Ring type doorbells

frogglet

We have a ring bell and its great if we are out,  we can talk to delivery men to tell them where to leave stuff. We also caught the neighbour nosying round our garden when he thought we were out. Lol.

Apjs87

We have a Ring doorbell 2 and initially we weren't impressed. Delayed rings and alerts plus the battery needing charging every month, not good. We contacted Ring who swapped the unit out right away and the replacement is much much better. We got it a few months back and have yet to charge it. On the back of their service, we bought their house alarm too which we are pleased with also. All in all, a good buy.

fenwick458

I've had 2 x Eufy battery doorbells fitted for almost 3 months now, they are pretty impressive for the money(£125 black friday sale) although I have nothing to compare too.
the security thing is an issue, anyone with a simcard tool can just pop it in the bottom and take it off (cutting the wires if it's wired in, although a  yank would do that anyway) to combat this I have https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipNuKe-8CD4AGMKd-RNMMFBe1tFoIPJTiU7zDneL modified a 2G plastic patress to cover the hole on mine, If I ever need to remove it for whatever reason it'll mean I have to smash the box and cut a new one later but the boxes are cheap so I think it's a worth it, and I have it wired to the mains so won't have to remove to charge.
detection alerts are not perfect, but I don't know of any that are. Eg  if it's raining and theres driving wind towards the doorbell it's useless and just won't pick anything up. also sometimes it will pick up a delivery drivers van pulling up and record a 10s clip, but then miss them coming to the door because it must be busy uploading the file or whatever?
theres also a terrible delay on the audio when you try and talk to delivery drivers if you are on a 4G connection, but once you get the hang of it it's still a million times easier than going to the depot to collect a parcel! if someone rings the bell and i'm in theres no delay, so I assume its a cellular thing.
but for me, the fact that Eufy was subscription free it was a clear winner. with nest and ring both charging a monthly fee it would seem daft to go to go with them, if you were costing it up over 5 years and you add up the sub cost plus the doorbell you'd be miles better off with a hikvision IP CCTV setup which has 10 times the features for the same money

ashe

Sandtree said:

ashe said:

I love smart home stuff but for me both nest and ring are not yet mature enough propositions and both have their downsides e.g delays in alerts on nest, because it has to encode a gif and process facial recognition you’re looking at about 10 seconds delay and with ring its a bit less as not recording 24x7 but that’s it’s downside 

The door bell itself is instant with Nest as its a basic electrical connection and nothing to do with facial recognition etc.

On my ancient wifi only iPad it can take a few seconds for alters to come through, 10-20 probably, but on the Mrs' iPhone 11 (or whatever fairly recent thing she has) the alerts are normally within a second or two.

Yeah but that assumes you have it hooked up to a hard wired chime ana of you don’t already have that it’s expensive to get one put in. There are workarounds but you can’t rely on the alerts. A second just didn’t seem feasible for it to send video to nest servers, convert it to a gif for the preview, process facial recognition and deliver it to your phone via a mobile network. Either way it’s not very quick for majority of people, and a lot of parts to the chain that can end up being delayed and I’d still want front of house CCTV from another angle than just pointing straight out. Maybe in 2-3 generations I’d go for a near doorbell but for now neither ring nor nest are mature enough imo. 

My neighbour had nest hello and his couriers were forever bringing things here even though they were in as they were in a gaming room and alerts were delayed so by the time they got to the door the guy had left   

It’s a shame because we have 3 nest cameras, 5 protects & the thermostat so would rather have everything linked where possible 

Sandtree

ashe said:

Sandtree said:

ashe said:

I love smart home stuff but for me both nest and ring are not yet mature enough propositions and both have their downsides e.g delays in alerts on nest, because it has to encode a gif and process facial recognition you’re looking at about 10 seconds delay and with ring its a bit less as not recording 24x7 but that’s it’s downside 

The door bell itself is instant with Nest as its a basic electrical connection and nothing to do with facial recognition etc.

On my ancient wifi only iPad it can take a few seconds for alters to come through, 10-20 probably, but on the Mrs' iPhone 11 (or whatever fairly recent thing she has) the alerts are normally within a second or two.

Yeah but that assumes you have it hooked up to a hard wired chime ana of you don’t already have that it’s expensive to get one put in. There are workarounds but you can’t rely on the alerts. A second just didn’t seem feasible for it to send video to nest servers, convert it to a gif for the preview, process facial recognition and deliver it to your phone via a mobile network. Either way it’s not very quick for majority of people, and a lot of parts to the chain that can end up being delayed and I’d still want front of house CCTV from another angle than just pointing straight out. Maybe in 2-3 generations I’d go for a near doorbell but for now neither ring nor nest are mature enough imo. 

My neighbour had nest hello and his couriers were forever bringing things here even though they were in as they were in a gaming room and alerts were delayed so by the time they got to the door the guy had left   

It’s a shame because we have 3 nest cameras, 5 protects & the thermostat so would rather have everything linked where possible 

Given Nest Hello has to be wired up, there is no battery option, I would assume that most people buying one are replacing an existing wired solution and if they're not then the cost of adding a chime at the same time as putting the other wiring in is going to be minimal if you put the chime by the door (you can always have a second chime elsewhere unwired)

There could be other issues at play with your neighbours, we do have very fast broadband at home so never going to be a delay at our end getting the data to the server and the slowest I think we've ever seen on the Mrs phone is about 5 seconds and that was in poor mobile reception area overseas. At the end of the day though if you are on holiday getting an alert 5 seconds late is much sooner than what you'd have with a traditional doorbell plus there is the added benefit of it recording motion within zones etc 

Your concerns however are not about the device but speed of the internet and the Google servers, the later they could always bump whenever they wanted without needing a change in devices and the later I'd argue is more about picking a resolution & sound setting that supports your internet upload speed. The average UK upload speed is 14Mb/s which should support HD with sound but if you've got devices backing up to the cloud etc then you could have problems... ours will be more limited by the 802.11n wifi but still 450Mb/s and whilst you could argue 802.11ac would be better you simply dont need that speed to transmit a HD video.

DanM92

I am a huge fan of the Ring doorbells myself and so are family/friends that I have shown. Depending upon your DIY capabilities and budget, I would go for the Ring Pro (hardwired) if possible. A friend has the battery powered alternative and they find it quite frustrating the way it eats through batteries! The Pro model also comes with some extra features too.

However, regardless to the model you choose, be sure to set it up correctly i.e. place the doorbell in a position that can see the most (view of the cars on the driveway etc). Ring also sell wedges that you place behind the device so that you can use to angle the doorbell for the best viewing position. You will also want to adjust the motion detection range on the application too. For example, if you live somewhere where lots of people walk past etc.

Although there are plenty of alternative video doorbells (like some of these -> https://diyworks.co.uk/best-video-doorbell/), I do think Ring offer the best devices! As you can imagine, I can go on and on (I even have the outdoor cam in the garden).

If you need any information, feel free to private message me!

FiestaRed

Great post, thank you Dan.

Sandtree

DanM92 said:

I do think Ring offer the best devices! 

The best smart video doorbells – tested | WIRED UK Best video doorbells in 2021: Top smart doorbells rated | Tom's Guide
Wired & Toms Guide think they're best if you want a battery option but put Nest ahead if you want a wired solution. 

At the end of the day they are both good solutions and there are probably other publications putting them in the opposite order

FiestaRed

Thanks everyone for all the great help and information. Really appreciated.
I'm looking at getting a Ring battery one with the chime. From the adverts, I can't really see if the chime is portable (wireless) or needs to be plugged in somewhere.

chrisw

You don't really need a chime if you have any echo devices. You can link the doorbell so that Alexa will tell you 'someone's at the front door'.