soam24 wrote:Baker wrote:soam24 wrote:Ring video doorbell people...
Pros / Cons.
What do you wish you did differently (or didn't)
At the moment in time when we bought ours theres nothing I wish we had done differently. We have one, non wired so runs on battery and it works pretty great. I see the comment above about nest cams, which is true, but also the entire point of these are to substitute your doorbell, not whole house coverage. We have Ring on the front door, and then Arlo cameras on our back doors.
Only complaint I really have is with the motion detection which we have on, even set at the smallest motion zone possible, it still kicks off when a big truck or car drive down the street sometimes.
With options out there now, I would probably go with a nest doorbell simply because we have some indoor Nest cams, thermostats, and smoke detectors and having as much in one app as opposed to multiple apps is just easier. We have Ring, Arlo, and Nest, all 3 of which have cameras in them.
Edit: Just went and looked at the Nest option, turns out theirs is only wired, and we didnt have wiring in place and no want to do that, so that would have taken me back to the Ring again.
I'll take a look at nest and other options. We have a smart thermostat with ecobee already and they don't make any video products, but i'll still take a look.
If anyone else has pros and cons would love to hear it.
I've had an original Ring for the past couple of years, and I recently upgraded to a Ring 2 and moved the original ring to the back door. The Ring isn't perfect, but I'd still recommend it. It does have some issues, but overall I feel it's worth it.
Cons:
-- Like Baker says, it's sensitive and tends to get set off by cars and trucks passing by. It can take some trial and error to get the settings and sensitivity right. But if your camera doesn't face the street/traffic, it's not an issue.
-- Setting motion zones and sensitivity requires physically ringing the doorbell after adjusting the app, which means that if you're trying to alter your settings when you're out of town, you're out of luck. Ring customer service says it can be done without pressing the button, but it means waiting until someone/something triggers the motion sensor.
-- despite their claims of year-long battery life, I've never gotten more than a few months of battery life on my non-hardwired original Ring (my front door is hardwired though, and requires no maintenance). Taking it off to charge can be a bit of a pain. The Ring 2 has a removeable battery which makes life much easier, so look at that one if you can't hardwire to an existing doorbell. And if you can't hardwire, you can now buy a solar cradle for the original and the Ring 2, which is pretty cool.
-- the wifi is pretty weak and can cause video lag, but I contacted customer service and after walking through their troubleshooting, they sent me a free Chime Pro range extender.
-- The single biggest issue is that connection time varies for some reason (probably due to wifi connection) so accessing the camera after a ring can take anywhere from 5 seconds (great!) to 20+ seconds (an eternity). So if you're out and about and the internet/LTE's slow, it's gonna take you a while to answer the door.
Pros:
-- It is the cheapest cloud video storage I've been able to find by far. $30 per camera per year for 60 days cloud storage, which includes video review, video sharing, and the ability to download video for permanent storage. I believe the closest Nest plan is 10x the price @ $300/year, and that's for only 30 days cloud storage. If you go up to the Protect plan you can get unlimited cameras, extended warranty plus full coverage for the Ring Security System, which I plan to get as soon as the lawsuit settles (they're being sued by ADT).
-- Great customer service (see note on the $50 Chime Pro that they sent me for free).
-- Open ecosystem makes the Ring compatible with a variety of 3rd party peripherals like Amazon Echo, Fire TV, Wemo, ADT (despite the lawsuit) Kevo smartlocks, etc.
-- You're automatically included in the Ring Network, so that if any suspicious activities are observed and reported by your neighbors' ring cameras, you'll be notified automatically. You can set the perimeters (default is a 3 mile radius) or of course opt out entirely.
-- Due to the constant advertising it's the most recognizable of the video doorbell, which in itself is a deterrent.
So not perfect, but pretty good, and in my opinion the pros outweigh the cons. Right now I have two Rings (front and back) for exterior security and I hope to get the Security System if/when it comes available. For interior I just use Yi Home cameras, which are surprisingly good for the $29 price point.
