Reviews: Ring Doorbell Activated Installation existing

Review Papa said I tried, I really tried.

Well, I tried – I really Tried.
But it turns out my expectations were way too high.
I was mesmerized by the commercials, captivated with visions of my gruff, electronically-brazened voice calling out over the speaker “Hey! Whutter you doin’ on my porch! Put that package down, the police are on their way!”
But it doesn’t work that way out here in Suburbia, not in the real world.
Oh, I tried, I really tried. I poured through the meek User Guide that came with the kit, graduated to the FAQs on the Ring website, and made so many calls to Ring Tech Support that I cringed each time in expectation that Ring would announce “You’re exceeded your limit!” But of course, they didn’t. They patiently answered my questions, helped me understand about 30-second versus 60-second video clips and the lag or buffering issue and zones and sensitivity. I learned about Device Health and Speed Test and download and upload speeds.
I moved my mailbox out of the way of the video doorbell. I bought a new porchlight that didn’t cast its ubiquitous glow onto the doorbell. I climbed into a 110-degre attic, swam through an ocean of blown-in insulation to find and replace a doorbell transformer. Because who among us has the tools or the skills to measure the output voltage of your doorbell wires? BTW, your local hardware store does not stock a doorbell transformer that matches the exact specs of the Ring Video Doorbell Pro, I had to order one online.
From a patient cable internet technician, I learned about updating the firmware on my wireless router (“You gotta do this 1, 2 times a year!”). But it was worth it, because now my download and upload speeds are in what Ring calls “the Good Range”. I also purchased and installed the Ring Chime Pro, even though my house is what I would call Small by today’s standards – under1,000 sq. ft.
But none of that helped. Even though when I go to Live View and can see all of my yard in vivid color (or stark black-and-white at night) and see every twig movement and hear far-away roosters crow, it still won’t detect and alert me to a person walking up my driveway, until they are actually standing on my porch directly in front of the camera. Oh, it will do it once in a while, maybe twice in a while, but it won’t do it every time, it won’t do it even a majority of the time. The only time it does it 100% is when the person is actually standing on my porch. I am confident that an intruder could roam my yard at will, do as they will to the cars in my driveway, as long as they don’t climb onto my porch. Well, I can go to Live View and watch every movement, but the Ring Video Doorbell Pro will NOT detect and alert me.
And that myth about me actually speaking to the person on the porch? Well, the ghost of that ship has done sailed, honey, far out into the sunset and ne’er to return. Only the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Home Improvement Salesmen are willing to stay on my porch after they have rung the doorbell, waiting while it takes 10-15 seconds for the alert to hit my phone, and then the 2-5 minutes it takes for the video to become available for me to view. So no, my expectations were not met.
So, I will keep the new porch light, my wife likes it better than the old one. And I should have moved that mailbox long ago, it is much easier to empty in its new location. And I’ll keep the new doorbell transformer, it is a sturdy, handsome fellow even though it is buried beneath an AC return duct and 16 inches of powder insulation.
But my old doorbell is going back on my porch, and this Ring Video Doorbell Pro is going back to Amazon. It is too unreliable, and does not, can not, WILL NOT work as advertised.

Another customer JenDu Talk Piece of junk.

When I first got the device in July we immediately installed the product. Install went great and was super easy. For the first month the product worked great. We were super happy with it and even purchased the extra service through them to save our videos for longer. Shortly after that we started getting constant motion detection alerts. Sometimes it was something blowing by but more frequently it was simply the camera shifting from night vision to day vision for no apparent reason triggering a motion detection alert. Then for whatever reason in the end of September it simply quit working.

I have tried to contact the company but was told that I needed to verify the make and model of my chimes (only have make no model on them). They said there was nothing they could do. Now I am stuck with a doorbell that doesn't work and service I can't use because they couldn't verify the chime compatibility. Nowhere in the installation instructions was their anything about a chime compatibility and I am not sure that has anything to do with why it quit working.

Save your money and don't buy anything from a company who doesn't stand behind their product.

While Bill Hatch tell us Looks great but hidden cost ¨gotcha¨..

This works well. The install is easy. I have one very major complaint. The blurb on Amazon does not explain that you have to pay for a cloud subscription to store and retrieve the short videos of motion events. The promotional material and install instructions are structured such that you do not catch this ¨gotcha" until the unit is installed and you use it for a day or 2. There is no provision to store these videos locally on your own computer. I am giving this just one star because they are not up front about the need for a paid subscription and the lack of a local event video storage option.

While HTS said Ring paid for itself in less than 6 months!!! [UPDATED October 2018].

[October 2018 Update]
Revisiting my review once again, making it 4 stars. My doorbell would randomly die after someone pressed it, rendering it useless until I reset the power. I decided to reach out to Ring and after a very brief conversation they offered to send me a replacement device right away. Once I received it, I quickly noticed that it was the same in the front but completely different hardware in the back. I swapped out the old (sent it back to Ring), installed and setup the new (very easy to do by yourself), and for the past month+ it has been working very well. None of the issues I had been experiencing with the original unit have since resurfaced with this new unit.

I'm glad I decided to reach out to Ring for support on this and was very appreciative of the support I incurred including the replacement device.

[JUNE 2018 UPDATE]
Well, my Ring Doorbell Pro died this week. It had gone offline about 3 months ago... then again about a month ago... and now it's completely dead. Previously I would go through the reset / setup procedure and it would come back online. Now there's no lights, etc. Apparently it's a "known issue" according to Ring. Read the numerous reviews here.

I understand electronics are not necessarily meant to last forever, but a $250 weather sealed doorbell that sits in a sheltered environment should last much longer than 2 years. In addition, the fact that Ring claims it's a "known issue" means that they are aware of a design flaw. The flaw could be hardware or software, but a flaw means it's their fault.

However, since they only provide a 1 year warranty, I suppose that makes it my fault.. Not a single person who's reviewed this issue and had any luck with support on this issue.

Support did call me back to advise me to disconnect and reconnect the ring pro to see if that would work. Others who have tried this indicate that it's just a matter of time before it will fail again though. I had to try 3 times before it properly reset.

I'm not going to hold my breath. Buyer beware - if you have money to burn, it's a fantastic device while it is working. I for one will do my research and see if there's a better alternative available while I wait to see if this one dies.

[ORIGINAL REVIEW]
One day while I was out running an errand my ring app on my phone notified me that someone was ringing the doorbell. I don't always answer, but decided to. The young man at my door seemed a bit 'off' and asked for "Nick". There's no one named Nick on my street... or in the small area where I live. I told him he had the wrong house and the guy left. Few minutes later I could not shake that something was off, so I reviewed the entire video footage - Ring captures motion so I was able to see what he did prior to ringing the doorbell. This guy was wearing a hoodie so he covered his hands, looked through my front door window for a good 5+ seconds, then started to check the door to see if perhaps it was open, before deciding to ring the doorbell... all with his hands covered. It was 70 degrees out. Once I answered, he seemed shocked and he quickly pulled up his hood.

I contacted the police and they filed a report. I shared my Ring video with them and they said it was the cleanest video they had seen in some time. Less than two weeks later a detective called me to let me know that the guy who came to my door was indeed looking to burglarize my home. He had been arrested and put in jail for other area burglaries. The detective said that had I not answered the doorbell, my home would most certainly have been broken into that day.

I've had the ring doorbell since September 2016 and this was the first and only time something odd/suspicious was captured and, to say the least, it works!!!

Now onto some of the issues I've had:
1. Ring initially was recording very poorly and sometimes would not capture video properly if at all. I installed a high end wifi extender nearby and problems went away. Previously my wifi signal strength was about 40% at the doorbell location. Now it's close to 100%.
2. My Ring doorbell went offline and it took me who knows how long to realize it. The app has a health monitor - RING why are you not telling me that you're offline??? Why do I need to discover it for myself???? Getting it back online was a bit of a hassle also.
3. Angle. I now see some angled plates for sale but would have liked to have had those when I installed it. It's perpendicular to my door, which means I am not capturing as much motion as I would like. Someone needs to be on my porch before it starts capturing motion. With an angled plate, I could catch them coming up my walkway instead, which is more useful.
4. Costs $30/year to maintain recordings. If I install additional devices, it's an additional $30 per device. Would have liked to get a price break.

Overall, great product. Not sure I've seen a better one on the market. As with any tech, there are always likely to be issues somewhere. Overall, I think this is a good product and well worth the peace of mind.

As Vance experience Reliable security camera...just sometimes a tad slow.

 I bought this doorbell since I had gotten tired of finding beer botttles and bags of weed (I kid you not) on my front lawn. And the fact that I installed tint on my front door (since it's made of glass and I didn't have privacy) and couldn't see who was coming to the door anymore. And to ensure receipt of Amazon's finest. And catch package thieves.

PROS:

I'm so glad I didn't buy Amazon's doorbell installation kit. Why? Because the tutorial setup was broken down Barney style and it was so simple and easy to use. I was able to easily determine my doorbell was a mechanical one, and how to find the required voltage for the Ring doorbell to run smoothly.

It was so simple to install the additional wiring to the bell, and then attach the Ring device where the doorbell is supposed to be. They have all the tools needed included in the kit. BY THE WAY, YOU CAN PULL OUT THE PHILIPS SCREW AND TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN SO YOU CAN SCREW IN THE SECURITY SCREW FOR THE RING DEVICE. I was looking all over the place for a tool to screw it in, and just when I was about to run to the local hardware store, I was messing with the screw and realized it had another end.

Face palm.

The video was running in 780p (when it worked properly) and it was fantastic to adjust the motion settings and set zones so that not every passing car or falling leaves would trigger an alert/recording event.

The Cons

My router modem is about 5 ft away from the door so I didn't see any reason to go buy the Wi Fi extender but sometimes the video playback would have green flashing across the screen or become very choppy.

Furthermore, on some rare occasions, there seems to be some videos that I can't open and play at all.

The talk interface seems to be kind of hushed as well, my visitors needed me to almost yell to make out what I am saying, which is hard on a pretty busy street.

Other than that, I think this is a very solid security camera/doorbell and I'd definitely recommend it over the Sky Doorbell.

Edit 1/17/18:

Over time, I have not experienced the green screen for the camera anymore. In fact, I was able to capture some pretty good quality shots of the porch pirate stealing our packages over Christmas (see vattched video).

Sometimes the mic would still seem muffled during two way, and my only other complaint is that it still seems to load up slow when I’m answering a door bell. So I would just grab a baseball bat and open the door rather than wait for it to load up the camera.

Another customer BobbeeDee experience Great idea, but very dissapointing customer service..

I have had a very disappointing experience with my Ring Video Doorbell Pro. When it was installed, I had some customer service issues which were fixed quickly. Then after a few days, the unit continually dropped it's signal and didn't work. I would reboot it, as instructed and repeatedly within 24 hours I would lose the signal again. Finally, the unit lost power completely. Every time I called their customer service, they ran me through the same circus of reboots, despite the fact I told them the battery was drained and although the unit was connected to power, it was not working. I've made 5 calls to their customer service department with long waits on hold and the same scripted 'fix' that has not worked. At this point, I will be returning the doorbell & stick up cam to Amazon for a refund of a defective product that Ring does seem to want to support.

My friend RedJ said Doesn't work as advertised..

UPDATE: 2017-08-05 (Removed a star for additional horrendous customer service run-around)
Kandyce C. from responded in comments below and promised to get me quick resolution to my problems. The only follow-up contact I received from a Ring "Neighbor Advocate" was an auto-generated email that a ticket had been created. It's now evident that Ring promises functionality they can't deliver, despite charging $3/mo, and doesn't back their products up.
Additionally, I've started experiencing a new crop of problems such as the Ring apps auto-answering notifications by opening the live view and some devices completely stopped getting notifications altogether. Problems abound even after a doorbell reset.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:
In principle, the Ring Doorbell is a great upgrade to traditional doorbells. It's advertising promises the ability to pre-screen visitors and even communicate to them when you aren’t at home. However, real-world results vary wildly and it's so glitchy that you'll regularly find it impossible to replicate their commercials.

Often, the phone notifications arrive well after the doorbell rings or motion is detected, or the app refuses to initiate an active connection to the doorbell camera for so long the person has already left before video starts up. WiFi strength on my Ring is good, and the response time seems to be quite different from one device to another and the location of the viewing device.

Another annoyance is their Windows app is incredibly unstable and will get into a state where it will crash on open 100% of the time on one of my PCs. If I uninstall and reinstall the app, it will work again for a short time and then go back to crashing.

Ring customer service is not very helpful in diagnosing and fixing problems (probably because the majority are caused by something on their end) and they do not follow through with promised follow-up.

Pros:
Camera has wide view angle.
Motion detection is configurable and relatively few false positives (except porch lights on/off).
Reasonably attractive
Easy setup

Cons:
Long delays between event and notification
App very slow to connect to Live View
Windows App refuses to open
Unresponsive customer service

Another customer K. Carriere say As a camera only, I would give this 5+ stars, easy..

I have had my Ring Doorbell Pro for just under 2 weeks. Last week we were on vacation so I figured it was the perfect time to buy and test it out within the 30 day trial period. I’ll split this review into 3 bits. First impressions, Install, and Operational Use.

1) First Impressions. We have a security system installed but didn’t go with their camera system because it was CCTV and I wanted something with an internet connection or way to access it from my phone. While making small talk with the security system guy, I mentioned the Ring to him. He was super excited to get out his phone and show me that he has one. He said he couldn’t buy any camera with nearly that quality at that price even with his discounts. He spoke so highly of it I was sure that’s what I wanted to get. We want to do a whole system with cameras on the back of the house, but we purchased the Ring Pro to see how we liked it before we commit to buying everything.

I went with the Ring Pro over the Original Ring because I was going to be wiring it in place anyway. I also like the slender profile and the possibility to use wireless 5.0 in the future if I desire. Plus I live on a very busy road and wanted the advanced motion detection zones on the pro. Since I did my research, I was aware that the Ring Pro has a 160 degree field of view compared to the 180 degree view of the original. For this reason, I purchased fiberglass shims to angle it more towards my large 6 foot doors when I installed it.

I talked with Ring customer service and asked if there was any advantage to ordering through them versus Amazon and they said there were none, so I went with Amazon for my Prime shipping and additional protections of ordering through Amazon.

2) Install. I was a bit intimidated with the install as I’ve never wired anything up before and our house is new construction. But the YouTube video and pamphlets made it pretty clear to follow. They also emphasize that you can call them at any point for assistance. I had also been told by the security system guy that install was super easy and I could do it myself (he’s also the one who gave me the tip about the fiberglass shims). He also gave me an extra tidbit for those of us with stone or brick exteriors: drill into the grout lines – they drill easy; stone does not.

I started with the extra power pack that gets installed inside and connected to your door chime. It was the more complex part of the installation and involved a very tall ladder but it went well. I was impressed that the ring doorbell came with everything you need to install it – including the drill bit AND a screw driver. It even has extra bits you MIGHT need (like extensions wires and extra screws). I also really appreciated how everything was in separate baggies for which part of the install you were doing and was very well labeled (extras were labeled as extras, pro kit wires in one bag, doorbell wires and screws in another). I was unable to fit the power kit inside my chime housing but it doesn’t look bad attached to the wall just outside the chime housing (see picture). It’s just a bit larger than a matchbox.

Installing the actual ring was even easier. I was able to drill into grout lines between stones so I had that going for me. The hook up was super easy, two wires from the house connect to the two connectors on the Ring – doesn’t even matter which is which. Nice and easy. I will have to work out something to cover the shimmed side, but I’ll work something out.

Set up was easy and step-by-step. I was concerned when it was downloading the new firmware and updates and then rebooted because the light was off for (what felt like) a long time (maybe 5 minutes). But it all went flawlessly.

3) Operational Use. I like being able to set up polygons for the motion detection zones. I was able to easily mark my drive way, flowerbeds and porch. I’ve never had a problem with the busy traffic from the road (something the security guy mentioned was a problem with his original Ring). There are two problems they need to work out: You will get a motion detect when the night vision clicks on in the evening and when it clicks off in the morning. Expect that.

Also, this is not a miracle product. It will only work as well as your internet connection. That means a little lag if you’re on a cable connection at peak times. There are a few times I’ve had the video come up in laggy and weirdly pixilated forms that took a second to work out. I’ve also noticed our voice connection is VERY quiet. As in, the person at the door can barely hear the person on the phone, so I consider that feature a bit useless. We managed to scare our cat sitter from the other side of the country and greet my mom, but I wouldn’t rely on it for communicating with people often. We managed to talk to our lawn service but we had to yell into the phone and they had to ask us to repeat ourselves a few times. Also we live on such a busy road that there is a lot of noise which makes the video sound very choppy. So again, I just consider this feature a novelty and not something to rely on.

I mentioned a cat sitter. It was kind of awesome to be able to see that she came by every day. In fact, the first day she didn’t come by until 11:00pm and I worriedly texted her to see if she was going to come. Every other day I took solace in knowing that she had already stopped by without having to text her or fear her shed forget. I was able to see when the lawn service came by and did their thing. I was able to see when packages were delivered and when my mom brought the nephews up to use the pool. I also got to scare the crap out of our friend as they were leaving our empty house and I wished them goodnight. That was worth some money right there. I even caught a few people using my driveway to turn around.

My favorite bit was the unexpected bonus video of my husband going outside to inspect my work. I’m keeping that one.

It catches us leaving for work every day and coming home. It catches me when I go to fill the bird feeders. I’ve not had it miss any movement that I’m aware of. If you have motion sensors on, expect more notifications than you think you will get. As said, you’ll get the two from nightfall and sunrise. Plus I get two from me departing for work and my husband departing plus 2 more for each of us coming home. Add on more for checking the mail and anything you may do in the yard. This is where not being limited on storage size is handy. The cloud storage is $30 per year and it keeps videos for 6 months. It doesn’t say anything about size so having these extra videos doesn’t bother me. I find the video quality to be great and I can easily identify who is at the door night and day.

I also like that it came with a decal showing that the house is monitored. I placed this prominently in my front window along with our security monitoring service decal. Avoiding bad guys is worth more than catching them.

I feel like this was a great purchase. The price is excellent. I love being able to access it anytime from my phone. I love knowing what is going on at my house even when I’m on vacation. I love the security aspect both in surveillance and as a deterrent. It looks sharp (see photo). It’s also a lot of fun. I’ve shown it off to many friends and coworkers, at least one of which decided to get one themselves.

4) Summary. CONS: Only as good as your internet connection. Sunrise and sunset motion detects. Sound quality is useless in my experience. PROS: Access from anywhere, anytime. Surveillance and deterrent. Motion zones let you cut out areas you don’t care to monitor (neighbors yard, roads, ect). Great price.

As a camera only, I would give this 5+ stars, easy. I deducted 1 star because they heavily play up the speaker aspect and that seems worthless in my experience with it. I’m insanely happy with the purchase over all. In the future I will probably buy a chime and a stick-up cam to go along with it.

UPDATE: 1 Year-On. We have had the Ring Pro for One full year now. I've also added two of the chime accessories. I'm just as happy with it now as I was when I wrote this review. We tried to trouble shoot the sound a few times and still have had no luck with it. I think my unit might just be defective in that area. However I still think if this was advertised as a camera only, it would be 100% worth the price and 5 stars. I did have someone point out the sticker over the ring might be the cause of our sound problem, removing it didn't help.

Our indoor chime had the oddity of only ringing the first chime (rather than a series) after installation. As our indoor chime was never loud enough anyway, we added two of the chime plug in accessories without even trying to trouble shoot. We added one chime downstairs and one in our master bedroom. We've been super happy with them as well.

UPDATE: 3.5 years later. Still working. It stopped working for a while so I called customer service before I purchased a new one to make sure it wasn’t some power issue. They sent me (for free) the version 2.0 power kit and the chime bypass kit. Turned out the chime bypass kit fixed it. I didn’t need the indoor mechanical chime anyway as I have two Ring Chime devices. I used it this morning to tell the pest control guy the gate code without getting out of bed. It’s been up 4 summers now.

I still look at it every week to see what animals were creeping in my yard at night. Love the raccoons that come hang out on my porch some nights.

If this thing died tomorrow, I’d replace it with the exact same model, no regrets.

A review aespinoza say Products will not work..

I had high hopes for this products and company. Friends recommended it and didn't have any issue. Well the disappointment came. Power to the unit was good, connection was good and tested on 2 separate routers. Issues have been can't connect to doorbell for live feed, grainy video and shadowing when it occasionally worked. When attempting to view events it was a black screen, also, when there was a even that would be viewable it was just a still image with sound playing in the background. I trusted that their tech support could get it working. Had their level 2 tech support change settijngs around in the router, connect to 2.4 or 5gz channels with both routers. The issues continued. They sent a free chime pro, which is their wireless extender to see if it would help. It actually made the connection worse and the router is 1 foot from the doorbell. The previously sent a replacement ring pro which didn't help either. They have apparently have software problems that are not addressed. It should not be this difficult to get a product to work to get a little protection. Products will be returned.

While Jason say Will not trigger internal chime when hot..

I've had this installed for a few weeks now. My main reason for writing the review is to save some people the frustration of trying to figure out why the ring will not trigger your internal chime. This is easy to install if you have an existing wired door bell. It is easy to set up. The video quality is good if you have a very strong wifi connection but even then can still be choppy at times when on live view and the two way audio lags and can be choppy. Overall though it work well though. My main issue was the the ring was intermittently triggering the internal chime. I couldn't figure out why. I reinstalled it twice and reset it a few times. It was driving me crazy. It would ring at night but not during the afternoon. My doorbell gets blazing sun in the afternoon. Turns out that there is some sort of safety mechanism that shuts down the internal chime when it gets to hot. I wish I would have known this before I spent an extra hour or two trouble shooting it. I can't imagine that my door is the only one that gets sun. If this is a large issue the doorbell should ship with the plug in chime.