Ring door bells etc

I would like to install a Ring style door bell for both my parents and the inlaws (who were recently burgled) – mainly as a deterrent and also to keep a record of who comes knocking as both sets are getting on and getting potentially more vulnerable.

I’ll probably hard wire the camera to both power and CAT-5, just for reliability as neither set are that tech-savy and remote IT support is always painful.

So, which model is the simplest to manage / use?

Do they require a subscription eg Prime?

I’d like a proper remote doorbell as even though they have smart phones, they’re normally switched off, so no point using those as a remote doorbell….

I have a Ring (the Ring 2 IIRC).

I’ll probably hard wire the camera to both power and CAT-5,

I initially had mine on battery. I quickly realised that I either had to make the video / motion detection way less aggressive, or charge the battery every fortnight (having to unscrew the whole unit and be without a doorbell whilst it charges). I ran it to mains power after a few weeks of this nonsense.

There might be models that accept wired connections but most (if not all?🤷‍♂️) are Wi-Fi devices.

Do they require a subscription eg Prime?

Ring requires a subscription to record and replay video. It’s something outrageous like £2/month. If you just want a preview of who’s at the door right now then that’s free.

I’d like a proper remote doorbell as even though they have smart phones, they’re normally switched off, so no point using those as a remote doorbell….

The unit itself goes “ding dong” in a reasonably audible fashion. You can buy remote chimes for them also (I think they’re like thirty quid). Mine’s hooked into Alexa throughout the house so it sounds like Doc Brown’s alarm clock when the doorbell rings. Being able to hear it from low Earth orbit doesn’t seem to dissuade couriers from pounding on the damn door anyway, mind.

Alerting to mobile phones is quite laggy (I can only assume the ten metre communication link is routed via California or something). I wouldn’t want to rely on it to be able to answer the door in a timely manner, doubly so if I wasn’t overly spritely on my toes any more.

There might be models that accept wired connections but most (if not all?🤷‍♂️) are Wi-Fi devices.

Interesting, I has assumed they were powered via PoE, so you could either just power it, using a simple PoE injector or also connect to the router via the PoE injector. I generally wire everything up if I can esp if I’m running power to it.

Ring requires a subscription to record and replay video. It’s something outrageous like £2/month. If you just want a preview of who’s at the door right now then that’s free.

I’m fine paying that, I’m already paying various other IT things for them as it’s simpler from an IT Support perspective if it’s in my name!

The unit itself goes “ding dong” in a reasonably audible fashion. You can buy remote chimes for them also (I think they’re like thirty quid).

Probably need a chime as the inlaws have a double glazed porch thing in front of the front door, plus FIL is pretty much deaf (even with hearing aids).

Some are PoE, but they tend to be ones from more IT companies (think Unifi etc) rather than the consumer end (nest / ring etc)

Worth looking at what is already there in terms of cabling, as it could be a total pain to run a new cable. We had a wired doorbell already, so I could re-use that cable by changing the existing chime and adding a doorbell transformer – this was only required as the old chime was run off 240v whereas the nest camera needed 12v. It also works with the traditional chime, so I get that instantly, then all the google speakers and phones in the house a couple of seconds later.

I has assumed they were powered via PoE

Based on a sample size of “one,” mine’s powered via micro-USB. There’s also a couple of screw terminals for traditional doorbell power sources. I got a third-party PSU for it from that there Amazon, I can dig out a link if needs be.

The only problem with Wifi is I won’t be able to resolve any connection problems remotely.

It’s exceptionally painful doing remote IT support with pensioners…

IT Support by Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

Hither and thus, in fact.

Seems I reviewed it and everything. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R32DPYS29K8WPF

The only problem with Wifi is I won’t be able to resolve any connection problems remotely.

For what it’s worth, the Ring’s Wi-Fi has never been anything other than rock solid. It’s been so reliable that until you mentioned it it hadn’t even occurred to me that it might be something requiring consideration when moving routers about.

Ring requires a subscription to record and replay video. It’s something outrageous like £2/month.

wasn’t there a palaver last year because they hiked it from £2.50 to £3.49 overnight? That’s the problem with services like Ring; they can set the price to whatever they like (or even shut down the service or make you buy new kit) & they’ve got you over a barrel. They’re actually not great devices as it goes, but obviously very popular because they’re cheap to buy, you can get them in Currys etc & they’re pretty easy to setup.

If money is no object then the absolute best solution is Unifi, they have the best & easiest to use camera system on the market and remote connection/management is built in. The UI is fantastic and makes it a doddle to scroll back through footage or access person/vehicle detections etc. Very expensive but no additional charges once bought.

We’ve a ring doorbell, like Cougar I’ve hardwired the power but I’ve also atttached a proper chime just inside the front door. For us though it wasn’t the battery life that was the main issue, it was the bllody lag. We had people come to the door, ring the doorbell wait for ages, then leave at which point we’d finally get the notification on the phone that the bell had rung. Hardwiring the power has dramatically cut this down though there is still a lag as everything goes via the ring server farm. Ring subscription is about £40 a year/

Eufy doorbells don’t require a subscription as they have local storage, I have not yet looked into how it links to your smartphone – do they have central severs or does it run just on local wifi etc

Video Doorbell 2K (Wired)

https://www.techradar.com/best/best-video-doorbells

Got a Ring front doorbell – it requires a transformer otherwise it’s a fiddly job removing it to recharge every few months – wouldn’t fancy a pensioner’s chances of not losing screws etc. Also have the Ring Floodlight on the garage which alerts us to anyone coming onto the drive (have a plug-in chime) – mainly gets set off by 🦌 🦅 🐈‍⬛ and pine martens. Have a stick up camera that is used to watch the hedgehogs, other wildlife or what the 🐕 is doing when we’re out.

For what it’s worth, the Ring’s Wi-Fi has never been anything other than rock solid

I’m more worried about them changing the Wifi password or SSID and then locking themselves out of everything!

I’m more worried about them changing the Wifi password or SSID and then locking themselves out of everything!

how would that even happen? Can you not set them up as Users with no Admin rights (which only you have as the system admin)?

I’ve got a blink one. The hub takes a USB stick so no subscription required. Takes lithium AAs as an alternative to hard wiring or recharging.

You could have the app on your phone as well, and sort your folks out with an Echo Show, etc for the viewing/chiming.

how would that even happen?

They’d sign up for a new phone operator and get a new wifi unit with a different SSID and password, not realising that meant that everything that connects to it had to be reconfigured…

Do any of them allow remote access to see the images online eg could I check up on their house when they’re away on holiday?

not realising that meant that everything that connects to it had to be reconfigured

ah right, easiest thing is just tell them not to do that then 😂 Of course, even if they do, you don’t have to reconfigure every device – just change the settings on the new router to whatever the old one was, takes 2 minutes!!

Do any of them allow remote access to see the images online eg could I check up on their house when they’re away on holiday?

pretty sure they all allow you to do that, would be a bit useless otherwise!

just change the settings on the new router to whatever the old one was, takes 2 minutes!!

Not if you live 90 miles away and have to drive over there to do it….

Most IT support requires me to be onsite – they are impossible to guide over the phone through any GUI – they just randomly click buttons and enter things whilst I’m trying to help them and have explicitly told them not to touch anything….

pretty sure they all allow you to do that, would be a bit useless otherwise!

We have Neos cams around the house / garden and they only seem to have access via an App – no remote website access (that I’ve found). Work fine for us but I’d prefer a web interface.

I have a generation 2 Ring doorbell and connected it to the old standard doorbell wires. This trickle charges it and, in about three years, I have never had any issues or had to charge it via USB.

This setup also rings the old bell’s chime when the Ring doorbell is pushed.

Connection is via WiFi – I had to relocate my wifi AP when setting it up to make sure it could connect reliably but again no issues since then.

If you have an Amazon Echo device with screen it will display a video feed from the doorbell when pressed and you can talk to the caller.

Not if you live 90 miles away and have to drive over there to do it….

with Unifi you can do all that remotely via the web interface.

Most IT support requires me to be onsite – they are impossible to guide over the phone through any GUI

Remote Desktop? I use Splashtop.

Do any of them allow remote access to see the images online

You can access Ring recordings via the website, or add the app to your phone and access them through that

Power tends to be 16-24v AC because that’s what american doorbells seem to commonly use (and houses are wired for), so it’s a convenient drop-in replacement for them. You can get a UK plug-in transformer to supply it.

I’ve been waiting for Reolink to release theirs, been happy with their cameras and they’ve listed both PoE and Wifi versions. There’s been a couple of limited presales but hopefully available more widely soon. https://reolink.com/gb/product/reolink-video-doorbell/

Seems the “Elite” series of Ring doorbells are PoE. (I just tripped over this looking for something else.)

Have a ring door bell, stick up cam and todays job is fitting a new floodlight pro.

I bought a plug in adaptor to run the doorbell. I’ve had a few issues with it freezing in the first few months but it seems to have sorted itself out. The stick up cam has poor wifi as it is about 30m from the router. I believe the chimes may act as a wifi extender for the cams. I don’t know exactly how it works but I’m hoping its a bit like a mesh system so when I fit a flood in the middle it’ll help the cam at the end of the garden. If not I’ll be trying a chime.

They are pretty good. Agree on the lag on the doorbell, its not very fast, so often they’ve left by the time I get the notification and answer on a mobile. I’ve set up an automated message asking them to leave the parcel in the porch after 3 rings

Blink and Alexa house here. 1 doorbell + 3 outside cameras plus 4 inside. All on batteries which seem to last. I wanted to connect the doorbell to our internal chime but it doesn’t give a strong enough signal. A little relay would have done it but we have Alexa devices in most rooms and not bothered to progress that idea.

All record to usb stick (cloud you pay for) plus can set normal activation for movement etc. Alexa announces very quickly if there is someone at the door (but our dog has normally already notified us a car is within a 100m radius of the house by barking her head off!)

Note we have a good mesh network which covers the property so wifi has not been an issue.

Never used Ring stuff so can’t compare but have been pleasantly surprised with the Blink stuff so far.

Anything but Google would be my advice. I have a Google wired doorbell with a Google Wifi router literally on the other side of the wall, and the thing is so slow as to be unusable. Basically by the time you get the notification on your phone or Nest Hubs, the person ringing the doorbell has gone.

In the unlikely event that they’re still standing there, the “push to talk” functionality of the app is so bad that it only works 25% of the time anyway, and because there’s no visual or audio feedback you can’t tell if your voice is coming out of the speaker on the doorbell.

Clouds drifting across the sky count as motion (and it’s not possible to exclude areas from triggering), the stream frequently doesn’t load in the app or shows missing content, and for the privilege Google charges £5 month.

Honestly, it’s crap.

Blink here too.
Notifies to Alexa in MrsSC’s office and to my phone where I manage it remotely.

Standard ding-dong door bell but with a camera covering the front door.
Turn it on if I go out and at night to monitor the weans coming and going.

I despise all my Ring kit. Its slow, will randomly record events just after they have happened and if you dig into the security a bit, are all scarily insecure. Not being able to Man-In-The-Middle the recordings officially without violating the EULA and then discovering all the comms back to the ring servers is unencrypted – so absolutely anyone else on the internet could MITM the traffic was mind blowing. It’s all sat in a bucket in the garage in the new house. Doubt I can be arsed to fit it, or subscribe to their “service” again.

Like every bit of amazon tech I’ve used: superficially good. A microcosm of America.

I’ve got nothing but good things to say about WUUK. Fitted a dual camera system at MIL’s house and its been working flawlessly since November, and both cameras are at 20% charge now.

They also do a doorbell that I don’t have – but reviews look good. It has its own base station and does not require cloud service or subs, and auto records video for later playback.

Pretty cheap too.

It was installed as MIL thought someone was looking in her window due to seeing footsteps in the gravel outside her window. In the first week I say her come out, check the outside postbox, check the gravel for footsteps, then absentmindedly walk over the gravel to the window and dead head a few flowers/check the gas bottle, and then go straight back in the house.

Rinse and repeat.

Anything but Google would be my advice. I have a Google wired doorbell with a Google Wifi router literally on the other side of the wall, and the thing is so slow as to be unusable. Basically by the time you get the notification on your phone or Nest Hubs, the person ringing the doorbell has gone.

In the unlikely event that they’re still standing there, the “push to talk” functionality of the app is so bad that it only works 25% of the time anyway, and because there’s no visual or audio feedback you can’t tell if your voice is coming out of the speaker on the doorbell.

Clouds drifting across the sky count as motion (and it’s not possible to exclude areas from triggering), the stream frequently doesn’t load in the app or shows missing content, and for the privilege Google charges £5 month.

Honestly, it’s crap.

Just to counter this, I have a nest doorbell and camera covering the back garden.

1. You can set areas/zones to be excluded/included for notifications and movement
2. There is visual feedback on screen showing you are talking

Not sure about you’re setup, but I don’t have any of the issues you are having!

Having said all that, for me, I wouldn’t buy it again – but thats because I want more local control, so would go with an option that records to my NAS instead of the cloud. For a less tech savvy person I’d still recommend it.

and if you dig into the security a bit, are all scarily insecure. Not being able to Man-In-The-Middle the recordings officially without violating the EULA and then discovering all the comms back to the ring servers is unencrypted – so absolutely anyone else on the internet could MITM the traffic was mind blowing.

If it’s a doorbell pointing into the street, I really don’t see the problem – it’s hardly a private view!

Ring Pro (or elite?) doorbell used to have the option of PoE. They work fine, but you need a solid strong wireless signal otherwise there is loads of lag. Guess PoE would get around that. We have a ring wireless chime and it’s essentially instant ring when someone presses the doorbell, with phone notification coming in maybe a second or two later. In our old house with poor wireless to the front door, sometimes the chime would be 15-20s behind the button press, and phone notification behind that.

I had four cameras: a doorbell, two stick-up cams and a cam/not-quite-pir-activated-light thing. I didn’t mind the doorbell as, as you say, it points into the street. The other ones though were in my garden and overlooking my drive. Broadcasting a constant SIP voice & video call back to amazon. This I object to. Their indoor security cameras are exactly the same.

Hardware wise they were great. Software implementation was awful. If I could jailbreak them I would.

They’ve introduced a E2E encryption option now. Which disables most of the useful features. FFS

So just went to buy a Ring and was god smacked to see how many different versions there are. I had naively assumed there’d just be the one….

Most IT support requires me to be onsite – they are impossible to guide over the phone through any GUI

Is there some local to them trustworthy teenager you can pay to be a pair of remote hands?

Alternatively put all their network kit in a locked network cabinet so they can’t mess with it/unplug it.

Broadcasting a constant SIP voice & video call back to amazon.

Huh?

Well I can confirm that the cams don’t seem to work like a mesh which is a shame. I have crap signal at both cams at the back of the house. And one of them is next to my tp link mesh extender thingy. Think I will have to invest in a chime pro. Almost like they’ve done it on purpose to make you have to buy it. Other devices have loads of signal

I would go for the eufy wired.
Not too big a unit unlike all the battery ones, powered from the existing wiring or a plug socket easily, no ongoing fees for storage etc unlike ring.
Had mine a couple of years now and been brilliant.
You can then quite easily add cameras etc onto the system if you go for the hub, but standalone as a doorbell/front camera it does everything you’d need.

@cougar I don’t think Ring record constantly but certainly any detections etc will result in video & audio being sent to Amazon which you have basically agreed they can use for whatever purpose they want (including keeping it after you’ve deleted it). They also retain logs of all activity which they can use alongside data harvested in other ways to piece together a lot of info about you, might not bother you much but it’s pretty interesting what some of these companies get up to (eg Spotify targeting you with specific adverts depending on your mood, which it deduces from your music choice!)
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ring-doorbell-camera-amazon-privacy

Somewhere in the world there’ll currently be people conversing in hushed tones…

“See that guy over there?”

“Where?”

“that guy”

“Uh hu – what about him?”

“He’s the guy who came up with the idea of two-part pricing for door bells”

“really? Wow!”

“I know – total genius. You wouldn’t think it to look at him.”