As part of our continuing series on the Internet of Things, we’d like to be the twentieth or thirtieth person to convince you to get a Ring Doorbell. Yes, we know we are late to the party on this one. We’ve had wireless IP security cameras for years… why would we need a Ring?
Ease of Installation
We were wrong. It’s fantastic. First, the Ring has a beautifully simple interface for setup and for ongoing use. Connecting the Ring to your existing doorbell wiring has been made as simple as possible, with clear instructions about how to hook up the wiring and how to use an (included) diode to configure the Ring to work with your existing chime. The Ring also includes screws, a screwdriver, anchors, and even a masonry drill bit for drilling into brick or concrete, if necessary. You’ll just need a cordless drill.
If you don’t have doorbell wiring, you can simply rely on the included rechargeable battery. We’ve been very pleased with the battery life—it lasted over two months before it needed to be recharged, and we had “live view” mode enabled, the most battery-draining configuration for the Ring.
The Ring Doorbell’s Video Feed
The video quality is 720p with night vision and a fisheye lens to capture motion in the periphery, and it is a great balance between quality and load time. Some people complain that the Ring Doorbell Pro’s 1080p camera is prone to slow load times—which is not what you want if you’re using it to answer the door remotely.
The thing we like best about the Ring camera is its user interface for adjusting “motion zones.” Just drag the slider to adjust the radius of the motion detection or tap to disable (or enable) a zone. If you want to record only people who have entered your yard and not every passing car, it’s easy to set that up. Our other video camera setups have been more complicated to set up and less accurate in detecting the kind of motion we want to keep track of. For example: we do want to know about a human or large animal but we do NOT want to know about tree limbs waving in the breeze.
If this still sounds like an average security camera, it’s only because we haven’t talked about the door-answering feature. When someone rings your doorbell, the Ring app on your phone alerts you and allows you to view video of what’s going on at your door as well as responding back. The visitor cannot see video of you. The SkyBell doorbell works similarly and is about the same price, but there’s one more feature that really earns Ring distinction in the field.
Here in Dallas, whole neighborhoods are purchasing Ring Doorbells, and Ring has implemented a feature that allows locals to upload video of suspicious activity. You can choose to get an alert for all reported incidents, or you can choose to turn them off for certain times of day (while you’re sleeping, for example). There will always be cranks who complain about the mail delivery person handling their packages roughly (thank goodness they can’t see those same packages being drop-kicked in the warehouse), but overall it’s been a net positive effect on the community.
