turns out, if you turn off cloud on this thing, it gets TOO quiet. it doesn't send any telemetry, doesn't open any new connections.
the only open connection is from my NVR to access the video stream, and it ideally happens only once and then works 24/7.
this made my stupid unifi gateway think "oh it's so silent it must be dead!!!" and auto power cycle it exactly every N minutes. i thought i messed up the wiring or the doorbell was bad, turns out unifi needs to improve & clarify their PoE heartbeat feature ๐ญ