Ring is one of the best-known names in consumer wireless security cameras, including their popular range of video doorbells. Ring, originally DoorBot, was an early pioneer in the wireless video doorbell market and quickly earned a reputation as an innovator in the space. They have since expanded that range of doorbell products to suit a wide variety of installation scenarios and added a range of capable and durable security cameras as well.

Why Buy a Ring Security Camera?

There are now many brands offering video doorbells, wireless security cameras and robust security monitoring solutions, and many of those are cheaper, or have better camera specifications than Ring products. So why would you pay premium prices for Ring’s?

There are a few reasons that are worth considering: Performance, durability, and usability. Let’s look at each of these.

Performance

Many wireless camera products look good on paper, but then fail to deliver in terms of how quickly they can respond to a motion event, and how quickly they can get a notification to you. This is a key consideration because there’s not much point in having a security camera that tells you something is going on after the event is already over. Worse if it didn’t capture the important moments of the event. Ring has invested in substantial global infrastructure that ensures that you’ll get fast recording and notification response times wherever you are, assuming you have good enough internet and Wi-Fi signal to the camera.

Durability

Ring product have proven to be hardy and able to survive the elements well for long periods. Heavy rain, high heat, strong sunlight, and freezing temperatures are handled well, and the devices continue to function with full exposure to these conditions for years. On top of this, the higher tier Ring Protect subscription also covers you with extended warranty, and their doorbells come with a theft replacement guarantee.

Usability

This one comes down to the app experience, and how easy it is to access recordings, and to configure the various options to optimize what is captured and when you are notified. Many camera brands still have fairly standard lists of individual recorded events, often without much context and only a small thumbnail to go by when you’re looking for something. Settings can be scattered in various places throughout the app with little explanation as to what they do, and you can be forced to log in again at the most inconvenient time.

The Ring app has had a lot of focus over the years, and benefits from a clean modern design where settings are clearly grouped under each device, and cross referenced from the various places you might thing to look for something. They all come with handy tips and help right in the app, as well as notifications when new features are added to explain them. Finally, the timeline view allows you to smoothly scrub through all recorded events to quickly get an overview of activity and easily locate things of interest.

Are Ring Products Secure?

Whenever you are considering a cloud-based device, which all Ring cameras and doorbells are, it’s prudent to ask about their security and privacy implications. Ring has certainly had their share of bad press in this area, although that coverage has primarily been about internal policies for handling customer data rather than the cyber security of their products.

The devices and servers themselves have proven robust, and the Ring app has been regularly enhanced with more security and privacy controls than most competitors. With mandatory two-factor authentication, and encryption between the cameras, servers, and the app your cameras themselves should be safe from hackers.

For extra privacy control, full end-to-end encryption is also available, but this currently carries a heavy cost in terms of smart features you lose, and you won’t be able to share the cameras with other household members so it’s probably not practical for most people.

Nonetheless, since being acquired by Amazon some years ago the privacy policy side of things appears to have improved considerably. There are still some valid concerns to be aware of around their relationship with law enforcement. You can take a look at our comprehensive roundup of this history for more details.

Ring Camera and Doorbell Reviews

Other Ring Integrations

Ring Feature Articles And Guides

How To Use Ring With Apple HomeKit

Can you use Ring products in HomeKit? Not officially, but there is a very good solution available for those willing to explore building a Homebridge hub. This guide gives you all you need to know about how to do that, and what you’ll get out of it if you do.

How To Turn off Ring Camera Recording

Ring cameras used to record everything, no matter what. So what if you don’t want them to for a while? Thankfully we now have a few ways to control what and when Ring records video. This guide looks at each of them with detailed steps for how to do that.

Do Ring Cameras and Doorbells Work Without Wifi?

Most Ring camera devices need WiFi to work at all, but there are some exceptions, and some options to help with WiFi and internet connectivity. This guide will take you through all the details.

How To Change Your Ring Doorbell Sounds

Sometimes it’s not ideal to have the default Ring chime play when your doorbell is pressed. Be it confusion over which doorbell is ringing, or just annoying the neighbors, this guide will look at the options to solve that problem, as well as some other tricks that could be helpful.

Can You Use Ring Cameras Without A Subscription?

There can be some confusion about this as Ring says you can use their security and doorbells cameras without a subscription, but most other places will say you can’t. What’s the deal? This guide covers what you can do for free and what you get locked out of.

How To Use Ring Modes

The Ring app provides three modes for controlling your alarm state, but they can also be useful in controlling notifications and privacy for your Ring cameras and doorbells. See how to configure them for best effect.

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