Add some holiday fun to your smart doorbell

A video doorbell is a high-tech upgrade for your front door, adding visual voicemail to your doorstep and a heads-up to who’s there on your smartphone or smart display. Another fun and little-known feature of smart doorbells is the option to change up the doorbell’s ringtone.

Depending on the model, you can change the sound the doorbell itself makes or the sound the electronic chime inside your house makes. For example, Nest video doorbells can use different tones at the front door, but Ring and Arlo doorbells only change the sound of the compatible digital chimes inside your house.

Changing your video doorbell sounds is fun to do for the holidays — Ring and Google offer Halloween, Christmas, Hanukkah, and other holiday-themed chimes — or just to have a more pleasant sound when your visitors come knocking. Here’s a guide to changing your video doorbell ringtone.

Google’s Nest Doorbell battery and Nest Doorbell wired (first and second gen) can change their “doorbell theme” in the Google Home app. At certain times of the year, you may have only one choice of doorbell theme, but Google periodically adds seasonal themes. For example, during the winter holidays, there are Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s, and Christmas doorbell sounds, and the Halloween / fall holiday themes arrive for October and November.

Echo smart speakers can also be chimes for a Ring doorbell, and you can change the sound the Echo makes when anyone presses the doorbell using the Amazon Alexa app.