Ring doorbell

Does anyone own a Ring (or similar) smart doorbell?

We had been considering it for some time, especially as we have a really large garden, so would never hear the front door bell outside of the house. But they are quite expensive.

Last month's Amazon Prime day they had the Ring range on offer, because Amazon own them. So we ended up getting 1.. well actually 2. They have a new one in the Ring range that's far cheaper, called the Ring Doorbell wired. It doesn't have a battery and you need to wire it up to the electric. The main selling idea is to use it if you have an existing mains electric doorbell system, to use the existing wiring, but you don't need to do that. I did some research and for £15 you can buy a power adapter designed for doorbell power. It's basically a plugin 32V transformer with a long length of wire ending in 2 coated wire ends ready to screw down at the doorbell terminals. Works perfectly. Just need to plan the route for the cable from a plug socket to wherever you are mounting the bell.

My mother-in-law is house bound and relies on a door bell camera to see who is there. She was currently using a cheaper unknown brand with a large chunky AA battery powered doorbell and it's own portable screen monitor. It sort of worked ok but eat batteries (6 at a time). Amazon were offered Ring doorbell bundled, where for £10 more you got an Amazon Show 5, which is ideal for displaying who's at the door. And in the prime sale the wired Ring was only £40.

I first setup my mother-in-law bell as it was fairly straight forward. She already had an electronic door release, so I just followed the wiring and used the same wire clips. Needed to replace a single plug socket with a double to plug the power supply in. That took the longest. For the bell just had to drill a hole for the wiring, screw it on and set it up. Works perfectly for her with the Show 5.

For my house I powered up and setup the Ring first before installing it, just to make sure it all worked. My install was a bit more fiddly because the bell is fitted onto a upvc porch, so had to route the cabling along the windows and decided to power it from the garage as its right by the porch, and removed needing to have something else plugged into the hallway. I'm also currently redoing how my broadband router connects to the house ethernet network. Currently the router goes into a switch in the hall, then lots of ethernet cables go into wall sockets going to each room, so a bit of a mess. I'm moving the switch and all cabling the other side of the wall in the garage, then will just have a single ethernet cable from the route in the hall connected to a socket in the wall, that just runs to the other side and into the switch. Much neater. It means I'm adding more plug sockets on the garage wall side, so one extra for the doorbell will keep it out of the way.

Anyway, all setup, and for £40, if you have a power socket near by its great value for money compared to the much more expensive Ring Pros, and no need to charge it.

I'm impressed with the notifications too. They recently added zones to the software so you can mark sections of the camera image where it won't trigger an alert. And all activity is now logged in a timeline, looking very much like a video edit program, so you can just scroll through the day and watch the activity. And taliking to someone is very clear with minimal lag.

We've put the Show5 we got with it down in the Log cabin studio so anyone down there can answer the door without needing a phone.

Only issue now is my wife. At work she gets an alert showing when I'm leaving and returning. So she can spy on me all day. Hmm.

I've often thought that this sort of thing would be neat, but then again right now we don't even have an electronic door bell, it's just literally a brass bell on a bracket with a 'donger' underneath.

The kids think it's hilarious to make noise with, but no genuine visitors ever seem to notice it's there so we often don't hear them knocking. I might just make a sign that says ' <--- ring bell <--- '

I think electronic camera doorbells are one of those things that are only needed in certain sitiations. They are really just a modern technology take on a video intercom that's existed for decades in flats.

Up until now we have coped fine with a traditional button and chime setup, only missing someone being at the door if we are right down the garden. But having just built the garden studio right at the bottom of the garden (I will be making some posts about it soon) we would never know anyone was at the front door, so it's ideal now.

It's also a really good as a security camera because the fisheye lens gives a viewing angle that covered the whole width of the front of our house, and with it's motion detection and saving video clips to the cloud it captures all activity, and even if someone were to steal or destroy the Ring the videos are safe. That in itself is worth the £40.

These devices are also great for older people that can't get to the door. You can instantly see and talk to people, and it records the interaction. This has already been really useful with my Mother-in-law because she's gone extremely deaf and refused to wear the hearing aid she's had for years. We are connected to your Ring account as additional users and my wife can quickly check who came to her door each day. Already a couple of conversations where she couldn't hear or understand what the visitor wanted.

Ring are expensive but their stuff is Quality if you need that kind of thing.

For the aged & infirm, they are a great solution...

But Bragging Rights still count. :cool:

Originally Posted by Kin Hell:

For the aged & infirm, they are a great solution...

Clearly, I mean, just look

Originally Posted by Harrison:
.... it's ideal now....

.... It's also a really good ....

....These devices are also great....

Not actually expensive with the new Ring doorbell Wired. Which is what I've bought. Unlike the expensive battery powered units, the wired version is mains electric only, so cuts the cost of the battery out and the need for the components to use it. Makes it slightly smaller, and the image is 1080p instead of 2k, but still very good quality with excellent night vision. It also has all the software features of the most expensive models. In the sake I get it for just £40, plus £15 for a mains adapter that came with 5m+ of cable. Even normally it's only £49.

I now think these are great, because in addition to bring a door bell, with the ability to answer and see when not at home, they act sa great security camera. 150 degree field of view means it covers the whole front of my house, and automatically records detected movement, so logs all activity outside the house. And saves the footage online, so even if the unit was stolen you can still access the footage.

I initially had issues with the motion detection recording everything. So someone walking past on the pavement or a car going by. So morning 7-9, and afternoon 3-5 it was given lots of alerts. But there is a new person detection setting that works really well, and has removed most false alerts for cars driving by. And also manually setting the detection zone within the image means I've removed the road from detection, so only when someone walks towards the house does it notify. Really good software.

At this price it's worth it just for a security camera alone. Tempted to put one down outside the log cabin studio just as a security camera. Far cheaper than buying a proper outdoors camera.

Originally Posted by J T:

Originally Posted by Kin Hell:

For the aged & infirm, they are a great solution...

Clearly, I mean, just look

Originally Posted by Harrison:
.... it's ideal now....

.... It's also a really good ....

....These devices are also great....

Must be infirm J T....

I'm much 0ld0r than H & I don't have one! :eyebrow:

Maybe with H still being youthful & Spunky, he should put one down by his Log Cabin Studio for those quiet Pr0n shoots! :ninja:

😅 yeah, don't think so.

Not unless you want to watch the local foxes mating!

I'm not saying a straight-out no immediately, but I think it's verging that way.