Reviews All-new Ring Stick Up Cam Battery HD security camera withtwo-way talk, Works with Alexa

My friend David S. experience Zero Integration with Ring Alarm.

I have a much better security camera system for my home's exterior but thought I might try one of these cams indoors since I have the Ring alarm system and a Ring Doorbell already. I made the silly mistake, I guess, of assuming there would be some kind of integration with other Ring products - there isn't. None. Not a single thing.

It seems like common sense to me that they'd integrate in a couple of ways. I assumed that I'd be able to tell these cameras to only sense motion if the alarm was armed. Nope.

I figured I could at least set it to detect motion when I wasn't in the house. Nope. There isn't even any kind of proximity setting for it to even know if you're home or not. They are not location aware in any way. The Ring alarm system isn't either, so I suppose I should have known better already.

I also assumed that if my Ring alarm went off the cameras would automatically come on and start recording. Nope!

The only motion option at all is to not alert you to motion during specific hours. Note, this doesn't stop motion detection during these hours, it only stops the alerts.

Motion detection/recording is only an on or off thing... absolutely no options whatsoever.

Annoyed by the lack of integration I still mounted the camera in my great room. I figured I try it for a few days and see how long the battery would actually last with motion recording on. This is a high traffic area so I wasn't holding my breath... and sure enough, after not even 1 full day the battery is down to 80%. This is with all the 'battery saving options' on. This was only a test as I don't actually want recording of any kind going on in my house while I'm home unless the alarm is armed or going off.

With absolutely no options, no integration with Ring alarm and no settings to limit it's recording this thing is really only good for one thing; on demand video with no automatic recording. So, the thing is turned off now, doing nothing. I can still activate it from my phone to occasionally check my house isn't burning down.

Hopefully someday Ring will update the software and provide some common sense integration with it's other devices.

This is all a shame as the build of the camera is quite good considering the low price as is the video quality. The audio isn't great but it never is on cameras of any kind.

***UPDATE***
Ring support reached out to me directly almost immediately after I posted my review (Good on them) and told me how to link the Alarm, somewhat, to the camera. You have to go into your Base Station settings, then linked devices, then you can set the cameras to record when the alarm goes off - but only then. Make sure you have the updated app that just came out to do this. I didn't. Again, the setting is in your base station, not in the cameras.

This solved probably the biggest issue I had with the camera. The rest of my review is still accurate though per Ring support. Hopefully they'll add the other much needed features in the near future.

***ANOTHER UPDATE***
From Ring Support: "The Modes feature will be released in November and will allow you to have the option to record motion only if the Ring Alarm System is set to Away Mode". This will be a great update and should have been available on launch. I wonder if they are only just now thinking of it from all the negative feedback and reviews, but glad it's 'coming soon' either way.

***ONE MORE UPDATE***
Ring provided me early access to the 'Modes Feature' and I've been using it for the past few days. It resolves all the issues I had with the alarm integration. With modes you can set your cameras to only record when your alarm is set. They can all be set independently and act differently depending on if you have your alarm set to off, home, or away. For instance, you can set your exterior cameras to record when your alarm is set to home mode, but have your interior cameras are turned off. You can set your interior cameras to only record while in away mode, etc. etc. Or any combination. The cameras can now be set the same way motion and door sensors can. This is a great improvement. They haven't told me exactly when this feature will be made public but have said it will be released 'by the end of the year'.

I've increased the rating from 3 stars to 5. This software update really has resolved every issue I had with the cameras. I've now ordered and installed an additional 6 for my home.

***LAST UPDATE***
Having the modes features and my cameras set to only pop on and record during an alarm event (which is rare) and be off at all other times, I've had 2 months to evaluate battery life, almost exactly 60 days now. All my cameras were down to below 10% battery level when I checked them last night. Given the rate of battery drain I had expected them to last 3 months - though 2+ still isn't bad. I have two external cameras on my entry gates outside with the solar panel add-on, they stay fully charged at all times even though it's pretty much been non-stop dark and cloudy days here since installation. They are set to record all motion and since they point at a street they record events dozens of times per day... so if you're thinking of getting the solar panels for outdoor use, I highly recommend them.

While GuitarRebel say Read this if you're having connection or audio/video/notification difficulties ***UPDATED at end***.

Before I start my revised review, let me state that there's been a lot of news lately about people hacking into Ring cameras, but this only happens when someone installs a new camera and doesn't update the default username and password (or has an extremely weak password which is easy for a hacker to guess). This is like leaving your front door open while on vacation. Your camera is sending and receiving signals over a wireless network. Anyone within range of the signal can potentially be a threat if you don't have good encryption (username and good password) set up on your camera. There's no logical reason for a Ring owner to not do this. Ring even stresses changing the default settings during the initial setup process. Bottom line, don't blame the car manufacturer if you leave the keys in your car and it gets stolen.
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Recently, I wrote a rather scathing 1 star review about the problems I was having with my new Ring Stick Up Wireless Battery Cam. I'm no stranger to wireless cams, having 10 hooked up and running seamlessly on another network as I write this, but I was totally frustrated with the connection reliability, not only with my two upper end cellphones, but also on my Galaxy Tab and Amazon Show. More times than not, the software wouldn't connect with the camera but when it did, the video was choppy. Notifications were also hit and miss. I have a great wireless mesh router system throughout the house, so after doing all the troubleshooting I could think of, I assumed it was due to faulty hardware or software. I gave up and started the return process through Amazon. It was a new product after all and new products sometimes are really buggy. Plus, I read other negative reviews which seemed to justify my thoughts and actions.
Then I got an email from a gentleman from Ring saying he read my review and asked if I'd be willing to let him help troubleshoot my issues with me. Although I had already started the return process, I was willing. It was refreshing to know Ring Customer Service was genuinely interested in troubleshooting possible defects in their newest product.
Together, we isolated the issue within about 20 minutes. It turned out it wasn't the camera or software after all.
Anyone having connection issues should do what he advised me to do. Open up the Ring app and click on the 3 little dots to the upper right of the camera screenshot, then select settings. From there go to Device Health and check the signal strength. Although I had a good mesh hub (inside) within 10 feet of my camera (mounted outside), my signal strength was RSSI -64. He stated that the signal was so weak it was on the cusp of what is needed for the camera to even minimally operate. This prompted me to reboot my wireless mesh system and reset/reconnect the camera. When it came back online, my signal strength went to -39, a vast improvement.
A quick check of all of my devices showed the camera and software working flawlessly. Hat's off to Ring.
Anyone who may be having connection or audio/video/notification difficulties, check your signal strength to the camera via the Ring software, even if your router is close by. You just might be surprised.
***UPDATE***
Camera (and software) is still working flawlessly on all devices.
Ring has now updated their Windows 10 desktop app (which previously didn't work with the new wireless battery cams) and it works flawlessly as well.
Observations.
Notifications on my phone, Tab and Amazon devices (Show, Echo, Dot) are almost instantaneous. Alexa says "Someone is at your front door." Very cool.
I bought an extra battery, but it looks like it'll be at least a few months before I need to swap it out, even with the intensive testing I've done on the Stick Up Cam. Battery life seems excellent.
I have one zone blocked out and that seems to work fine as well. I also have it mounted a couple of feet above and to the left of my front door, tilting downward at an angle. Even though residential traffic is visible in the field of view, I've not gotten one trigger due to street activity. The motion sensor is triggered by anything coming into the bottom half of it's field of view. From the time someone triggers the motion sensor until the time I'm aware of it is 1-2 seconds. That's about as close to real time as you can get. It's not given me a false alarm even once.
Telling my Amazon Show to "(Alexa), show front door cam" takes about 5 seconds to complete.
I can also watch triggered video clips and get a live feed while away from home without any extra setup to my network. It's totally automatic.
Because of the customer service I received from Ring and the fact the product is much better than I originally thought, I will be expanding my Ring family soon.

While Harveyvicky2006 said Five Star.

Had the camera up and running in less than ten minutes. Excellent quality picture. Hooking up to the solar panel when installing, this way battery is always charged. Received mounting hardware, camera has been installed.

Review MinN said Notifications aren’t reliable at all..

I rarely write reviews. I was really excited about this product so I ordered two. Just got them today and spent 3 calls with support and they don’t work as intended. I had a breaking on my property two weeks ago. Support tried to help with both and unfortunately hours later nothing. The issue for me is that the notifications barely work. It’s a hit and miss if they do. What’s the point if your devices do not get dependable motion notifications? Customer service was nice but unable to help at this point. I had been burglarized two weeks ago and was expecting that this would be great.

This is my second review. I have to wait for an appointment next week after an email I received today. I didn’t go into full length yesterday because I was upset. First they told me my first device was defective and to open the second one and that I would get a replacement for the first after a hold of 1 dollar on my card. I wanted to test it looking out my living room window. I’ve had no alerts since at all. My neighbors kids came by and knocked on my door and nothing. If you want to watch a live camera all day and night this is for you. We come and go and I pay ADT to monitor my house. I’m angry because I lost a lot of tools and if this doesn’t do motion alerts whether home or not just find something else.

This a word from DL Ward experience Poor English by tech support / multiple units fail to remain connected to network (UPDATED).

It was easy to set up and is a great companion to my Ring doorbell on the front of the house. It has an excellent field of view and the image itself is very good.

Now for the bad: it lost all WiFi connectivity overnight and I have a strong WiFi signal where the camera is located. When I set it up again, it downloaded updates again. This would seem to suggest there were new updates today, even though it grabbed updates when installed yesterday.

I gave it three stars because I like what is potentially capable of, and I am realistic about a brand new product on day one. It may take a little time to work out all the bugs so patience is required for the first few months.

I should also add that the support rep spoke very poor English and it really got to the point I just wanted to get her off the call. I probably understood about two out of three words from the representative. This was more disappointing to me than the actual failure, but she was able to help me get it resolved - with various request to repeat things.

Update day 2: Camera has disconnected from network again, which means I have to go out and push the setup button again and reconnect it to the network. I don't really want to call their support number again because that was such a painful experience. I really want this to work so I am going to have to think about how much patience I have versus my frustration and desire to return it.

End of day 2 update: after connecting to the network again this morning at 10:30, it had dropped off WiFi by my return at 5:00 pm. I also noted the battery is down to 75% after two days of “not working”. This is stretching even my patience.

Despite the issues I have experienced with this device, I remain a fan of Ring products. I did receive a nice note from Ring customer support offering additional assistance, but he only works on weekdays so I cannot pursue the issue until next Monday. In defense of Ring, they were extremely helpful with my doorbell last spring so I have high confidence this will be resolved - if I can handle the shorter than expected battery life.

Beginning of day 3: I placed the camera on my desk, about 3 feet from the wireless access point as a test to see if wifi signal strength is the culprit. Reconnected it to the WiFi network. Battery strength on this beginning of day 3 at 61%. Even if I get this working correctly, I don't believe the battery life will satisfy my expectations.

End of day 3. Disconnected from WiFi after a few hours, sitting right beside access point. Discounts signal strength issue. I will work with with support next week to figure this out.

FINAL UPDATE: After working with Ring support, they assessed the camera as faulty and had me return it for replacement. Sadly, the replacement worked exactly the same way. This suggests a problem on my network (even though two other Ring cameras are working fine) or a faulty batch of cameras. After working with Ring support again, they forwarded me to a second tier support rep. During our efforts, it stopped responding to the setup button so I was no longer able to work with this camera. At this point we returned the unit. I was disappointed with the battery life and since they couldn't product a unit that would work on my network I decided it was time to fold. I remain a fan of Ring products in general, but this second example of the "Stick up cam" failed before we could do any extensive diagnostics so we will never really know what the problem was. (oh - for you networking folks out there, I did set the camera's mac address to a reserved IP address in my DHCP server. Worked fine for the usual 5ish hours and then lost the network again.)

A review Sara Murphy tell us No Zone specific options!.

So the camera is okay if used outdoors. Read others reviews for why exactly indoor use is not great. The biggest disappointment when used outdoors is you cannot set specific motion notification zones like you can with the flood light cam or the other outdoor ring camera. All you can do is slide a sensitivity bar over a general area within the cameras field of view. Does it work...sure...but without zone control its not that great.

Review TC said Ring, stop blaming everyone else and look at your own gear *****UPDATE*****.

I work with cameras, WiFi, mesh gear, microwave technology, 4G, etc. I stream audio and video and work with complex systems. Every time I read a Ring forum person write in about a Ring issue, Ring never accepts blame. My Ring doorbell signal is less than my stick up cam and it works great. I am on my second stick up cam, and it has serious flaws. Let’s just say, I can push WiFi down my street, but a stick up cam in the same room, as my router, doesn’t get a decent signal! Folks, we have here a company that has failed to get the bugs out of their firmware. The doorbell works fine, the indoor cam mounted in the garage works fine, all my other cams works fine, but a simple stick up cam doesn’t. No Ring, there are not too many devices on my network, I turned them off just to see if your excuse was even viable. Bottom line is your firmware needs work, a lot of work, even your motion detection has issues, video playback has issues and it’s only on the stick up cam. How do I knows this? Let’s just say, when you try one cam, and it doesn’t work at all, you call Ring and talk real tech, they say send it back and get another, that tells me it’s an issue with the devices, especially when the second one starts up fine then begins to have issues. I even borrowed another indoor cam, and tried it, it worked fine.

Stop pointing the finger at people who buy this and blame them for its issues. It appears your older generation device stick up cams work better. There is a flaw somewhere in the string of code and every new one going out and getting updates will have these issues. I would have bought several of these, but they don’t work. Thankfully I can fall back on other competitor devices in the mean time till you get it right. Don’t be ashamed to stand up and say you made a mistake, stop saying it’s people’s internet or WiFi strength, maybe your WiFi receiver or antenna in the stick up cams has the issue. I can stream some serious bandwidth at 30fps, and not even lose a frame, but yet a $99 camera can’t even stream 5’ from router with serious upload and download speeds. Like I said before my doorbell works perfect, maybe I should mount a few of them around the house, flush them into a concealment, and disable the button. I bet no one has used multiple door bell and small hidden cams yet. They seem to work great! Why is it I can walk down to my mailbox with a streaming WiFi camera I have, and your stick up cam, and the stick up cam drops out, yet my other camera doesn’t? No it’s not arlo, it’s a simple WiFi based camera. Go figure, I bet you got a deal on some second rate WiFi receivers and board antennas hoping 50% or more worked, just look at the amazon feedback, that should support my argument. That’s all.....

After my review was written, Ring tech support reached out to me. Jason, and I spoke for an hour and he gave me a few options. One of the options was to replace my Stick up Cam with the POE Stick up Cam Elite. I was hesitant because I didn’t want to run a Cat6 cable where I had the stick up cam at. He talked to me and asked me to try it. He sent me the Elite version and I tested it. To my surprise it worked flawlessly, so I did the full install. The Elite version allows for much better motion zone control, and since it’s wired to a switch with a POE injector, the activation response is super fast. Because most of the ring cameras are a bit grainy without ambient light or the assistance of additional lighting, I opted to add a dual 500 lumen motion light on my back patio. Walking anywhere near it not only activates the light for a few minutes, but allows the elite stick up cam to get a clear picture. This not only solves my problem, but serves a purpose with the additional lighting. The Elite stick up cam, is the only POE version they make, but if the Ring flood or spot cane POE, I would go with them.

My sincere appreciation goes out to Jason, from Ring. He is fast to respond to emails and gets involved problem solving. I appreciate his help and his concern. I will continue my use of the Elite versions as they work for my applications. I still will return the original stick up cam as it didn’t work for me.

My friend J experience Nice Little Camera, Does the Job.

UPDATE 11/15/19: I've had the camera for two weeks and overall it has performed fine with respect to recording and in freezing weather. The only issue with it is the battery life, if you are planning on putting this camera outdoors GET THE SOLAR PANEL! I've had it up without one because I wanted to see how long the battery would last after being fully charged and for our normal usage. The settings I have it on are: Motion Detection: ON, Motion Frequency: STANDARD, Motion Verification: OFF. Video Settings: Live View - ON, Tap Camera Preview - OFF, Audio streaming/recording - ON, Infrared Lights for Night vision - ON. I also have it linked to the front doorbell so that when it detects motion it triggers the doorbell to begin recording. The traffic in front of the house is steady but not crazy, normal subdivision. With these settings and at the 15 day mark of being up the battery on this camera is currently reading less than 10%. It's a shame that the battery life is on the "meh" side, so you either need to have another battery pack as a back up on stand-by or use the solar panel. I'll be adding a solar panel and will report back how it goes with another update.
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ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Overall, I like the simplicity and ease of the Ring system. This is NOT the high-end camera so all you people expecting that at this price point need to get a reality check! READ THE SPECS before you order it, if it does not meet your situation spend the $ and get the high-end one. I already had doorbells (hardwired and battery) along with the security system prior to getting this outdoor camera. The set up was simple enough, just like their other products, it was easy to link it with the alarm base, and set up the motion detection. One feature it does have is the ability to link it with the other doorbell cameras and cameras that I have. For example, if the front doorbell detects motion I can have the camera begin recording and vice versa. You need to really look at the settings in the base unit (if you have the alarm system) to understand what options there are.
The camera comes well-packaged and the instructions are very straightforward, the camera is small and very easy to put up. This being said, I do believe it is overpriced, it should be the same amount as the indoor corded camera that is around $59. I have my motion notification settings on "standard", we'll see how the battery life goes, will probably get a solar panel for it at some point. The picture quality is pretty clear and the adjustability to get the angles you want are very easy to do with the basic mount it comes with, the package includes all the hardware needed to install it. I would suggest you have someone hold up the camera where you want to mount it at and then look at your phone to see what the view actually looks like BEFORE you actually mount it. The night pic on the camera is decent, a bit better then the DoorbellPro that I have, gives me a nice wide view of the porch, the driveway, part of the street in front of the house, all the way across the street to driveways for those houses. This was a pleasant surprise for such a small camera. The motion detection is simple, it allows you to adjust a zone that you want monitored fairly easily within the app. You will need to charge the battery fully prior to use, the pack has two lights on it, one amber, the amber one will go out once the battery is fully charged. Everything you need to set the camera up with comes in the box. It is small, but solid, camera weight less than 1 lb. I replaced a bullet style that I had with it. The two-way sound works good as well, it picked up a conversation my neighbor was having on his porch and of people walking past the house on the sidewalk. I will probably be getting a couple of more of these, just wish that Ring would bring the prices down a bit. Overall, pretty nifty little camera that does what I need it to do without having to run a bunch of wires all over the place.

While NPFamily said A major flaw in HW design or firmware.

I was able to set up the camera to my router within 15 mins. Everything seems to work fine except for one thing. If I reboot my router, the camera won't re-connect to the network. Other devices re-connect within 1 minute of the router coming back up. I had to reset the camera in order to get it to re-connect, twice already. During this not-connecting period, the battery drains about 10% over night.

Updated 11/13/2019: The camera continues to disconnect from my router for no apparent reasons (even when my router wasn't rebooted). This is the fourth time so far since Oct 26. Had to do a hard reset every time after waiting for more than 12 hours for the camera to reconnect. I have the camera up 10+ ft under the roof. It's a pain to do a hard reset and re-setup. Battery level drops from 100% to less than 45% (2.5 wks).

Updated 2/17/2020: I had to buy a whole new router in order to get this camera to connect and not use the battery like crazy. My nest door bell camera worked just fine with the old router. I also bought the older version of the camera from Costco. Here's one example of signal strength from all of them: the new version camera (-110dB), the older camera (-50dB), another older camera (-58dB). They're all in the same area.

So, I'd never buy this camera again.

Review Dominic Zerbolio say Doesn't work reliably or at night through a window..

Despite having good WiFi Signal Strength on three networks, I could not make this camera work reliably. I chose it because I wanted to mount it inside to oversee my front door through a side pane of a bay window. Besides it's general unreliability, at night, through a window, the reflection off of glass made it functionally blind. I do have another ring unit, a flood light/security cam and it is mounted outside and works both reliably and 24/7. And on the same network as I attempted to use with the Ring Stick-up cam 2. This unit needs to be re-engineered.