthur checking the camera and Joan checking Arthur. He changed the sensitivity, cleared the old alerts, and demonstrated the live feed. “See? Now it shows what’s happening right now.”
At that exact moment the bell rang. On the screen stood Mrs. Pike, smiling and holding a plate of biscuits.
Arthur and Joan looked at each other.
“Are we in?” Arthur asked.
Joan pressed the new custom reply Ben had added for emergencies: “We’ll be right there.”
Mrs. Pike waited. Arthur waited. Joan waited.
After two minutes Ben said, “You know that reply is supposed to be followed by opening the door?”
Joan picked up a biscuit from her own plate. “Then why did you call it automatic?”
The smart doorbell finally worked perfectly. The people were still on manual.