Ring video doorbell

stevetiler · 1 Dec 2016

Hi all,
Anyone got a Ring video doorbell?
Any good/bad things to say about them?
I have the hots for one but thought I'd ask here before buying!
Thanks

stevetiler · 2 Dec 2016

No-one??

Selsdon_PJS · 2 Dec 2016

I haven't got one Steve but am planning to pull the trigger this weekend. Their website has some good info and there are a few videos on YouTube that are quite helpful.

stevetiler · 3 Dec 2016

Thanks Phil- maybe you could post up your opinions when you have it!

Selsdon_PJS · 15 Dec 2016

Ok, so doorbell has been in for one week now and overall we are delighted with it. Installation was very quick and simple, excellent instructions and tools included. Perhaps slightly quicker on ours due to the fact that it was fixing to a wooden door frame but all the same it was very easy.

I reused the existing wiring so that it still uses the same ring as well as alerting on the doorbell itself and the app. I have shared the app with my wife and daughter so that we can all see/respond to motion detection and actual ring presses. The camera is good quality - note that we also have a dawn to dusk light nearby so that helps with night vision. The "Live View" feature is also useful if you want to see what is happening at any time.

With regard to wifi, it seems to work better with a wifi point nearby. I moved one of my Airport Express boxes near to the bell to give it a very strong signal. It was too weak when trying to connect to my main router in the middle of the house. Obviously any kind of wifi extender should do the trick and they call that out in their blurb.

So I would thoroughly recommend it. And in use case terms, the fact that you can talk to people to say you are on the way to answer the door (useful for people with mobility impairments etc) is a great feature. We've seen all the delivery folk come and go and tuned the sensitivity so that it doesn't pick up every car that goes by.

We may extend the system by adding a camera that they do, perhaps if January offers come up.

Happy to answer any specifics if I can!

afasoas · 15 Dec 2016

Does that doorbell still feature the 'hack my wi-fi' button on the back?

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/20...i-fi-passwords-to-anybody-with-a-screwdriver/

... I think Ring have fixed it, but tbh I'm not a fan adding extra devices to my network that transmit data to "the cloud".

noneforit · 15 Dec 2016

Selsdon_PJS said:
Ok, so doorbell has been in for one week now and overall we are delighted with it. Installation was very quick and simple, excellent instructions and tools included. Perhaps slightly quicker on ours due to the fact that it was fixing to a wooden door frame but all the same it was very easy.

I reused the existing wiring so that it still uses the same ring as well as alerting on the doorbell itself and the app. I have shared the app with my wife and daughter so that we can all see/respond to motion detection and actual ring presses. The camera is good quality - note that we also have a dawn to dusk light nearby so that helps with night vision. The "Live View" feature is also useful if you want to see what is happening at any time.

With regard to wifi, it seems to work better with a wifi point nearby. I moved one of my Airport Express boxes near to the bell to give it a very strong signal. It was too weak when trying to connect to my main router in the middle of the house. Obviously any kind of wifi extender should do the trick and they call that out in their blurb.

So I would thoroughly recommend it. And in use case terms, the fact that you can talk to people to say you are on the way to answer the door (useful for people with mobility impairments etc) is a great feature. We've seen all the delivery folk come and go and tuned the sensitivity so that it doesn't pick up every car that goes by.

We may extend the system by adding a camera that they do, perhaps if January offers come up.

Happy to answer any specifics if I can!

I think the main issue with these is their pants Wifi adapter they have built in.

Most of the bad reviews centre around poor connections or delays in alerting, which are also likely down to a poor Wifi signal.

afasoas · 15 Dec 2016

noneforit said:
I think the main issue with these is their pants Wifi adapter they have built in.

Most of the bad reviews centre around poor connections or delays in alerting, which are also likely down to a poor Wifi signal.

Or no doubt poor internet connection.

noneforit · 15 Dec 2016

afasoas said:
Or no doubt poor internet connection.

If moving your router or access point helps then it's not a poor internet connection, it's either poor wifi signal from the router (unlikely) or a crap wifi adapter in the doorbell.

If your internet connection is poor, moving the router close to the doorbell won't change that.

An alert from the doorbell would use almost zero bandwidth so unless you have a really bad internet connection (which would be noticeable) then I don't see this causing too many issues.

If your internet connection is bad enough to affect a doorbell alert, you have bigger issues.

noneforit · 15 Dec 2016

afasoas said:
Or no doubt poor internet connection.

If moving your router or access point helps then it's not a poor internet connection, it's either poor wifi signal from the router (unlikely) or a crap wifi adapter in the doorbell.

If your internet connection is poor, moving the router close to the doorbell won't change that.

An alert from the doorbell would use almost zero bandwidth so unless you have a really bad internet connection (which would be noticeable) then I don't see this causing too many issues.

If your internet connection is bad enough to affect a doorbell alert, you have bigger issues.

afasoas · 15 Dec 2016

Wow!

Bandwidth isn't really a measure of internet connection quality. And for this door bell to send a push notification or video to a phone/tablet there are a lot of moving parts. Wi-Fi reception in it's vicinity is just the important icing on the cake.

Getting push notifications to work instantaneously is an art in itself.

An IP camera connected via ethernet to a Syno NAS would be a viable alternative for the security conscious.

noneforit · 15 Dec 2016

afasoas said:
Wow!

Bandwidth isn't really a measure of internet connection quality. And for this door bell to send a push notification or video to a phone/tablet there are a lot of moving parts. Wi-Fi reception in it's vicinity is just the important icing on the cake.

Getting push notifications to work instantaneously is an art in itself.

An IP camera connected via ethernet to a Syno NAS would be a viable alternative for the security conscious.

I realise that but my point was that if your internet connection is so bad it can't send a push notification reliably then you have bigger issues than this.

It suggests high latency or perhaps packet loss, both of which would likely be noticeable when doing other things. Although a few may have issues like this, the vast majority don't.

If you look at the reviews plenty complain about poor wifi, moving the router closer or adding extenders. None of this would help with a poor internet connection.

I have ADSL with intermittent latency due to my CCTV uploading to the cloud yet my push notifications from my CCTV PC to my phone work perfectly. The difference is my PC is not using wifi.

Video streaming over a wireless medium is never going to be as reliable as cabled. If you could plug an Ethernet cable into the doorbell, I would bet my life on the notifications would work perfectly for virtually everybody having issues with them.

noneforit · 15 Dec 2016