1ST RING PURCHASE DATE: 04JUL17
PRICE PAID FOR 1ST: $211.44
2ND RING PURCHASE DATE: 11JUL17
PRICE PAID FOR 2ND: $185.99
REVIEW DATE: 22MAR18
I purchased the Ring after receiving multiple unwanted Solicitors at my door (even after posting a No Solicitor sign). Moving on...If you are installing the hard wired Ring version (not wireless) just remember to shut off the power to the doorbell prior to installing. I installed the doorbell, downloaded the free application for my wife and I, added the adapters to my current doorbell, and set the Motion Zone. The entire process took approximately 40 minutes.
Having the set Motion Zones helps us out a lot so we do not get Motion Detected alerts from people on the sidewalk but anything closer to my home it goes off. Everything works flawlessly and the speaker sounds great. Images and video during day and night are clear. No issues hearing the person at my door nor them hearing me. My wife loved it as much as I did and we decided to get a second one for our second door (plus it was an Amazon special we could not pass up!).
After I installed the second Ring I noticed I was not able to connect as quickly and sometimes not at all to the doorbells. I watched a few YouTube videos for troubleshooting and BOOM! I found the issue (I cannot fault Ring for this). My current doorbell transformer was only max 16V of power and according to Ring they recommend a higher powered transformer. I went and purchased a max 24V transformer (almost $25).
After installing the new transformer they both were working but video was slow on my second door. I figured it was because of the distance from the Wi-Fi router. I then purchased a plug-in Wi-Fi extender (approximately $25). This solved the issue and we were able to connect to both doorbells with no problems ever since. Since July of 2017, and the upgrades, we have had no issues. We had temperatures as low as -30 degrees Fahrenheit and they were still working fine. Quality is there compared to others I have owned. I have a review posted on another video doorbell company (garbage).
We paid Ring $30 for each doorbell yearly fee ($60 for both) which allows unlimited video storage. You also are able to Share the recorded video which allows you to email the videos as you wish. I also found the laptop Ring application. While working on my laptop I can receive notifications, watch the live video, and/or answer all from my laptop.
In February 2018 at 2AM Ring came in handy. I received the Motion Detected alert on my phone and saw an unknown, adult, male, holding a large black object near his side, walking up my driveway, and towards my front door. The male looked directly at the Ring, stopped, turned around, walked back into the street, got into a vehicle and left. I like to believe Ring deterred this guy from committing a crime. After that moment I remembered I never did an Amazon review for Ring. So here it is. Do yourself and/or family a favor and get the Ring. Peace of mind and makes life easier. SEE ATTACHED PICTURES FOR DETAILS.
If anything arises I will update this review.
PLEASE NOTE: I do these reviews to help people out. This review is my honest opinion after doing much research and purchasing this product for personal use. Prior to purchasing any product I conduct thorough research, test the item, and photograph it prior to posting a review. "Was this review helpful to you?" if it was please click on "HELPFUL" button below. If you would like to leave a “Comment” please do so and I will respond to any questions you might have as soon as I can. THANK YOU!
[October 2018 Update]
Revisiting my review once again, making it 4 stars. My doorbell would randomly die after someone pressed it, rendering it useless until I reset the power. I decided to reach out to Ring and after a very brief conversation they offered to send me a replacement device right away. Once I received it, I quickly noticed that it was the same in the front but completely different hardware in the back. I swapped out the old (sent it back to Ring), installed and setup the new (very easy to do by yourself), and for the past month+ it has been working very well. None of the issues I had been experiencing with the original unit have since resurfaced with this new unit.
I'm glad I decided to reach out to Ring for support on this and was very appreciative of the support I incurred including the replacement device.
[JUNE 2018 UPDATE]
Well, my Ring Doorbell Pro died this week. It had gone offline about 3 months ago... then again about a month ago... and now it's completely dead. Previously I would go through the reset / setup procedure and it would come back online. Now there's no lights, etc. Apparently it's a "known issue" according to Ring. Read the numerous reviews here.
I understand electronics are not necessarily meant to last forever, but a $250 weather sealed doorbell that sits in a sheltered environment should last much longer than 2 years. In addition, the fact that Ring claims it's a "known issue" means that they are aware of a design flaw. The flaw could be hardware or software, but a flaw means it's their fault.
However, since they only provide a 1 year warranty, I suppose that makes it my fault.. Not a single person who's reviewed this issue and had any luck with support on this issue.
Support did call me back to advise me to disconnect and reconnect the ring pro to see if that would work. Others who have tried this indicate that it's just a matter of time before it will fail again though. I had to try 3 times before it properly reset.
I'm not going to hold my breath. Buyer beware - if you have money to burn, it's a fantastic device while it is working. I for one will do my research and see if there's a better alternative available while I wait to see if this one dies.
[ORIGINAL REVIEW]
One day while I was out running an errand my ring app on my phone notified me that someone was ringing the doorbell. I don't always answer, but decided to. The young man at my door seemed a bit 'off' and asked for "Nick". There's no one named Nick on my street... or in the small area where I live. I told him he had the wrong house and the guy left. Few minutes later I could not shake that something was off, so I reviewed the entire video footage - Ring captures motion so I was able to see what he did prior to ringing the doorbell. This guy was wearing a hoodie so he covered his hands, looked through my front door window for a good 5+ seconds, then started to check the door to see if perhaps it was open, before deciding to ring the doorbell... all with his hands covered. It was 70 degrees out. Once I answered, he seemed shocked and he quickly pulled up his hood.
I contacted the police and they filed a report. I shared my Ring video with them and they said it was the cleanest video they had seen in some time. Less than two weeks later a detective called me to let me know that the guy who came to my door was indeed looking to burglarize my home. He had been arrested and put in jail for other area burglaries. The detective said that had I not answered the doorbell, my home would most certainly have been broken into that day.
I've had the ring doorbell since September 2016 and this was the first and only time something odd/suspicious was captured and, to say the least, it works!!!
Now onto some of the issues I've had:
1. Ring initially was recording very poorly and sometimes would not capture video properly if at all. I installed a high end wifi extender nearby and problems went away. Previously my wifi signal strength was about 40% at the doorbell location. Now it's close to 100%.
2. My Ring doorbell went offline and it took me who knows how long to realize it. The app has a health monitor - RING why are you not telling me that you're offline??? Why do I need to discover it for myself???? Getting it back online was a bit of a hassle also.
3. Angle. I now see some angled plates for sale but would have liked to have had those when I installed it. It's perpendicular to my door, which means I am not capturing as much motion as I would like. Someone needs to be on my porch before it starts capturing motion. With an angled plate, I could catch them coming up my walkway instead, which is more useful.
4. Costs $30/year to maintain recordings. If I install additional devices, it's an additional $30 per device. Would have liked to get a price break.
Overall, great product. Not sure I've seen a better one on the market. As with any tech, there are always likely to be issues somewhere. Overall, I think this is a good product and well worth the peace of mind.
I have had my Ring Doorbell Pro for just under 2 weeks. Last week we were on vacation so I figured it was the perfect time to buy and test it out within the 30 day trial period. I’ll split this review into 3 bits. First impressions, Install, and Operational Use.
1) First Impressions. We have a security system installed but didn’t go with their camera system because it was CCTV and I wanted something with an internet connection or way to access it from my phone. While making small talk with the security system guy, I mentioned the Ring to him. He was super excited to get out his phone and show me that he has one. He said he couldn’t buy any camera with nearly that quality at that price even with his discounts. He spoke so highly of it I was sure that’s what I wanted to get. We want to do a whole system with cameras on the back of the house, but we purchased the Ring Pro to see how we liked it before we commit to buying everything.
I went with the Ring Pro over the Original Ring because I was going to be wiring it in place anyway. I also like the slender profile and the possibility to use wireless 5.0 in the future if I desire. Plus I live on a very busy road and wanted the advanced motion detection zones on the pro. Since I did my research, I was aware that the Ring Pro has a 160 degree field of view compared to the 180 degree view of the original. For this reason, I purchased fiberglass shims to angle it more towards my large 6 foot doors when I installed it.
I talked with Ring customer service and asked if there was any advantage to ordering through them versus Amazon and they said there were none, so I went with Amazon for my Prime shipping and additional protections of ordering through Amazon.
2) Install. I was a bit intimidated with the install as I’ve never wired anything up before and our house is new construction. But the YouTube video and pamphlets made it pretty clear to follow. They also emphasize that you can call them at any point for assistance. I had also been told by the security system guy that install was super easy and I could do it myself (he’s also the one who gave me the tip about the fiberglass shims). He also gave me an extra tidbit for those of us with stone or brick exteriors: drill into the grout lines – they drill easy; stone does not.
I started with the extra power pack that gets installed inside and connected to your door chime. It was the more complex part of the installation and involved a very tall ladder but it went well. I was impressed that the ring doorbell came with everything you need to install it – including the drill bit AND a screw driver. It even has extra bits you MIGHT need (like extensions wires and extra screws). I also really appreciated how everything was in separate baggies for which part of the install you were doing and was very well labeled (extras were labeled as extras, pro kit wires in one bag, doorbell wires and screws in another). I was unable to fit the power kit inside my chime housing but it doesn’t look bad attached to the wall just outside the chime housing (see picture). It’s just a bit larger than a matchbox.
Installing the actual ring was even easier. I was able to drill into grout lines between stones so I had that going for me. The hook up was super easy, two wires from the house connect to the two connectors on the Ring – doesn’t even matter which is which. Nice and easy. I will have to work out something to cover the shimmed side, but I’ll work something out.
Set up was easy and step-by-step. I was concerned when it was downloading the new firmware and updates and then rebooted because the light was off for (what felt like) a long time (maybe 5 minutes). But it all went flawlessly.
3) Operational Use. I like being able to set up polygons for the motion detection zones. I was able to easily mark my drive way, flowerbeds and porch. I’ve never had a problem with the busy traffic from the road (something the security guy mentioned was a problem with his original Ring). There are two problems they need to work out: You will get a motion detect when the night vision clicks on in the evening and when it clicks off in the morning. Expect that.
Also, this is not a miracle product. It will only work as well as your internet connection. That means a little lag if you’re on a cable connection at peak times. There are a few times I’ve had the video come up in laggy and weirdly pixilated forms that took a second to work out. I’ve also noticed our voice connection is VERY quiet. As in, the person at the door can barely hear the person on the phone, so I consider that feature a bit useless. We managed to scare our cat sitter from the other side of the country and greet my mom, but I wouldn’t rely on it for communicating with people often. We managed to talk to our lawn service but we had to yell into the phone and they had to ask us to repeat ourselves a few times. Also we live on such a busy road that there is a lot of noise which makes the video sound very choppy. So again, I just consider this feature a novelty and not something to rely on.
I mentioned a cat sitter. It was kind of awesome to be able to see that she came by every day. In fact, the first day she didn’t come by until 11:00pm and I worriedly texted her to see if she was going to come. Every other day I took solace in knowing that she had already stopped by without having to text her or fear her shed forget. I was able to see when the lawn service came by and did their thing. I was able to see when packages were delivered and when my mom brought the nephews up to use the pool. I also got to scare the crap out of our friend as they were leaving our empty house and I wished them goodnight. That was worth some money right there. I even caught a few people using my driveway to turn around.
My favorite bit was the unexpected bonus video of my husband going outside to inspect my work. I’m keeping that one.
It catches us leaving for work every day and coming home. It catches me when I go to fill the bird feeders. I’ve not had it miss any movement that I’m aware of. If you have motion sensors on, expect more notifications than you think you will get. As said, you’ll get the two from nightfall and sunrise. Plus I get two from me departing for work and my husband departing plus 2 more for each of us coming home. Add on more for checking the mail and anything you may do in the yard. This is where not being limited on storage size is handy. The cloud storage is $30 per year and it keeps videos for 6 months. It doesn’t say anything about size so having these extra videos doesn’t bother me. I find the video quality to be great and I can easily identify who is at the door night and day.
I also like that it came with a decal showing that the house is monitored. I placed this prominently in my front window along with our security monitoring service decal. Avoiding bad guys is worth more than catching them.
I feel like this was a great purchase. The price is excellent. I love being able to access it anytime from my phone. I love knowing what is going on at my house even when I’m on vacation. I love the security aspect both in surveillance and as a deterrent. It looks sharp (see photo). It’s also a lot of fun. I’ve shown it off to many friends and coworkers, at least one of which decided to get one themselves.
4) Summary. CONS: Only as good as your internet connection. Sunrise and sunset motion detects. Sound quality is useless in my experience. PROS: Access from anywhere, anytime. Surveillance and deterrent. Motion zones let you cut out areas you don’t care to monitor (neighbors yard, roads, ect). Great price.
As a camera only, I would give this 5+ stars, easy. I deducted 1 star because they heavily play up the speaker aspect and that seems worthless in my experience with it. I’m insanely happy with the purchase over all. In the future I will probably buy a chime and a stick-up cam to go along with it.
UPDATE: 1 Year-On. We have had the Ring Pro for One full year now. I've also added two of the chime accessories. I'm just as happy with it now as I was when I wrote this review. We tried to trouble shoot the sound a few times and still have had no luck with it. I think my unit might just be defective in that area. However I still think if this was advertised as a camera only, it would be 100% worth the price and 5 stars. I did have someone point out the sticker over the ring might be the cause of our sound problem, removing it didn't help.
Our indoor chime had the oddity of only ringing the first chime (rather than a series) after installation. As our indoor chime was never loud enough anyway, we added two of the chime plug in accessories without even trying to trouble shoot. We added one chime downstairs and one in our master bedroom. We've been super happy with them as well.
Where to start? I'm fairly tech Savvy so I'm approaching this with that mindset. I have cable internet with 30mb down and 5mb up with a Wi-Fi router 3 feet from the Ring Pro unit. Wires at the doorbell are putting out right at the low end of the recommended range of 16V using a mechanical chime. It's been a LOOONG process of getting this Ring pro to work to the point of "OK". The first one gave me hell trying to set it up. It made my mechanical chime go nuts. Their help desk suggested getting a digital chime which I did for $50....didn't help. Returned the digital chime and put my mechanical back up. THEN the ring pro wouldn't connect to my Wi-Fi. Of course, like all companies, their help desk had me go through a script or things to try (reboot router, turn off router, connect ring and turn on router, etc.) they FINALLY referred me to "2nd level tech support" on a Sunday. I had been trying to get it to work for four days and had been on with their tech support for all of them. Well, I received an email asking me to make an appointment for 2nd level support which was on a Sunday, a week after first trying to set this thing up . Well on Sunday at the appointed 11AM time, they call right on time. I explained to him ALL of the steps I had taken to try and get the Ring Pro to connect to my Wi-Fi and the other issues. He said, "You seem to know what your doing, we'll send you another unit" (good experience with 2nd level tech). Well, five days later, I had my 2nd unit and it connected immediately. They sent a return package with a return shipping label (good customer service on this count). Once the new one was connected, the issue of the jumpy mechanical chime went away as well. I tested a few things and everything seemed go to go.....almost. The motion detection was working, the SMS alerts were working, and the SMS for an actual ring of the door bell was working. What wasn't working was my mechanical door bell. Another call to tech support and this time I REQUESTED 2nd level support immediately which surprisingly, they agreed. The next day I received a phone call from the same 2nd level tech guy. Again, he said, I trust that you know what your doing so I'm going to send you one of our Ring chimes (another Wi-Fi gadget that plugs into a wall outlet that takes the place of your mechanical chime). Well in five days, I had it. Set up was easy and it worked well. Now I had all the functions I needed; a functioning doorbell, functioning security cam with motion detection, functioning SMS alerts, and set up on four family phones so everyone gets the alerts...I was finally after four weeks satisfied.....so I thought.."sigh".
Fast forward a week after my initial satisfaction with everything finally working. One night, all of us started receiving motion alerts every 5 to 10 minutes after nightfall. After reviewing the recordings, it became evident what was happening was the night vision was turning on an off repeatedly and the noise from the loud "Click" of them turning on was causing a motion activation with the associated SMS alert. So the first night I turned off the motion alerts so we could sleep and turned them back on during daylight hours. This went on for three days. Since I knew the problem was with the night vision/IR LED's. I tried a work around which worked. Since the Ring is on my front porch right fairly close to my porch light, I tried turning on my porch light "tricking" the sensors into thinking it's daylight negating the need for the IR LED's to turn on. At first it didn't work but my light was an old incan yellow-ish light. so I put one of my daylight 60W LED bulbs in it an bam, worked like a charm. To further this and to prevent me from having to remember to turn on the porch light every night, I went another step. I went out and bought the Phillips HUE system and one of their 60W connected LED bulbs. I put their bulb in the porch light and tested it. It worked well for this application. Finally, I downloaded the IFTTT app and created a recipe for the HUE front porch light - "IF sunset THEN turn on HUE front porch light" and of course the reverse, "IF sunrise THEN turn off HUE front porch light". Now everything is automated and seems to be working good with no false night vision alerts. The only drawback to this idea was that the vision from the Ring Pro is limited to the area lit by the LED porch bulb which is significantly less than that of the night vision provided by the ring. Of course it also requires me to leave the front porch light on all night.
Further email exchanges with the Ring 2nd level tech support guy has revealed that that the night vision switching on and off is a known issue and should be remedied with a future firmware upgrade. My other complaint is the black screen I get when I respond to a motion detection about 20% of the time. Even some motion detections that I don't answer are nothing but 30 seconds of black screen with no sound. Hopefully this can be remedied with a firmware as well.
App. Recommendations:
1.) Would like to be able to select my desired video resolution (it's currently auto).
2.) Would like to be able to view recordings as they happen when clicking on an event and not wait until the full 30 seconds is recorded and processed.
3.) Allow some setting edits on the actual website
4.) Integrate with "works with Nest" so that a pre-selected nestcamera can activate when motion or the door bell is rung. UPDATE: I figured out a workaround now with IFTTT so that this can be achieved.
5.) Allow users to select custom alerts for the doorbell and motion alerts.
CONCLUSION: It is my belief that the hardware of the Ring Pro is solid. Their problem lies in their software which assuming they have talented IT guys should be able to remedy. I think where Ring went wrong was rushing their product to market too quickly without sufficient time for BETA testers which is basically what we as consumers are at this point. Consumers who spend $249 for the most part DO NOT want to be BETA testers (as displayed by all the negative Amazon reviews). I believe with sufficient time, Ring can work out the bugs and have a rock solid product. Their downfall unfortunately may be however a flood of negative reviews causing business failure resulting in a dead in the water product for those that bought it. I hope they see the writing on the wall and put a team of very angry and determined software guys on this to save their reputation and company. Anything short of this, I fear this product will fail.
UPDATE 6/8/2016: I received an email from 2nd level support advising me that a new firmware update (1.1.30) had just rolled out to address the IR lights turning on and off repeatedly causing multiple motion alerts. Well, it did keep them from turning on and off repeatedly but the problem is now they don't turn on at all!....come on ring..So currently, I have no night vision/IR lights so I'm still relying on my porch light to supplement the Ring Pro to see anything at night.
Update 6/16/16: Well right after I wrote the last update on 6/8, I also emailed ring to tell them about the night vision issue. While waiting for a return email, on 6/10, the night vision started working again. Also on 6/10, I received another email from ring saying that mine sounds like it needed replacing again and that a new one was on it's way. I immediately emailed them and told them NOT to send it because this one had started working again. I received a reply saying, "Great, let us know if you have any further problems." Chalk one up for good customer service on Ring's part. Well, today 6/16 when I arrived home, there it is, a replacement ring pro. I guess I'll be honest and send it back after I keep it a few days to make sure the one I have doesn't goo chichi's paribba in the short term :) All things considered, as much of a pain this process has been, THUS far Ring customer service has been pretty good; albeit a bit slow at times. More updates to come!?!??!....maybe.
UPDATE: 7/27/2016: Well things have gone better for the last month. It seems Ring has worked out many of the bugs. My brother, neighbor and friend who also have the Ring Pro report the same thing. MOST of the bugs seemed to have been remedied. The bugs that seem to remain (which a potential buyer should be aware of) is
1.) the issue of some old doorbell not working properly. Like I stated above, ring sent me one of their ring Wi-Fi doorbells as a remedy and that works good for me.
2.) You'll need a good/fast Wi-Fi connection for video uploads. Mine ranges around 5mbs up and that works good. My neighbor uses ATT u-verse with a blazing fast upload speed of 0.5mbs up and all he gets are bad still shots. My brother uses another cable co. and gets 2.5mbs up and it works fine.
3.) There are still occasionally "black screen" issues when responding to motion or doorbell rings. In other words when you receive a motion detection or ring notification on your cell and you click to view, you see nothing but a black screen; no picture, no sound. It can usually be remedied by going out of the application and trying again. This presents a problem because of the time that elapses from the motion or ring until you can see whats going on. What I usually see are people walking away or nothing at all because they have left. While this is irritating, it happens about 5% of the time which I find acceptable for the piece of mind you get for the watchful eye at the door.
4.) You still cannot view a 30 second recording until the Ring server has finished processing it if you miss the 30 second motion activation or Ring notification record window. If you do miss it, you'll have to wait for about 30 seconds to view the activity. I hope this process gets faster or is illuminated completely.
9/6/2016: Last week I came home and the Ring Doorbell Pro was completely dead. I don't know if it was a power surge or what had happened. A quick call to Ring's customer service and about a 10 minute dance through the script that they have to go through and I had another Ring on the way. It took 6 days to get there but it took about 5 minutes to remove the old ring and set up the new one. Ring was even nice enough to give me an extra 3 months of cloud service for my troubles. Ring still scores highly on customer service in my book.
2-2017 - Well everything worked great for a while. For the past two months there is no longer two way communication available via any of my phones. The alerts are still good (motion and rings) but if you try to have a conversation with anyone, the video locks up. I've tried calling Ring to troubleshoot the issue but thus far no solutions have been provided. I've even upgraded my internet speed to 100mps down / 12mps up. This being said I still feel the ring is worth it due to the extra security it provides. I wish they could remedy the video locking issue. My nest cam that I have indoors has had zero issues for over 1.5 running; two way conversations and all.
CONCLUSION: So the question in most minds is, "So should I get one?" If you have a good/fast internet connection and you like the idea of a watchful eye at your door, then at this point I would recommend the Ring Pro. I'm still not convinced that I'm getting 1080P quality out of the videos. Since Ring doesn't allow users (at this time) to select their video quality, it's up to the software to select based upon internet speed/bandwidth. This is fine but I'd like to be able to select it myself. One other improvement that MAY help would be the incorporation of something allowing higher dynamic range in their videos like HDR or something of that nature. If your ring is in a shaded area like mine is and facing out to a brightly lit street the camera/software has to decide which to meter to get the correct exposure. If it meters under my porch, then the street is completely white washed/blown out, if it meters the street, the area under the porch is too dark. This is NOT an issue unique to the Ring Pro. All camera's have this issue and photographer struggle with the problem all the time. It is over come by either using a neutral density filter or using a software solution like HDR. I don't know how ring would incorporate a neutral density filter but some type of HDR solution might suffice. All this being said, their customer service has been good for me albeit a little slow at times. They do follow-up to insure their product is satisfactory. The hardware seems well built, the software has most of the bugs fixed and I think the Ring Pro is finally ready finally for prime time. The same is being reported by at least six users I know. They all agree, that they like the product now. I'm happy with mine and will be keeping it and the people that I know that have them are keeping theirs. Lets hope the improvements continue.
Wow...where do I begin?
This is a good product that has the potential to be GREAT!
I will say that this is the 2nd one I purchased as I had to return the 1st one. (The 1st one was purchased on Amazon through E Zone Electronics and they have been great to work with!)
So, 1st off let me say this. I believe the reason the 1st one didn't work was because of a setting on my Netgear C7000 modem/router. It's called BeamForming - BFE and BFR. Once I turned that off, the 2nd Ring Pro connected almost flawlessly. So keep that in mind.
So I don't really have anything additional to say about this as the other reviewers have done a great job of that. It's a good product, professionally packaged (reminded me of how Apple packs things). It included a very usable screw driver and drill bit (used for drilling into cement or brick).
Instructions were GREAT! and overall the experience (the 2nd one) was great!
So, do your homework 1st before ordering:
1: MEASURE the voltage AT the doorbell. Just loosen the screws on your doorbell, put a voltage meter on it (set for AC) and you NEED to have 16v to 24v. If you don't have it...replace your transformer. (I did.)
2: MEASURE the wifi signal strength at the doorbell. Take your phone, download any of the free wifi SPEEDTEST tools (I use Ookla) and make sure you have good signal strength. How much? According to Ring only 2 MBs up and down. I have 65 Megs right at the doorbell and the video quality is excellent but the audio is poor. Very quiet and choppy.
3: I'm having an issue which I'm hoping is just a setting, but when you push the button to ring the doorbell, it only rings on our phone and doesn't actually ring the old doorbell. (See pic)
So in a nutshell there you have it. Is it worth $200? Welllll....yeah, for now, it's okay. Hopefully soon it'll start to go down as I would love to purchase one for my daughter's house.
PS: I included a picture of the camera right after I installed it. Also I included one of my OLD door bell (Buzzer actually)
Feature Product
- Works with Alexa to illuminate and send announcements to Echo devices when your doorbell is pressed or motion is detected. You can also see, hear, and talk to visitors through Echo Show or Echo Spot.
- Lets you see, hear and speak to visitors from your phone, tablet and PC
- Sends alerts as soon as motion is detected or when visitors press the Doorbell
- Requires hardwired installation to existing doorbell wires. Compatible with ios, android, mac and windows 10 devices
- Monitors your home in 1080HD video with infrared night vision
- Lets you check-in on your property at anytime with Live View on-demand video. Connectivity - 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connection at 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz. Wi-Fi Speeds - Requires a minimum upload speed of 1Mbps, but 2Mbps is recommended for optimal performance
- Includes Lifetime Theft Protection: If your Doorbell gets stolen, we'll replace it for free
Description
Versatile smartphone compatibility: Works with select IOS and android devices, WI-fi connectivity-2.4 GHz or 5 GHz Wi-Fi: Makes it easy to link with your home wireless network download the Ring app to view footage and receive alerts on your mobile device: You can keep an eye on your home and speak with visitors, all from a remote location record wide-angle high-definition video: Maintain a clear view of your home's entrance for optimal security, optional cloud recording lets you view footage at a later time automatically record footage and receive alerts when motion is detected: Motion sensors let you know when someone is at your door night vision: Infrared led's allow you to record footage, even in dim lighting, see and speak with visitors: 2-way audio with noise cancellation with crystal clear 1,080p HD video.Connects to existing doorbell wiring (wiring required), so you never have to charge a battery.
The ring pro was very fun while it lasted. It was a little laggy most of the time, but overall worked as advertised. The phone app and cloud service are decent. Less than two months past the one year mark (warranty period...) it just died. We reset it by disconnecting power for a while and it came back up, until you pressed the button, then it died again. I called tech support and they said it was out of warranty and we'd have to purchase a new doorbell, that it was a "known issue". Tech support actually said "known issue" for the doorbells dying like this! I asked her if I was supposed to buy another $250 because of a known issue and she said yes! It's been over a month since I sent my last email to tech support and nothing. I'd call again, but at this time, why bother, by them ignoring my inquiries I figure they feel they have gotten my money so they will just ask for more or be content with me not pestering them. So... they are pretty much out of a customer. You can get the protection plan for $100/year, but either it wasn't around or I wasn't told about that plan when I made my purchase. If you are paying the $30 for cloud service, what's another $70 for the year? If they had offered some kind of discount for the new doorbell, or retro'd the protection plan that would have been great, but I'm not buying another $250 doorbell after 14 months and slapping another $100 on top of that. If you get the doorbell, get the protection plan and you should be happy. We had some good laughs with this product, but support has left me wanting.
*************UPDATE************************
After several rounds with Ring, they did replace the doorbell and also recommended that I transformer be replaced. I finally go a hold of someone in support who knew their stuff and told me the transformer was probably the reason it went out in the first place, because of insufficient power, being used during an update, or some doomsday scenario (for the doorbell). So.... < $20 for a transformer and new doorbell later, we are back in business. I purchased the protection plan so the doorbell is now covered and I'm happy. It was just a pain in the butt to get ring to the point of replacing the doorbell, but thank you, Ring.
I bought this product for my dad for Christmas, and we spent most of the day trying to get it to work. The main problem we encountered, which is mentioned quite a bit in other forums online, is that we could not get the device to power on after wiring it to the existing doorbell wiring. My dad is a pretty techie guy and had a voltmeter on hand, so we were able to easily verify that enough power was routing to the Ring doorbell (17V). Other purchasers online commented that it took up to 24 hours for the device to finally power up connecting the wiring, but the eventual solve for us was discovering that there is a hidden micro USB port on the side of the device. To access it, you need to pry off a little plastic panel to the left of the doorbell button. Using the port, we plugged the device into the wall using an iPad charger, and the doorbell came to life. After letting it sit for a while, we then wired it back into the front door, and it’s worked fine ever since (device health in the app shows “Very Good” voltage).
I’m giving it 4 stars because once we got it working, all of the features work flawlessly as advertised. But, it was very difficult to get working, and if we weren’t “tech enthusiasts,” probably would have given up much earlier and returned the device. Ring: please include more detailed trouble-shooting information for customers. I’m surprised that it was a commenter on Reddit that eventually clued me into the hidden USB port that solved our problem and not Ring support. (Or better yet, address quality control issues...)
We now alerted when anybody comes to our door, even when they just knock. We know when the mailman comes, when UPS makes a delivery or when we have visitors at 3:00am (see below). We can be anywhere when getting an alert. The ladies at work are just as interested as me to see who's at my door.
We opted for the $30.00/yr. option to save video for 6 months. If we're not home when a shady character comes to the door it will take longer then 15 minutes to get the police involved. From what I understand, 15 minutes is as long as video is saved without a subscription.
Go for it! You won't be disappointed.
Works, had a little issue getting it to ring with old manual doorbell. But overall the system is pretty sweet. I got 30 days of backups, did not sign up for plan. Thought if I need to go back more than 30 days. Found out after 30 days and trial was over, the device is uses less and records NOTHING. Only works for live viewing events. So I ended up having to pay 30 for yearly subscription to catch ding dong ditcher's at 5 am.
0 comments:
Post a Comment