Ring Video Doorbell (2nd Gen): Full Test Results
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This product was purchased for this review.
Tested with scoring system 1.0
What do these scores mean?
Learn about our data-driven scoring system.
Pros
✔ Reliable person detection✔ Super fast rich notifications
✔ Excellent audio quality for two-way talk
Cons
✔ Limited package visibility✔ No removable battery
✔ Can be hard to see detail in bright light
The Verdict
The 2nd generation Ring Video Doorbell is the entry level model in Ring’s doorbell lineup, and even though it sits at a significantly lower price point than the Plus model, it still delivers almost the same performance in terms of reliability, notification speed, and video quality. It actually outperforms the plus model for infra-red night vision and battery life (just) but loses out of a few nice-to-have features.
My testing found the video quality to be surprisingly good, albeit back to the old 1080p camera format. Daytime video held up well and infra-red range was superb, exceeding competition from Eufy and other Ring models. Audio quality was also up to Ring’s usual high standard, with no artifacts, distortion or break-ups observed.
I found the motion detection and notification tests delivered impressive results, with near perfect person detection in both day and night conditions, and Ring’s amazingly fast rich notifications ensured I wasn’t missing anything. All up this makes the Video Doorbell 2 an excellent buy at this price point.
The biggest omissions are the lack of a removeable battery, which puts a hard end-date on its usable lifespan, and the lack of an included wedge mount. Dropping these cuts down on cost, but significantly reduces the convenience of the model over it’s more expensive siblings.
The use of the 16:9 aspect ratio also hobbles the package detection feature. While detection works reasonably well, the camera won’t be able to see the drop zone in many typical installation scenarios. This pulls down the smart feature score overall, so if package security is a primary goal, other models would be better suited.
Type: Hybrid video doorbell
Subscription: Required
Price Segment: $$$$
Test Results
Each doorbell I review is put through a series of repeated test cycles over a 30-day period. These tests give me 32 data points that make up the 7 overall category scores above. These scores rate each doorbell key performance requirements like video and audio quality, motion capture performance, smart detection accuracy and the overall user experience.
Here’s how this video doorbell ranks compared to the average of other doorbells I’ve tested:
| Data Point | This Model | Average Score |
|---|---|---|
| Video Quality | 7.8 | 7.8 |
| Night Vision Quality | 7.3 | 6.9 |
| Dynamic Range | 4.2 | 6.7 |
| Two-Way Talk | 8.8 | 7.6 |
| App Audibility | ||
| Outdoor Audibility | ||
| Recorded Audio | 10.0 | 9.0 |
| Notification Delay | 10.0 | 7.5 |
| Thumbnail Average | ||
| Doorbell Average | ||
| Text-only Average | ||
| Thumbnail Effectiveness | 9.7 | 6.9 |
| Day Success | ||
| Night Success | ||
| Missed Events | 10.0 | 9.3 |
| Day Misses | ||
| Night Misses | ||
| Camera Wake Delay | 9.1 | 8.1 |
| Frame Remaining Day | ||
| Frame Remaining Night | ||
| Event Capture | 5.4 | 5.8 |
| Record Start Day | ||
| Record Start Night | ||
| Package Monitoring | 4.3 | 5.6 |
| Package Features | ||
| Detection Success | ||
| Smart Detection | 7.0 | 6.9 |
| Smart Features | ||
| Day Accuracy | ||
| Night Accuracy | ||
| Live View Response | 8.5 | 8.6 |
| Live View Time | ||
| Doorbell Ring Response | ||
| Privacy Features | 10.0 | 8.2 |
| App Usability | 9.3 | 7.8 |
| Battery Performance | 6.6 | 7.9 |
| After 30 days | ||
| Time To Dead |
The Basics
Tech Specs
Power: Wired or BatteryRemovable Battery: No
Can Use Wired Chime: Yes
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 2.5GHz
Resolution: 1080p
Storage: Cloud
Weather Rating: IP65
Field of View: 155 degrees
Compatibility: Alexa
Smart Detection: Yes
Footprint (WxH): 62mm x 126mm
Notable Features:
- Color night vision
- Noise cancellation
- Quick voice responses
- AC or DC power
The Ring Video Doorbell (2nd Gen) comes in the now classic Ring doorbell look, with the older 1080p camera offering a 16:9 aspect ratio and a secure wall mount help in place by two Torx screws through the bottom of the unit.
Unlike newer Ring designs, this model cuts costs by sticking with the older in-built battery design. This means the lifetime of the doorbell is limited by how long the battery will hold charge. In my experience this is still upwards of 4 years. Charging requires the doorbell to be removed from the mount and taken indoors to plug into the provided micro USB cable.
Smart features are limited to cutsom motion zones and person detection. Other objects types are not supported, but the person detection works extremely well. These two features combined makes it fairly easy to zero in on the events that matter and cut out the noise.
Video Storage
Ring cloud only. A small monthly subscription is required for most features, including any recording at all.
Chime Options
Most wired doorbell chimes are supported, and the doorbell can auto-detect the correct settings to use.
An optional Ring chime device can be purchased for wireless installations.
Alexa smart displays and speakers can be configured to announce motion and doorbell events.
Camera Performance
I expected the 1080p camera to be a throwback to older Ring doorbell models, but it appears to have benefited from some upgrades in the 2nd Generation device, delivering a test result almost as good as the Video Doorbell Plus above it. The test chart could be read clearly out to 6.2m (20ft), but there were notably more compression artifacts than observed on the more expensive Plus model. These weren’t particularly prevalent watching the video normally, but when zoomed in there was significant cyclical shifting and blocky-ness.
Otherwise, I found the video was smooth and did not suffer from any break-ups or distortion, and the color saturation was good overall.
The brightness of the infra-red LEDs was surprisingly good and delivered a visible range well beyond the more expensive Plus model at 5.1m (17ft). This is the best recorded result of the Ring doorbells I’ve tested so far but falls a little short of the average of 5.6m from other brands.
That said, the brightness of the image is excellent, and the lower score is more a factor of video quality than visible distance. The same video artifacts were present here as in the day test, which certainly impacted how well the test chart could be read.
Dynamic range is where I found more compromise with the cheaper camera. Only 5 swatches on the OECF 36 chart could be clearly defined. This is the lowest score in this test I’ve had so far, and you can also see some glare and over saturation bleeding in from the backlit scene. I also experienced this glare on overcast days when approaching the camera at close range, which washes out the shaded details a little more.
Audio Performance
I found no compromises of significance in the audio implementation. Ring’s streaming and noise cancellation tech works brilliantly here and delivers the same awesome sound pickup and quality as other Ring models. The indoor participant could clearly make out normal speech volume from the outside out to 7m (22ft), and the outside participant had no problems understanding the voice from the doorbell speaker at 8m (26ft).
While this is a little less than it’s more expensive stable mates, this is still and excellent above average audibility result. Combined with the clarity and lack of any distortion or break-up in the audio stream and we have a very good two-way talk experience. Ring hasn’t skimped on microphone and speaker hardware at all here.
Following on from the two-way talk results I had the same excellent audio quality free from any artifacts or breakups in the recorded video clips. This achieved a perfect score for Ring in this category and is on par with other Ring doorbell models in this respect.
Notification Performance
Notification performance is very important for both the doorbell function, and as a security monitoring device. In my experience a 3 second delay is best-in-class and the scoring for this category is based on that as a baseline. The Ring Video Doorbell exceeded this expectation in my tests with an impressive 2.6 second average.
Delivery times for notifications with and without thumbnails were fairly consistent, with a single outlier at 7.9 seconds recorded. The variance otherwise was only +/- 1.4 seconds.
Rich notifications with thumbnails were very fast, and almost achieved a perfect score by themselves, and doorbell notifications were even faster, averaging only 1.06 seconds to be delivered to my phone afteer the button was pressed. You won’t be leaving anyone waiting for a response with these speeds.
Usable thumbnails are an important tool for vetting notifications and deciding if you have to waste time opening the app or not. A Usable thumbnail is considered one that clearly shows the source of the notification in the image capture. This is often brought down in my lateral detection tests as the camera wake up time can be slow and miss the trigger.
Ring doesn’t suffer from this issue, though, as the use of a wide-angle lens ensures that motion is detected early and the camera is recording in plenty of time. This means I only missed a useable thumbnail in one crossing test, resulting in a 96% success rate. This was also the same day I had an anomalous 7+ second notification delay, so there was likely some internet disruption at play.
Motion Detection Performance
Ring achieved a perfect score again with motion detection. All of my movement anywhere in the doorbell’s view was correctly detected both day and night. A total of 69 motion detection tests were conducted with no misses over the 30-day test window.
This test determines how quickly the camera can wake up and start recording an event. To do this I pass across the cameras view at close range and record how much of the visible frame is left when the camera begins recording.
Ring doorbells always do well in this test due to the use of a very wide-angle lens. This allows motion to be detected early and gives extra time for the camera to start before I’m very far into the frame. Nonetheless, Ring demonstrates a consistently fast wake up process even on battery power, with the very good average remaining frame of 11.6cm out of a total of 12.6cm available. That’s means the doorbell was able to capture me moving across 91.5% of the frame on average.
There was some variability here, with a single low outlier of 8.7cm, and a few in the 10cm range which brought the average down a little. Performance was slightly better at night and in the morning when I was lit from the front. Back lit attempts in the afternoon yielded a slightly lower average of 11.1cm which was more consistent. That’s still an excellent result however and doesn’t raise any concerns with me.
This test is most important when considering the usefulness of a doorbell for security monitoring purposes as it measures the distance at which motion begins recording in front of the doorbell. The maximum distance I was able to get the camera to record at all was 6.2m (20ft). This is a respectable figure, but unfortunately did not reflect the typical experience in actual use.
Morning and afternoon scores were fairly similar range from 0.9m to 4m at best. The lowest score was a clear outlier, with the daytime average coming in at a fairly consistent 3.5m overall. Nighttime tests performed slightly better, with an average of 4.9m, and it was here I was able to see some attempts close to the maximum detection range.
The overall average of 3.8m puts the Video Doorbell 2nd Gen at the lower end of the scale on this score, and significantly worse than the more expensive Ring models. This would not be the best option for wider video surveillance of the front yard, but is more than adequate for effectively capturing and greeting visitors and deliveries.
Smart Detection Performance
The effectiveness of the doorbell at keeping an eye on your packages is one area where Ring has consistently struggled in my previous tests, and this model proved no different. The 2nd Gen Video Doorbell actually performed slightly better at recognizing packages than other tested models, achieving a 65% success rate, but was significantly constrained by the 16:9 aspect ratio of the camera.
The landscape view gives very limited visibility of the floor area in front of the doorbell in a typical install scenario. Ring does offer a vertical wedge kit to points the doorbell downwards, but this is not ideal as it tends to cut off the top half of people standing in front of the door.
Without this, packages can only be seen if dropped about 1.5m (4-5ft) out from the door, which seems unlikely. Mounting the doorbell to the side or in a corner can help provide better floor coverage, but this would depend on your porch layout.
Ring’s detection algorithm sits in the upper third of tested scores, so it’s not terrible, but it is prone to variations in lighting and package appearance, so it’s not something you could rely on to notify you of deliveries. These lighting variations account for most of the misses, which were spread evenly between the high contrast and low contrast sample packages.
Feature scoring:
✘ Visibility of the test package directly below doorbell.
✘ Visibility of porch area in front of the doorbell.
✘ More than 30 degrees off center visibility to the side.
✔ Presence of active package alerting feature.
✘ Presence of additional package alerts
Motion zones and Smart Alerts provide control over notifications
Smart Alerts can control what to record or notify about
Separate sensitivity controls for package detection
Outside of package detection, Ring has the more common person (or human) detection feature. This is provided on most video doorbells now but varies considerably in effectiveness. It’s an important feature for eliminating unwanted motion notifications as it provides a direct filter for what to alert you about. Ring allows you to configure the system to still record everything, but only tell you if a person is detected, which is ideal as you won’t miss any events that didn’t detect someone correctly.
That’s not an issue here, though, as the Ring Video Doorbell absolutely nailed this implementation with a perfect 100% person detection success. In addition to correctly detecting me in every case, there were no false positives from moving bushes or animals which were definitely present during the test window. Day and night results were equally successful.
What brings the score for this category down a little is the lack of any other smart detection options. This does inhibit the control you have over exactly what to report. For example, I like to have vehicle detection for my driveway so I know if someone has arrived, or the mailman has been. Person detection alone may not trigger right away (or at all if they don’t get out of the vehicle).
Feature scoring:
✔ Custom motion zones.
✔ Person detection.
✘ Animal Detection.
✘ Vehicle Detection.
✘ Facial Recognition.
Battery Performance
Given that I run the tests with maximum motion sensitivity and hammer the motion events to cover all the test scenarios, Ring’s 63% reported battery level after 30 days is decent. It’s not the highest I’ve had by it bodes well for more normal use cases. It’s also the case that Ring’s battery reporting tends to be more accurate over the longer term.
Some doorbells will report a very good charge at 30 days but then drop off rapidly shortly afterwards. Ring’s reported state of charge tends to be a more reliable estimate and depletes more consistently. We see that in the Time Till Dead result (TTD).
App Experience
The time to start a live stream from the camera is an important aspect when it comes to responding to notifications. You want to be able to get the live view up and running quickly so you can see what’s going on and respond in time to make a difference, whether it’s unwanted activity or a guest.
Ring performs well in this category with a consistently fast response time. The average start time was only 3.3 seconds, with a variance of only +/-0.8 seconds. When responding to a doorbell press notification, the time is faster as the camera is already awake, coming in at an impressive 1.9 second average. You won’t be leaving anyone hanging with that performance.
Ring has had more than their fair share of bad press over the years when it comes to privacy and security. In my analysis, the privacy concerns have had some merit, but in terms of security design Ring has been one of the better connected device makers from the beginning.
Ring has always supported automatic firmware updates, and made use of this to address issues as they have arisen, they’ve also had effective encryption on video streams from their inception. There’s have been a handful of design flaws over the years, but those have been addressed promptly. Most media reports of ‘hacks’ have been down to poor password discipline in the part of users. Even there Ring has stepped up and added mandatory two-factor authentication to prevent this, one of very few in the industry to do so.
The Ring app has also undergone significant feature additions in recent years to provide much better privacy control to their customers. Robust device-level sharing between accounts, with clear visibility of what is shared with whom and what devices have access to your account, including the ability to cut those off thanks to the use of device level authentication tokens.
End-to end encryption is also now provided, but this is a somewhat kludgy implementation at the moment as it comes with significant restrictions on other features. Still, Ring is again one of the few to offer this level of security at all.
The Ring app is a very mature offering, with a clean design and easy navigation thanks to thoughtfully placed feature groupings, and crosslinking features between different sections where it makes sense. Extensive use of diagrams, explanatory text, and animations for new features make it easy to discover and start using things, even if they are unique to Ring.
New feature additions are prominently announced in the user interface with more explanatory diagrams and links to further information. This is done really well, allowing you to activate the new feature right from the announcement if you choose, or defer it for another time. Useful diagnostic tools are provided to troubleshoot connectivity problems, and recommendations are present in various screens to help optimize both motion detection and power use.
Accessing recorded videos is a uniquely pleasant experience thanks to Ring’s Timeline View. This is, in my opinion, the best implementation of video playback in any camera app on the market. The clips are presented in a continuous timeline clearly showing time of day and date. You can seamlessly scroll through the timeline scrubbing through all the clips in real time. This is absolutely smooth and intuitive, and it’s especially impressive given all the video data is cloud based.
Filters are available to zero in on specific event types like Person, Package or Doorbell events, and you can easily jump to specific dates as well. When viewing a clip, you have options to share and download the video to your device. Live view has additional options to activate two-way talk, and control any other Ring devices you have, such as lights, right from the video screen.
Device options are grouped in one place
Recommendations are provided in relevant sections
Event filtering is easy and intuitive
Smart Home Features
As Ring is owned by Amazon, tight linking between Alexa and Ring is the primary smart home integration on offer. Some third-party platforms provide their own integration, such as Athom Homey, and Home Assistant. The integration is limited to accessing the live view and receiving alerts in their apps and on smart speakers.
Extra Features
Quick Replies allow you to play a variety of canned voice messages provided by Ring. Things like “Hi! We’ll be right there.” or “Sorry, We’re not interested.” are always available, plus there are subsets for asking someone to leave a message and for seasonal variations like Summer, Holidays, Easter and so forth.
Smart Responses are similar but can be automated to respond to motion events to ask visitors to leave a message. Seasonal variations are available here as well.
Color Nightvision blends the normal infra-red night vision with low light color video where parts of the image have sufficient ambient light. This can make it easier to make out what is going on but can result in less effective night vision range depending on the lighting at the time. You can see me testing this with the Battery Doorbell Plus.
Alternatives
Package Security
Eufy E340
7.8 Overall Score
A dual camera design from major player Eufy Security provides far superior package security thanks to a dedicated package monitoring camera, built-in LED porch lighting, and the Delivery Guard feature. Delivery Guard not only detects packages and alerts you, but actively monitors them for interference and reminds you to collect them if you forget for too long.
Smart Integration
Aqara G4
7.5 Overall Score
The G4 from smart home brand Aqara provides a wider variety of smart home integrations with Alexa, Google, and full HomeKit Secure Video support. You can use wired power, or regular AA batteries for surprisingly long life, and all without a subscription.
Security Monitoring
Ring Battery Doorbell Plus
8.1 Overall Score
Ring's more expensive battery doorbell plus has similar video and audio performance, but with considerably better motion detection allowing for earlier triggering of recording at longer distances. It also benefits from slightly better audio hardware allowing for audio pickup and communication further out from the doorbell.
Common Questions
Is Ring secure?
While Ring has had some valid criticism over its relationship with law enforcement, from a security design perspective Ring has delivered best practice and a robust security solution for many years. It’s always a good idea to be skeptical of cloud-based cameras when used inside of your home, however.
Does the Ring Video Doorbell need a subscription?
While you can technically use a Ring doorbell without a subscription, you are limited to only live view and basic notifications. All other features will be unavailable. As the subscription is only a few dollars a month it’s worth having to make the most of your upfront investment. Learn More.
Who Owns Ring?
Ring was acquired by Amazon in 2018 for around $1 billion. It remains an independent company, but it has resulted in a largely exclusive smart home arrangement with Alexa to the exclusion of other platforms.
See my video doorbell guides to learn more about other models, features, and options.
