Ring video doorbell feedback

[katsmith]

Looking for impressions of the Ring video doorbells please. Does anyone have one? Is the video quality on the cheapest version sufficient? Do you need good front door lighting at night to be able to see who is at the door? Is there much of a delay between the button being pressed and the notification on your mobile phone?

Thanks for any advice, Kat.

[Kermit]

@katsmith

I actually bought one yesterday afternoon, along with the plug in chime which also acts as a Wi-fi booster. I thought I might need the booster as the house is brick and the router is at the back of the house. It was a little hard to find though - most stores I checked only had the unit without the booster. It's worth tracking down though as it was only a few dollars more. I just bought the cheaper version of the Ring itself as I have heard the video quality is more than sufficient. I haven't fully installed it yet as you had to charge it and I also needed to charge my drill to mount the thing. But so far the quality of the instructions and the unit itself looks impressive. Will give you a full report in a few days when its up and running.

BTW, I have read of the lag from some reviewers, but then the majority of people rave about it, so I suspect its probably more likely something to do with their wi-fi or mobile provider... We'll see.

[KingStreetReno · Accepted solution]

@katsmith We recently installed a Ring video doorbell 2 as part of our reno. We have a brick Victorian house, so people used to bash our doorknocker so loud and it would send the baby and dog into a spin...

We also recently had security issues on our street, so instead of installing an (expensive) security camera we thought the Ring would do the same job in conjunction with a security spotlight. I like the motion detection and that it records as soon as it sensors someone outside. 

It's amazing! We can clearly see out the front of our house (I think to 30 feet) and it's great for seeing who is coming and going to our house while we're at work. We love watching our dog being picked up for his walks on the camera 

We have the plug-in chime, so I just turn it off if I don't want it to ring and it goes to my phone instead. We also bought the wi-fi extender as our house is solid brick at the front and our wi-fi router is now based upstairs. 

[Kermit]

Installed the Ring unit last night - albeit a little crooked which I will get grief for. Set-up was very easy and everything is working great. I have it set up so that it is trigged by motion which might get irritating if the neighbours and/or local cats and birds keep setting it off, but I'll see how it goes. You can adjust the range which is terrific. I like how it alerts you to someone's presence who might not press the doorbell, although apparently this will eat through the rechargeable battery a lot quicker. 

Despite buying the booster chime unit, the app is suggesting that my wifi signal is at the weaker end of acceptable. I think this may be causing a little bit of delay between pressing the button and getting notified on my phone. This is another reason why I chose to go with the motion setting. I will experiment with putting the booster at different parts of the house to see if that helps. Was a little surprised/disappointed at first that it seemed there was little actual boost provided by the booster unit, but perhaps the position is wrong. 

The app seems great - plenty of opportunity to customise. I would have liked more chime options for the plug-in chime unit though, there's nothing really like a traditional doorbell sound! The dogs barking made us laugh, though! We've gone with a choo-choo train noise for now.

Not sure that I would be interested in paying to save the video recordings. Can't see any value out of that. Video quality of the cheapest unit is definitely sufficient, even in low light. 

Hope that helps @katsmith.

[Kermit]

Quick update because I saw this discussion was featured:

I bought Google Wifi recently - they are mesh routers for extending your wifi and around your house. The Ring now works even better now the wifi signal is much stronger at the front of my house. Very highly recommended if you are thinking about getting a Ring.