Any alternatives to a Ring doorbell?

woof woof

woof woof

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I bought a ring doorbell and things went ok for 6 weeks, it was a little over sensitive but ok then it stopped working. People can walk right up to it and leave again and it fails to see them but just sometimes it might. Repeated fiddling and factory resets brought it back to life but only for a few days and it's now back to iffy behaviour. Sometimes it sees people but mostly it just can't be relied upon. Checking reviews on line it seems that others are having the same issues as me and the company are IMO not good to deal with so I'm just wondering if anyone has something similar which they can recommend.
 
Dave Canon said:
Just ask for your money back as is your right.

Dave
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They're not good to deal with but it's something I might have to press for but sending it back leaves a space on the wall for something else to do the job and that's why I'm asking for recommendations :D
 
sk66 said:
We have a Eufy; but it can be iffy sometimes too.
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I've been reading reviews and sadly it looks like they're all iffy. I wonder why? We have sensors indoors as a part of the house alarm and they register movement every single time. Makes me wonder why no one seems to be able to make a doorbell camera which will reliably register movement and raise an alert.

Ours worked for six weeks but reading the reviews iffy working then not then working again then not seems to be reported by many people and reviewers. Even people giving 5 stars are still reporting issues... So why give it 5 stars? Baffling.
 
sk66 said:
I think it has something to do with the wifi connection.
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In our case I doubt it and in fact in our case I don't believe it's a wifi issue unless it's the wifi built into the Ring doorbell which is the issue. I'll believe that.

I'll give it another week as I have things to do but if it's still playing up back end of next week I'll see if I can get a replacement from Ring. At the moment it's useless for the task it was bought for but still costing me the subscription fee while it sits there doing nothing.
 
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Out of curiosity. .

Have you checked the WiFi signal strength at the Ring location? NB I have a WiFi analyser app on my Android phone for checking out signal strength around the house when needed.

On the surmise that the Ring App or web browser access have a logging system, what does the log say?
 
A couple of bits of 3/4" steel tube, taped together and stuck out of the letterbox (from the inside) seems to deter most folks from the doorstep! ;)
 
Box Brownie said:
Out of curiosity. .

Have you checked the WiFi signal strength at the Ring location? NB I have a WiFi analyser app on my Android phone for checking out signal strength around the house when needed.

On the surmise that the Ring App or web browser access have a logging system, what does the log say?
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I haven't but everything else I have works fine and the doorbell is only 12ft from the router at a position where everything else works fine. My phone, Mrs WW's and my tablet, all fine. That much I have tried. I'm willing to believe it's a wifi issue but if it is it's only with the doorbell and it's not consistent. I don't think I'm alone in this. The reviews are littered with very similar issues. I might be wrong but I think it's just a tatty product. Perhaps there's a clue in that Amazon give a short return period for these and the company seem reluctant to give money back. I could be wrong.

I'll see how it goes. It's iffy today and if it's iffy next week I'll ring Ring again and at least get a replacement if not money back. I really wouldn't recommend this product or this company and I resent having to spend so much time fiddling with this half working piece of tat.

PS.
Just remembered that it didn't work in the front room either, 6ft from the router.
 
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I used to have a Ring doorbell. Stopped the subscription when it went up to stupid cost. Also had a problem with the app telling me someone had rang the bell about 10 minutes afterwards - really useful
Replaced it with a Blink. No subscription and if you also buy the hub, it records to a local usb drive. Can still get a bit of a lag for notification someone is at the door
 
Tony_M said:
I used to have a Ring doorbell. Stopped the subscription when it went up to stupid cost. Also had a problem with the app telling me someone had rang the bell about 10 minutes afterwards - really useful
Replaced it with a Blink. No subscription and if you also buy the hub, it records to a local usb drive. Can still get a bit of a lag for notification someone is at the door
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We've not had a delay of 10 minutes but have had 30 seconds or so but even 30 seconds is pretty useless if it's for security and no postman is going to wait 30 seconds.

Is the Blink more reliable than the Ring was?
 
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Yeah it's the WiFi. Ring does something very weird with the WiFi possibly because they want to sell you a booster of their own (which I couldn't get to work either).

What's probably happening is the infra red tells the camera to turn on but it needs to contact the server to do anything. If the sender doesn't respond in time, it just skips that person.

I can't believe the guy who invented them got so rich, there are many ways to make it better most starting with on board memory.

But I couldn't get one to work properly with high strength WiFi.
 
woof woof said:
We've not had a delay of 10 minutes but have had 30 seconds or so but even 30 seconds is pretty useless if it's for security and no postman is going to wait 30 seconds.

Is the Blink more reliable than the Ring was?
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Appears to be so far. The local storage was the main reason for changing, although they do have a subscription cloud based storage option as well
 
I have Reolink POE Doorbell, it comes with an indoor chime that sounds instantly when pressed.

It is hard wired via ethernet to a power-over-ethernet switch. It is super reliable and I bring the feed into open source Frigate NVR for recognision and recording. No subscription and didn't have to buy hubs. Most of Reolink cameras are very friendly to tinkers, easily connecting to third party stuff with all open protocols, this one is no exception. I also connected the Doorbell to open source program called Scrypted, it then forwards the video and door bell press to Apple Homekit allowing iphone native doorbell answering.

Can highly recommend if you can wire an ethernet cable to your front door. They do a Wifi version and a battery version but I have no idea of their reliability.
 
Thanks all.

I gave Ring a bad review on Amazon and that prompted someone to message me. He said he tried to call me but I have to say that there's no evidence of a missed call.

The state it's at now is that it misses some people / events completely and sees others and then there's the delay. As a security device to raise an alert when someone walks down the drive it's effectively useless as sometimes it just doesn't raise an alert and even if it does the delay is such that it might as well not have bothered. For example today a delivery came, the guy rang the wired doorbell (not the Ring) and I got up and went to the door and opened it and accepted the parcel and there was the usual "Thanks and have a nice day" exchange. I shut and locked the door and walked down the hall and into the kitchen and that's when the alert came through. Useless.

I'll take a look at the alternatives recommended here and make a decision.
 
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