Ring - Video Doorbell Pro and Chime Pro Bundle

I really like the Ring Doorbell Pro. I wanted to hardwire my video doorbell so I bought a mechanical bell and hooked up my Ring. We have a blind driveway where we can not see who is pulling in. We do not have a sidewalk to our front door so most people knock on our garage door. Our garage is fairly large so it is very hard to hear someone knocking on our outside garage door. The Ring Pro with the Chime 2 was a perfect solution since WiFi access was an issue at our garage door. Set up was very simple and it looks really good. Having the 4 options of faceplates allowed us to match our existing hardware on our doors and the outside of our house. Setting up the zones and notifications was a breeze. We did get the Echo Dot with our purchase. Set up for this was easy as well and my kids get excited every time Alexa announces motion at our garage door. Now...for the only con of this device. When the device senses motion, it sends a notification to your mobile phone, tablet, or any device of your choosing that is compatible with the Ring app. You need to click on that notification to view the video. If you have it hooked up to the Alexa Show or Spot, you need to give Alexa a command to open the video. If you have Ring next to a living room, people may hear you give Alexa a command. This is not favorable if you do not want someone to know you are home. There is no setting in the Ring App or Alexa skills that allow the video feed to automatically pop up upon motion or a push of the doorbell button. This option is preventing me from giving it 5 stars. This also goes with Alexa as well. If Amazon can correct this with the Echo Show or Spot, I would purchase a few of them today. As of right now we will not be purchasing any additional Ring or Echo devices since other security cameras have the technology to do this. I do recommend Ring for people who do not care about this and need some security for their home. As for Echo, I don’t quite recommend it yet. Seems like the technology is a couple years old and I am quite amazed at the lack of Alexa’s understanding of phrases. You need to know her vocabulary rather than Alexa gaining knowledge based on your vocabulary. For example, when the kids want to play “Freeze Dance”, you need to say “Alexa, open freeze dancers”. If you say “Alexa, play Freeze Dance”, she will play a song from the Kaboomers. The Alexa app is also difficult to navigate. So it is very hard to recommend the Echo Alexa devices at this time.

Generally pleased with this product. Pros: 1. Picture quality in daylight or non infrared night with decent lighting is excellent. 2. The Ring app, which this camera works with is fairly good, well organized, and works reasonably well. 3. The app notifies you when the doorbell is rung... and gives you the opportunity to engage with your visitor regardless of location. So far it seems to work ok, but the connection is not instantaneous. There is some delay in connecting. Picture quality is very good. 4. In my situation, I get notifications on my phone silently regarding motion near the camera, and I can click on the notification and review the related video. 5. When the doorbell is rung, I get a sound notification on my phone, and the opportunity to connect with the visitor, or play back the video if I have missed him. In both cases the Chime Pro inside the home rings with a different sound for motion or door bell press. There are several choices of ring sounds. 6. I also have the Ring alarm system, which I rate highly. It uses the same app as the camera, and the two are integrated together in this way. 7. If you buy the alarm system, and the camera, and pay the $10/month or 100/yr monitoring fee you get 60 days of video for an unlimited number of Ring cameras at any one address. You also get professional monitoring, by what appears to be a very decent monitoring company that works with high end corporate clients. I spoke to them briefly, and they seemed VERY competent. You also get a protection plan to replace or repair any of the components of the alarm system (including the cameras) at no cost if they fail or break. 8. Ring has a policy to replace your camera at no charge if it is stolen. They do require a police report. 9. Technical support, especially 2nd level, is decent, has a good attitude and has been helpful. 10. Build quality of the device seems good. 11. There is a Ring website available to review videos on your computer or down load them. If you have the data plan or alarm plan, the videos are saved on the site and available for download for 60 days. Cons: 1. The delay in connecting mentioned above. 2. Video is only recorded on motion detection or door bell press, or if the "view" button is pressed in the app. Video is event based. Continuous historical video is not available. The Google door bell will record 5 days of continuous historical video (at a greater cost for the service). 3. Night vision, which the camera flips to under low light levels upon motion detection, is sami black and white, and seems at a lower resolution. I believe it is infrared based. The camera makes the decision to flip to infrared, there is no user setting to turn this off. 5. The "Chime Pro" which is part of this package, and plays the door bell chime, as well as acting as a range extender, has some issues remaining connected to wifi. This could be a possible problem. I am only using it as a chime presently, If it was required as part of my network as a range extender for another camera, this could possibly be problematic. 6. The camera requires a strong wifi signal to operate properly. Mine is located fairly close to my router. Your experience may vary. I am relatively new to this product, and will update this review further if I have more to add, and if the Best Buy website allows it. The above review reflects my understanding and experience with the product, and my understanding of the Ring alarm plan and camera replacement policy. You should verify all of this before relying on it, in the event my interpretation is incorrect.

I purchased the Ring Pro doorbell as I didn't want to hassle with changing batteries all the time. I am VERY glad that I did...I was honestly worried about the installation of the doorbell as I had to dismantle our old doorbell which had been custom-built into our stone siding on the house, but the installation instructions that came with the product were excellent, and I'm happy to report that the Ring doorbell unit was up and functioning in under an hour, and looks better than our old doorbell, while also being more visible for visitors, delivery people, etc. Full disclosure, I am NOT a professional (or even decent) handyman, so if I can do it, so can you! I did have to call technical support during the installation as the Ring doorbell wouldn't connect to our home network...turns out if you have a mesh type network like we do, these products have a harder time connecting (that may be the one thing that Ring should include in their otherwise excellent installation instructions). However, the IT support person knew about the issue, and helped me fix this in a reasonable amount of time. Once it recognized the network, it's been flawless in it's connection/function. My only quibble with the product is that it can be TOO sensitive. Whenever the wind blows, the branches in the tree outside our house wave enough (no leaves on the tree at the moment because we live in MN, so summer will likely be worse) to set off the motion detector, and we get "false" notifications. Kind of like the Boy who cried Wolf...you start to ignore the notifications. I perhaps need to play with the app a little more for this, as there are some sensitivity settings that you can use. Something that I was pleasantly surprised to find out about is the "neighbors" part of the app, that allows you to post info/videos to the cloud, allowing your neighbors with Ring devices to be alerted to things that are happening. I spent a lot of time watching stuff that had happened to others in our town, including a video of a kid caught egging a house on Halloween...nice to be able to correlate this and send to his parents for "parenting 101" help. :) I feel that this also has the potential to stop the damnable offense of stealing packages off of front porches all by itself...the video is sharp enough to catch facial features that it will allow you to send to the police. Hopefully this will single-handedly wipe out this form of theft. Also, the app alerts you to any potential threat in your area. There was an explosion at a Peterbuilt facility near us that had potential hazardous materials...really nice to be notified of things like that! Finally, the app alerts you when there's someone ringing your doorbell, so if you're not home when there's a delivery man at your door, you can TALK to them via the app, and say stuff like "thanks for brining it, you can just leave it on the front doorstep/inside the gate/inside the garage door" etc. I can't wait to try this on my in-laws when we're on vacation, or perhaps next Halloween when I see some unsuspecting kids that need a spooky voice to greet them when they come up our driveway (you see the potential for this...and the bonus is that you get video of it that you can save as blackmail leverage). ;-) Last, you can sign up for professional coverage, or just use it yourself, so it's flexible. Overall, I'd give this 4.8 stars, and it's a perfect "5" if I can ever figure out how to tweak the sensitivity to fit our needs. REALLY happy we decided to do this...a very cheap way to have both security and convenience! Great product, Ring!

I have tried two of these devices and I am about to give up on them. The first device that I got, had lot of issues with the microphone. I could not hear anything due to the noise coming out from the cellphone. It was like hearing an old radio. Ring.com customer service recommended me to change the device, so I did. The second device I got, keeps being offline (See attached picture). This is suppose to be a $270 security system not a Fisher-Price toy to see who is at the door. The doorbell is placed about 12 feet from my Linksys WRT3200ACM Wireless Router. I am connecting using 2.4GHz band, which is supposed to have a longer range. If I place my phone, with the door closed next to the doorbell, I get 21.9 Mbps download speed and 10.8 upload speeds (see pictures). To me this should be enough to be able to connect to the device. Ring.com customer service told me that the issue is my network and that I could not compare the antenna of a cellphone/laptop that cost $1,000 dollars to the antenna of a doorbell that cost $270. Another recommendation, was to exchange the wifi model for the wired model that cost $499 and that uses PoE. At that price range, I wonder if I should look for a more reliable security system. I will contact Ring.com again. So far I am about to give up and return this device.

I purchased a new ring doorbell over the holidays and I absolutely love it. Installation was very easy if you can use a drill and a screwdriver; overall, the installation took maybe 15-20 minutes. I appreciate that ring provides everything you need in the box with different colored face plates, screws, a screwdriver, etc. I was a little concerned my ring doorbell would be too far from the modem (~30 feet) so I purchased the doorbell extender but I did not need it. PROS: - I love being able to see who is at my front door just by looking at my phone and I do feel a little bit safer. - The Ring Neighbor's Feed is an AWESOME feature. It allows you and your neighbors to share Ring videos of suspicious characters that may be in the neighborhood. The Ring Neighbor's Feed is basically a technology based neighborhood crime watch. I feel my neighborhood is relatively safe but I was shocked by some of the videos shared by my neighbors. - Cloud storage of videos for up to 60 days (this does require a subscription to one of Ring's Protect Plans). CONS: - There is a video delay (~5 seconds) to my phone from when motion or the doorbell is activated. This isn't a big deal but a few times the delay has been longer and I have missed the person at the door. - If I'm away from the house and use the talk feature to communicate with someone at my door, the sound and video is a little choppy (this could be my internet connection at only 25 Mbps). - These doorbells are a little pricey at almost $200 but if they last for 5 years or so I believe it's a good investment - If you want to see recorded notifications you will have to subscribe to Ring's Protect Plan which is $30 a year for one camera and $100 a year if you have multiple Ring cameras. This isn't that bad for home security but I've seen reviews where this rubs people the wrong way; however, cloud storage isn't free and the charge is minimal. Ultimately, you don't have to subscribe but you will lose some functionality. - I wish there was a way for ring to push video notifications to my smart TVs so I could see who was at the door without pulling out my phone . I gave the doorbell 4-Stars due to cost and long-term reliability (some customers have had to replace their doorbell after a few years). Overall, I greatly enjoy this product and if my doorbell continues to function well I will look into upgrading more aspects of my home security with Ring products when funding is available.

I looked at these for the past couple of months. I finally picked on up after waking up at 5am to someone ringing my doorbell repeatedly. Then banging on my door. I never knew who was at the door they were gone that fast. This is what made me finally pick this Ring product up. Its so simple to install. Once installed you can go in to the the App on your phone and adjust the size and shape of the detection zones. The cameras look down the driveway. Anyone / anything that approaches inside the zones sends me an alert. You can also control the times that you receive alerts. I have noticed that at night headlights moving across my fence will set off a motion alert. Recordings are still made I'm just not notified at night. (Those are my settings) The camera gives a very nice clear picture during the day and switches to black and white at night. Give yourself a sense of security and pick one of these up. It also has this neat neighborhood feature that you will get safety notifications. Recent ones I saw were Some kids stealing the bowl of candy on Halloween. Kids stealing pumpkins. A bear in a back yard and another of some drunk person trying to make an entry in to someones residence. I installed this Ring Doorbell Pro on my side door. Im sure its only a matter of time before I pick up another to add on my other door. I think if you live in an area where there are package thieves, this should be a must own for you!

Impressions after 2 weeks: 1. Incredibly easy to setup and integrate with my Alexa ecosystem. Other than mounting, the rest of the setup was less than 15 minutes and integration was SEAMLESS. I get motion alerts on all of my Alexa devices and can see video on my Fire Cube connected TVs after about 5 seconds from when asking Alexa to show the door camera. 2. Video quality. This is the first integrated camera that I purchased and I am impressed by the quality. I can see clearly even across the street. 3. Motion detection. I have had to dial back the sensitivity a few times to get a reasonable notification process. Originally, i was alerted if cars went by on the street. If that is what you are looking for, this can do that. I only wanted notifications when someone was either in my driveway or on my front porch. I was able to customize the motion area and have it pretty well dialed in now. 4, Overall, this was my first Ring product. I am thoroughly impressed by the quality of this doorbell and have been looking at some of their other products. This probably won't be my last Ring item. 5. Was not compensated in any way for this review.(other that points from Best Buy). I am just a guy who bought a thing that I like....

I purchased this today because of reports in the neighborhood that people were having packages stolen. It does the job of taking videos as someone approaches the door and/or rings the doorbell. The video quality is decent and the audio is mediocre, but it does store a video, as long as you sign up for one of their cloud based "protect plans" for $3 per month or more. One thing to watch out for is that you need to have a transformer with at least 16 volts and 30 amps output. The transformer installed in our house was only 16 volts, 10 amps, and when it was connected through their power kit to the ring it overheated and ruined the existing chime. This wasn't mentioned in the installation booklet that came with the device, but make sure to check the output of your transformer before trying to install. Even though this was installed with the Chime Pro that came in the bundle, which is supposed to boost the WiFI signal, the signal at the doorbell is still marginal. I don't know if this is why, but we noticed that it takes a little while before giving us an alert that someone is at the door, so they could be long gone before we respond to them. If we had it to do again I think we would consider the Nest Hello video doorbell, even though it's at a higher price.