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    September 19, 2015
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Wally's Reviews
 
Find out who's at your door, even when you're away from home. Just connect the doorbell via Wi-Fi and use the Ring app on your iOS or Android device to interact with visitors, receive alerts and review footage.
 
Customer Rating
2 out of 5
2
Great idea, still needs work
on September 19, 2015
Posted by: Wally
Verified Purchase:Yes
I love the concept of the Ring doorbell and chose it over the Skybell based on online reviews. I've had it about a month. While it does work, but it definitely could use improvements.
I didn't have trouble physically installing the Ring and I was able to power mine off the old doorbell wiring. However, I did have trouble connecting to WiFi to set up the Ring. In my case, I had a hidden WiFi network ID and the connection attempts would time out. Once I made the network visible but still secured, I was able to connect. (I recently read that hiding the network causes its own security issues, so having a visible network with proper security is better based on what I read.) The Ring instructions say it should have been able to connect even to a hidden network, though.
It does send an alert to you when someone rings the bell or approaches the door. But there is often a delay in getting this alert. Probably what's happening is that the message is sent to Ring's cloud and back, so even while you're in your house, there can sometimes be a considerable delay (10 or 15 seconds) before you get the alert. At least once, the visitor almost left before I could answer. Another issue is that it doesn't start the video recording until it's sure it sees something/someone. For instance, if a delivery man quickly drops a package off, he might not be in the video because it started to record after he was out of frame. You will see the package in the video if it's large and in the field of view. The camera also has to adjust the exposure if it's looking into the sun and can be blinded for a couple of seconds when it begins to record. So don't expect it to capture everything -- as a security camera, it's not ideal.
The field of view is pretty large and is definitely good enough. The lens is sort of a fisheye lens so there is some distortion toward the edges, but I didn't find that to be a problem. The best case video quality is pretty good as well. However, the video does sometimes suffer from artifacts and may stutter at times. Some of these artifacts may have come from trying to view video over the cell phone network while away from the house, but again I'm not sure. The app works although occasionally it responds slowly and sometimes moves the delete trash-can button to a different corner of the screen.
As for the motion detection, that has some issues too. I have gotten a considerable number of false alerts. I have kept reducing the detection range, and while this helped, it hasn't totally solved the problem. I think some false alerts are coming from trucks (delivery, garbage, etc.) which have a fairly large heat signature. If they are moving in the correct direction, I see them on captured video. If they are moving the opposite way, they often escape before being captured on video as I mentioned in the prior paragraph, so I can't verify if trucks actually tripped the motion detector. Other times I think the motion detector sees plants in my yard when the wind gets high. There is at least once where the motion detection probably failed. I asked a neighbor to return something to me by leaving it on my doorstep. They did, but I never got an alert. I'm not sure what happened and have some guesses, but somehow they did not trip the motion detector.
Ring does require a subscription to store video in the cloud. It's only $30/year right now, but I suppose that some people would object to that cost. It would be an easier sell if the problems above weren't present.
If there was a "maybe" setting for recommending to a friend, I would select that instead. But there's only "yes" and "no" and I have to select one.
My Best Buy number: 0416943687
My Best Buy number: 0416943687
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
+135points
151of 167voted this as helpful.
 
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