Ring Video Doorbell (1st Gen) – HD video, motion activated alerts, easy installation – Satin Nickel BEST SELLER FOR SMART HEALTH HOME SECURITY
Ring Video Doorbell (1st Gen) – HD video, motion activated alerts, easy installation – Satin Nickel
720p HD video doorbell that lets you see, hear and speak to people from your phone, tablet, or select Echo device.; Get notifications whenever motion is detected by adjusting your motion zones.; With ...
Available: In stock
amazon.com
Here’s what happened in my house yesterday. Some thief stole my Ring Doorbell and did a factory reset, then put it under their account and deleted all the historical videos from there, obviously including their footprint caught by Ring.The whole process is so easy that it doesn’t require any permission from my end. The only notification I got was an email saying, “Your Ring Device Has Changed Ownership”, after the device has been transferred to their account and I already lost access to it.I’ve had Ring Doorbell and Ring stickup camera for over a year with their Protect Plus Plan which stated, “Your Ring videos are stored in the cloud for up to 60 days (in the USA).” However, Ring Support Team told me the videos are gone and they couldn’t recover it. They do offer free replacement on stolen device, which I appreciated, but now I’m seriously concerned with the functionality of this product.1. As a security product, why Ring allows factory reset and change of ownership without account holder’s permission? If there’s a permission requirement sent to me (like most security system do nowadays), then I will have opportunity to deny it before they can delete the videos.2. Since I paid the Protect Plus Plan under my account, I would assume the videos stored in the cloud are associated to my account not with the device. Even if they can delete the video locally stored on the device, why they can delete those stored in the cloud, which supposedly been protected under my account?The logic behind security products like Ring is that you pay for emergency situations like this. If the system only works when nothing happened but failed when thief coming, I don’t think anybody should waste their money.
I am really at a loss to express how disappointing this product was.To start off, I am extremely tech-savvy and my home is wired with a good 40+ z-wave, Insteon, Hue, and Zigbee devices. I also have extensive experience in electrical engineering.Right off the bat, the first Ring doorbell I received would not charge via hardwire. This was a brand-new installation with a new transformer, new resistor, and all voltages confirmed with a volt meter. I spent a good 45 minutes waiting on the phone with Ring tech support to get the inevitable conclusion that this was a defective unit. But instead of just swapping it out right there on the phone, they first wanted me to send back the mounting plate, wait for a new one to be shipped, try the new mounting plate, call back if there was a problem, and THEN they would ship out a new unit. That was very disappointing customer service from the beginning.Luckily, Amazon came to the rescue and shipped out a brand new unit overnight to replace the defective Ring unit.One would think this would solve the problem but alas, no. TWO DEFECTIVE UNITS IN A ROW that would not charge via hard wire. Thinking that there was some freak problem with the transformer, I borrowed a friend's Ring doorbell. Boom--charged right away. So yes, I ended up with two bum units in a row. That should never happen.Setting aside the double hardware failure, a few other major gripes:1) The Android software for this is absolutely awful. It is incredibly slow, buggy, and crashes frequently. And good luck trying to use the "Live View" feature. It takes at least 30 seconds to connect to the doorbell and again, crashes the app the majority of the time. The frustration level is just off the charts and I cannot believe the app ever made it out of beta.2) The Ring does not play well with two or more devices. I have an iPad permanently mounted in my living room for all types of home automation, including the Ring app. The Ring app is always open in the background obviously. Apparently if you have one Ring app opened somewhere and you then try to open it on another device (such as my phone when I'm out of the house)--crash. How is this possible?3) This is just personal, but the actual doorbell sound on this thing is really jarring and there's no way to change it to anything else. That should be a basic feature.4) The interface is slow, slow, slow.This looked like such a wonderful product on the surface but was an utter disappointment. I'll be returning the second defective unit.
So got my doorbell and had it hardwired...good to go right? Well, a few months later the motion sensor and the live view stopped working. So I called Tech Support and found out that even with hard-wiring, the battery will run out of gas and need to be recharged. This requires removing the unit and jacking in the battery with a USB cord.Nowhere on the APP is there a indicator that shows that the battery is getting low! So we could be traveling in vacation and all of a sudden without any warning the ring doesn't work!! Imagine that?Checked the box and couldn't find any mention of this important safety non-feature of the doorbell. I like the product but am extremely disappointed in the fact that it can stop working at anytime without pre-warning.
