BreezyTL

iTrader: (8)

Does anyone have one of these? Thoughts/Reviews? I had to remove my door bell to mount my storm door and I have yet to put the doorbell back on. We would like to have one again and am thinking about a video one (Nest Hello or Ring) Any insight from you gurus would be great.

svtmike

kurtatx

I have Ring. It's pretty great. It's easy to set up and install, too.

The only thing that's a little weird is, while the power to your doorbell can recharge your battery, the battery will still occasionally drain in extreme temperatures. So, in the middle of the summer I'll get a "you have low battery" warning. Instead of charging the battery, though, I just ignored it and it charged over a couple of days.

Whiskers

I have it, Its good

BreezyTL

iTrader: (8)

The Nest Hello? What do you like about it?

svtmike

SamDoe1

I believe the Nest requires the power from the chime. Ring can work on battery alone. I'm probably going to get the Nest just because the rest of my house runs on Google products and since Amazon bought Ring, that relationship will not go over well.

Flipster23

iTrader: (15)

I have Ring. It's ok, I was able to snag it for free, if I had to pay the regular price for it, I think I would be upset. In addition, we have crappy internet in my area I get a lag from 2-6 seconds but that's not the devices fault.

kurtatx

Ring does not require a doorbell mechanism. You can just mount it in front of your house. Then, when someone comes up to your house your phone will make a chime noise and give you a live picture. Ring also sells a chime if you need it. Be warned, though: the battery takes a long time (like overnight to charge) . That being said, the battery should last like 3-6 months with normal usage.

04WDPSeDaN

iTrader: (1)

Our home has a surveillance system with a hard wired alarm system. I recently purchased and install the Ring Alarm system. In my package I have 2x keypads, 30x window / door sensors , the basic alarm kit, 4x motion sensors, 2 exterior flood light w/cameras, 1x door bell and an amazon wifi extender. The system was pretty easy to setup and install. I had a little bit of an issue with adding things or configuring stuff on the app. Once in a while it says reconnecting to base station and that it's running off of cellular power. Customer service says this is normal.. I'm waiting for the interior cameras to come so I can finish the system. Overall, I would say it was worth the money. It can get annoying on the app end because any movement is picked up and is sent to your phone "MOTION DETECTED" blah blah.. Neat thing, I can control everything right from my cell phone. I can see what sensor is tripped, where there's motion in the house ect. I do have two animals (Dog and a cat) the system is aware of "Pets" so it doesn't pick them up as movement, not too sure if it just disables the motion sensor "Shrugs". I did do a lot of research on the other similar systems, but felt more comfortable with Ring. Another neat thing on the app, it alerts you on anything crime related in or near your area. Today, a few blocks away from our home, someone had their vehicles vandalized and it was picked up by his ring system. He posted it on the app so others can see. I upgraded one exterior camera to a high def, motion detect, zoom camera. Unfortunately, there's been some crap happening in my town and it seems like the Police Department are lazy to do anything. I didn't want to chance anything which is why I invested to protect my property and family.

Flipster23

iTrader: (15)

Thanks for that Gus, I'm thinking about getting their alarm. Tired of paying for ADT. I know I will need to upgrade my internet though because I have a ton of stuff on connected to wifi in my house.

kurtatx

Me, too. I'm tired of ADT.

Flipster23

iTrader: (15)

I called ADT and told them I was leaving, they cut my bill in half for 6 months. I'm still going to switch though.

kurtatx

I look at how much a ring system would cost versus how much ADT costs per month and it pays for itself pretty damn quickly

thoiboi

Sounds like just a weak transformer issue. You can always upgrade it on the other end.

04WDPSeDaN

iTrader: (1)

Anytime brotha! Sad world we live in today. To protect your family and property is priority number 1. I would highly suggest a wifi extender. This is the one I purchased from Amazon and it bridges the gap between my router to the base station to all the devices the base station connects to. Also, incredibly easy to sync with the router.

If it doesn't load, its call VICTONY WiFi Range Extender 1200Mbps WiFi Signal Booster with Hign Performace External Antennas WiFi Extender for 2.4G and 5G Frequency

thoiboi

Ring has a wifi extender / chime module as well

https://smile.amazon.com/Ring-Indoor...-no-redirect=1


I use it to extend wifi for the door bell. i THINK it should work with their security system as well?

04WDPSeDaN

iTrader: (1)

My Ring setup came with the same items.. however, for my size home, it barely picked up the exterior flood lights because the wifi wasn't strong. I have Verizon Fios with a powerful router, but it wasn't strong enough. I needed to order the wifi extender which works great now. Each exterior food light is running at RSSI-46 vs the 71-74 range. The higher the number = less likely for the device to function correctly and stay connected.

kurtatx

I'm not sure. It only happened when the temp was over 100 for long periods of time with high activity.

SamDoe1

Please note that while the outside lights and cameras run on wifi, the alarm components run on Z-Wave which is completely different and the router you have will be irrelevant to the operation of those devices. If your router can reach the base station, you are doing all you can. Z Wave devices are chain based so provided there's another device with a connection within range of any other device, the range is theoretically infinite. Well at least until you reach the max devices on a network that is.

Flipster23

iTrader: (15)

I even have a WiFi extender and still get the lag.

thoiboi

Sounds like the solution is to move to a smaller house
Yeah so it can mean that the transformer is outputting enough amperage to charge the battery quicker than you're depleting it. Or the capacity of your battery is not what it used to be

Just do nothing
Move to a better neighborhood. The Chime Pro works perfectly for me. Much better than before.

Flipster23

iTrader: (15)

I live in one of the best areas in my city.

Maybe I need to move to a worse neighborhood.

thoiboi

In other words, it's all relative

Sarlacc

I have the Ring Pro which requires power. The regular Ring (I got my MIL one) can run off battery or power. For battery, if your door faces sunlight, there is a solar charger available.

stogie1020

With the Ring app, can you have different devices all receiving the live feed and notifications at the same time?

I want to get this, and want to probably put a "living room" tablet on the coffee table with the app but have my phone set up with it too, for when I am not at home.

How easy is ot to control which device gets the alerts and when? Can you set up schedules that control which device will get the alert?

04WDPSeDaN

iTrader: (1)

Only speaking for myself, I have the flood lights set to maximum sensitivity to motion (Because some fucking scumbag broke into my wife's car), so I get notifications from the app frequently. You can do a live view per device, not sure you can do a live view for all devices that have a camera at once. With my hardwired surveillance system, I can see all the cameras running at once. Ring stores "Events" I don't know how far back it can storage an even since i've only had this installed two weeks ago. Waiting for the interior RING cameras to come so I can add them to the system and i'm sure it works the same with the rest of the system. Not sure If I want to be notified on movement while we are inside the house. In the app, if you go into the base station, it shows all the devices connected to the base station. I have each unit marked. So for example, it will say Basement window 1 (Closed) , if I left it open by mistake it will read (Open). All devices show the battery life. You can adjust the settings on almost all the devices. The system can still be armed if you left a window open, it will just bypass that sensor.

Here's the biggest difference from my hardwired system. My hardwired system has a massive DVR box which records and stores live feed for a little over 4 months. I can control everything from my phone like I can with ring. The difference is, ring picks up movement and notifies you, my system doesn't do this. I did get a new IR speed dome camera from Hikvision to zoom and record all movement in my driveway. The biggest issue I have is my driveway. I have a long driveway and my house sits far from the street. RING and my security cameras don't have a clear vision of anyone entering my property from the street. Each system has their pros and cons, RING is great for what it is. I'm still learning things along the way. Customer service has been outstanding with helping understanding or setting up stuff.

Sarlacc

You can do all that...but I dont think you can view all of them at once. I have my ring, my mil's ring, and my parent's ring on my app, along with the floodlight camera I installed at my MIL's...I can view one at a time.

Dan

So with a DB camera I can be at work and watch the lowlife take my Amazon package?

Sarlacc

Sarlacc

Flipster23

iTrader: (15)

stogie1020

Sorry, maybe I asked my question backwards. Can I have the live feed from the doorbell (say, when someone rings the doorbell) showing on more than one cell phone/tablet at the same time? One camera feed, multiple monitors?

Flipster23

iTrader: (15)

wackjum

I just pulled up the live feed on the Nest Hello on two phones and an Echo Show at the same time. But each time, it was taking longer and longer to get the feed.

But I am not the best person to test this out because I have a Nest Hello (I like Nest products, have been using thermo for years) but then my smart home integration is with Amazon Echo. If I had Google Home instead for example, I could send the Hello's feed to any Chromecasted TV.

Doom878

Can we rename this to the doorbell thread. I just got a Ring 2 and an extender with that Costco deal of a free year of DVR. The DVR feature is nice especially if you have crappy 25mb U-Verse internet as it's slow to load the video. My porch is like 4 steps up but luckily it comes with a 5 degree vertical mount to point it down as well as a sideways "corner" mount which you can stack together. The corner mount helped as I have frosted glass blocks next to my door, so without the mount, it's harder to see who's coming into the door. I don't have a hammer drill so my regular drill struggled with the holes for the mounts and unfortunately it's not 1000% flush but it's in good. The extender continually disconnects because of my crappy wifi. As a reminder, Ring 2 wireless only supports a 2.4Ghz network. The app UI was a little quirky and the settings limited but I got it down now. If I get a motion alert, I'm better off snoozing and waiting for it to fully download because it'll take a good 20 seconds to open after unlocking my phone so I'll miss who came by. The picture is clear and at night you can identify people. The width of the camera is pretty good too. I thought I wouldn't be able to see my driveway but surprisingly I can. For $200, kinda meh which is why I caught it on a pre-BF deal.

thoiboi

Are you sure your Ring 2 came with an extender? The Chime (not Pro) is simply a wifi-connected 'speaker/bell' and not the extender. Only the Chime Pro is a true extender (it comes with two antenna on it). The Chime Pro came with the Ring Floodlight at Costco, whereas the Chime came with the Ring Doorbell 2 and Pro.


In other words, shitty wifi, you need the Chime Pro. The Chime Pro sits right between my router and Ring 2 and really helped the connection. I have the Chime in the rear of the house and connected all of them so that when someone rings, both Chimes will.. well, chime.

Doom878

Yeah you're right. No worries since we don't get a lot of visitors to ring the bell. Plus my router is like 15 feet away from the Ring. Shit if it's taking up network space, I should just unplug that bitch.