I tested Ring's cheapest doorbell. It's a great bargain, but there's a catch

Price When Reviewed

$59.99

Best Prices Today: Ring Battery Doorbell (2024 launch)

$59.99

$59.99

$59.99

$59.99

Ring presents among the finest sensible dwelling safety ecosystems in the marketplace, encompassing every thing from safety cameras and video doorbells to indoor and out of doors lighting, sensors, and professionally monitored dwelling safety techniques. The versatile Ring Battery Doorbell, launched late final 12 months, makes for an ideal introduction to that ecosystem.

But that advice comes with a caveat: You’ll want to join a Ring Home subscription if you wish to unlock all this product’s options—and that features the flexibility to file video. Without one, you’ll obtain notifications when somebody rings your doorbell, however you’ll solely be capable to get a dwell view of what’s occurring in entrance of its digicam.

I’m going to imagine you recognize that already, so I’ll clarify how a lot these subscriptions value and what they embody till later. First, let’s focus on the Ring Battery Doorbell’s options and efficiency.

Specifications

• Dimensions: 4.98 x 2.44 x 0.91 inches (HxWxD) (6.19 x 2.30 x 12.65 cm)
• Build supplies: Primarily plastic
• Camera decision: 1440 x 1440 pixels (1:1 facet ratio)
• Camera area of view: 150 levels horizontal x 150 levels vertical
• Color evening imaginative and prescient
• Audio: 2-way, with noise cancellation
• Wi-Fi: 2.4GHz solely
• Operating situations: -4 levels Fahrenheit to 122F (-20 to 50 levels C)
• Power choices: Non-removable rechargeable battery, or a standard doorbell transformer and low-voltage wiring (8-24 VAC, 40VA max, 50/60Hz)

Design and have set

Michael Brown/Foundry

Ring’s least costly video doorbell replaces the Ring Video Doorbell (2^nd Generation) we reviewed in September 2020. It carries a urged retail value of $99.99, nevertheless it was discounted to only $59.99 on the time of this overview. That low road value places it within the realm of many bargain-priced doorbells with far fewer options. That mentioned, you’ll nonetheless want to just accept some compromises. Chief amongst these is the truth that you’ll must take away the doorbell from its mount to cost its battery—if, that’s, you’re working it on battery energy.

Unlike some battery-powered door-priced doorbells, you may decide to attach the Ring Doorbell Battery to a standard doorbell transformer utilizing low-voltage wiring (8-24 volts AC, 40VA max, 50/60Hz). Power it that manner, and its onboard battery will mechanically kick in ought to your private home expertise an influence outage. I went with the battery choice and located the doorbell exceedingly straightforward to put in and configure. The Ring app steps you thru the complete course of and gives useful suggestions alongside the best way. Be conscious that if you could offset the doorbell’s viewing angle with a wedge due to your private home’s siding, you’ll must buy that accent individually.

This overview is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the best video doorbells.

The doorbell measures 4.98 x 2.44 x 0.91 inches (HxWxD), dimensions which are typically unremarkable aside from the gap it stands proud out of your wall. It’s obtainable in your alternative of two colours: satin nickel or Venetian bronze, however don’t let these metallic descriptions idiot you, the system is sort of fully fabricated from plastic—as these of its ilk are typically.

Michael Brown/Foundry

The Ring Battery Doorbell’s face is dominated by a microphone and digicam lens above a doorbell button, the latter of which is surrounded by an LED mild ring that glows blue and spins when a customer pushes the button. A chime contained in the doorbell can even sound, however within the absence of different Ring or Amazon merchandise, the one place you’ll get a notification is in your smartphone.

Enable Ring’s Doorbell Calls characteristic (subscription required) and the doorbell will name your smartphone so you may see and communicate along with your customer. Or when you’d moderately, enabling Ring’s Smart Reponses characteristic could have the doorbell mechanically play a pre-recorded message when somebody presses the doorbell button. This choice, which additionally requires a subscription, additionally permits your customer to depart their very own message for you.

Michael Brown/Foundry

You should buy a Ring Chime ($35) that you just’ll plug into an AC outlet inside your private home, and that system can even pontificate when the doorbell detects movement or somebody rings its bell. The step-up Ring Chime Pro ($60) provides an onboard nightlight and a dual-band Wi-Fi vary extender to the combo. Note that many budget-priced video doorbells embody the sort of accent within the value of the doorbell itself.

If you have got a number of Amazon Echo sensible audio system or shows in your house, these units are much more helpful than both Chime mannequin. They’ll make the identical bulletins, and Amazon Show sensible shows will mechanically swap to a view from the digicam to indicate your customer. Should you select, you may provoke a dialog with that particular person utilizing both an Echo Show or your smartphone (with the latter providing that profit even when you’re away from dwelling).

Michael Brown/Foundry

While you may combine the Ring Battery Doorbell into an IFTTT setup, it’s not appropriate with Google Home, and it may possibly’t be built-in into the Apple Home ecosystem, both.

You can add as much as three irregularly formed movement detection zones, and the doorbell will ignore movement that happens exterior these zones. You can use these zones to forestall swaying bushes or shrubs in view of the doorbell digicam from triggering undesirable movement alerts or recordings. You can even add as much as two sq. or rectangular privateness zones to dam the digicam from streaming or recording video. This is beneficial for guaranteeing your neighbor’s privateness by blocking views of their doorways, home windows, gates, or walkways.  

Ring Battery Doorbell efficiency

Michael Brown/Foundry

Videos are captured with a 1:1 facet ratio at a good decision of 1440 x 1440 pixels. The digicam’s 150-degree horizontal by 150-degree vertical area of view gives head-to-toe views of your guests. There may be very little barrel distortion in dwell and recorded video, and it is best to be capable to see packages left at the doorstep—offered you put in the system on the really useful distance of 4-feet above the floor of your porch. If you need notifications of packages left at your door, you’ll want certainly one of Ring’s subscriptions.

Black-and-white infrared evening imaginative and prescient can also be wonderful, however full-color evening imaginative and prescient—which have to be enabled int the app—was a bit washed out. You’ll get higher outcomes with the help of out of doors lighting, resembling from a porch mild. And this is without doubt one of the areas the place Ring’s complete ecosystem delivers a major profit. I mounted the Battery Doorbell subsequent to the door resulting in my yard deck, the place I’d beforehand put in a wired Ring Floodlight. The movement detector on that system senses anybody developing the steps to the deck and turns its lights on before the doorbell does, so the doorbell’s digicam is ready to catch anybody approaching in full colour.

And when you’ve got different Ring units deployed round your private home, you may hyperlink all of them collectively and program them to set off one another in keeping with their capabilities: Other cameras can file, different lights can activate, and so forth, irrespective of the place they’re bodily put in. By the identical token, you may program different Ring units to set off this doorbell digicam to file even when it doesn’t sense movement. As such, you may get a whole view of every thing occurring in and round your private home when you’ve got sufficient Ring cameras and lighting units up and working.

Michael Brown/Foundry

Ring isn’t the one producer to supply each safety cameras and sensible lighting—Anker’s Eufy Security is without doubt one of the corporations seeking to shut that hole—however Eufy doesn’t but have a whole-home safety system to compete with the Ring Alarm or Ring Alarm Pro techniques that provide the choice {of professional} monitoring. Speaking of which, you may retailer video recordings domestically when you plug a microSD card right into a Ring Alarm Pro system, however that also requires a subscription. Unlike another video doorbells, the Ring Battery Doorbell doesn’t have its personal microSD card slot for native storage.

Needing to dismount the complete doorbell to recharge its battery is a little bit of a drag—the USB-C port for that is on the again of the doorbell—and also you gained’t wish to lose monitor of the plastic device Ring gives for that function. On the intense facet, the battery ought to final for a number of months between costs, and the Ring app gives loads of advance discover when it does.

About these Ring Home subscriptions

Ring retooled its subscription service plans in October 2024, leading to vital value will increase for a lot of of its prospects who needed to maintain the identical basket of providers. As earlier than, Ring presents three tiers of service, however including skilled monitoring that has people monitor your Ring safety system and dispatch first responders within the occasion of a break-in, hearth, or medical emergency now entails an add-on price of $9.99 per 30 days.

Michael Brown/Foundry

Ring Home Basic prices $5/month ($50/12 months), and it’s all you could get particular person and package deal alerts together with video recordings and cloud storage in your Ring Battery Doorbell, nevertheless it covers solely one Ring video doorbell or digicam, and it doesn’t embody the Doorbell Calls characteristic. To get that, or when you’ve got multiple system and also you wish to unlock the total characteristic set on all of them, you’ll must step to a minimum of a Ring Home Standard plan. This tier prices $10/month ($100/12 months) and it covers as many Ring video doorbells and Ring safety cameras as you personal. It additionally unlocks the Doorbell Calls characteristic and allows backup broadband service for Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Pro techniques.

If you personal a Ring Alarm or Ring Alarm Pro system, you’ll need to join a Ring Home Premium subscription at $20/month ($200/12 months). This service contains all of the options within the two decrease tiers, and it provides a 24/7 recording feature for a short list of wired Ring security cameras, AI-powered Smart Video Search, and SOS Emergency Response that allows you to summon rapid police, hearth, or medical help to your location by pushing a button within the Ring app.

As I’ve already talked about, skilled monitoring for a Ring Alarm or Ring Alarm Pro now prices $10 per 30 days along with any of the opposite three subscription tiers.

Should you purchase a Ring Battery Doorbell?

The Ring Battery Doorbell is an above-average entry-level dwelling safety system and a great first step into the Ring dwelling safety ecosystem. But it relies on a subscription to unlock all its options. If you’re already paying for one, it’s an ideal alternative for a less-frequently used entry level, resembling a facet or again door. For your entrance door, you must also have a look the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus (road priced at $150), which delivers increased video decision, a detachable battery, and different options.

If you’re buying in your first video doorbell and also you don’t wish to be tied to a subscription, there are many different battery-powered choices, beginning with the Blink Video Doorbell (street-priced at simply $35, together with the Blink Sync Module 2 required for native storage and dwell streaming on demand), or as a step-up, the Tapo D225 Video Doorbell (road priced at $80).