What do I need to think about with ring doorbell??

[FusionChefGeoff]

Been meaning to get one for ages mainly for the security deterrence rather than anything else.

Amazon have a great offer on the battery version, allegedly no subscription required which I’d prefer.

Anything I need to know about the subscription is it worth it? Is just a bog standard doorbell worth it or is there any argument for getting something more involved / expensive??

What did you wish you knew before you bought yours??

Love my ring doorbell and being able to see who is at the door before I answer it - mainly as I live alone. I also love being able to talk to deliver people etc ...

You can set up a monthly subscription, which means you can look back at footage taken. I do this, and I think I pay £5 a month. If something was to happen to my property, or I was burgled, I think it's important to be able to replay old footage, not just view in real time.

I have one but don’t want to give Amazon even more money every month! I don’t know why you can’t store limited videos on your phone (except for them to make more money)

otherwise I like it, although there’s a delay for the bell to ring (3 secs)and it doesn’t connect easily to my echo

I have ring it keeps footage to look back on and has excellent night vision. Also read the reviews about how long batteries last. I had a non camera battery doorbell once and it just ate the batteries. I got my ring doorbell hardwired then I just don't need to think about it or do anything

Are you an anxious person?

My friend had one so she knew when stuff was being delivered - but got rid of it recently as every alert made her spiral deeper... an amazon delivery, a fox, a postman, someone getting out of a car by her gate,

every single alert you could see her twitch, go for her phone, was never anything, she got rid of it, got deliveries to the post office locker (literally) round the corner and her mental state lifted.

Be aware that they can induce or deepen anxiety, which is kind of opposite to their intended function.

But I just set the boundaries so it doesn't show me someone getting out of their car across the road - just someone approaching my front door.

Not anxious at all generally so won’t care about the notifications it’s so any wrong uns think twice about burglaring us! It’s rechargeable I think rather than actual batteries but Ill check.

Assumed it would store limited footage without the subscription - that is annoying.

Wonder if there’s something that will do the deterrent without the monthly commitment.

Yes, would absolutely agree with this. The £5 non-premium monthly subscription is worth it so that you are able to look back at all recordings (I think 28 days but I’d have to look to see if that’s correct) and not only at live notifications. It also give you the ability to download any of the videos to keep on your device/cloud etc, that in itself is worth it to me, especially if you need evidence for something. Without the sub you can see that you’ve got notifications but you can’t then go back and view them after the fact.

When I replaced my (rechargeable) battery ring for a new one after the first started needing charging more frequently, I switched the sub over to the new one (you can add extras, I just didn’t want to do so at the time), so that I could leave the older one outside, on a low container outside my door as a “wildlife” camera - mostly hedgehogs, but one local cat in particular was always fun to watch the cheeky stuff he got into 😁 - and as that one was no longer subbed I couldn’t look back at the footage of the animals but could obviously if started watching in real time. Sometimes I’d just sit and watch the hogs through it for ages! And if there was more than one you knew it was only a matter of time before hi jinx and bad behaviour would ensue so I’d often screen record those as they could be really funny, or frankly unbelievable and you’d not actually believe it had you not seen it with your own eyes! 😂

Anyway, sooo totally off topic, sorry! But all that to say that if you don’t sub you’ll have the same experience as I do when I use my old one for Hog Watch. Also bear in mind that sometimes, by the time you grab your device and open up the preview and then app you may well have missed somebody, say quickly grabbing a parcel off your door step, and without the sub you may not be able to see him, and you certainly wouldn’t be able to download and keep that footage if you needed it for police or whatever reason. Definitely worth it, cheap for peace of mind.

Incidentally, Amazon apparently have some kind of prime event 6th-7th so you may get a good price then so maybe hold off for a couple of days, or at least track prices for the next few days.

The prime event is what prompted my thread they’re super cheap at the moment! It’s the classic oh it’s only a fiver a month but add that to all the other ‘just a fiver’ subscriptions we’re slowly collecting for things I never needed in the past…

Look at eufy. It’s great. Does everything the ring door bell does and no subscription required you just need and SD card and can view footage that’s stored.
easy to install and great picture quality as well.

You can turn the movement notifications off so it only tells you if someone has rung your doorbell. If you've recorded footage (which I do mostly to stalk DH and the neighbours and check if the cat feeder has been to feed the cats) you can look back at that later. I love mine. DH still has no idea how to use it.

Eufy here too, as a Ring (which stopped working) replacement. Picture quality just as good, no subscription and data stored on an SD card

Yeah - it won’t store any footage at all without the subscription. We have one and don’t mind about that as we really just got it for the handiness of being able to have it ring on our phones and us answer from outside the house and see who’s there.

I always hear on these threads that eufy includes the footage recorded without subscription so probably a good one to look at.

Apart from all the obvious advantages of being able t see who is at the door and decide whether or not to open to them is the fact that the ring door bell opens an app on your phone or other device. So the caller does not know whether you are on your phone, tablet, computer or whatever. If you get an inconvenient caller and answer by mistake you can always duck out of contact by saying "look I'm on the app and not in at the moment and your breaking up ..."

When you answer someone on a mobile (or what appears to be a mobile) you can claim to be anywhere in the country.

Go for Eufy instead. No subscription and really good and easy to use

Ring is fabulous. The app is so user friendly .
I have the doorbell and multiple Ring security cameras and the Ring home alarm .
i can see around my whole house and gardens all in the app.
subscription for it all is about £80 ish per year