Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2019
Lets face it, you arent going to protect Fort Knox with Ring alarm, but most of us want a sense of security for our homes, our loved ones in our homes, and a feeling in confidence that when leaving your home, its going to be ok.
Like everyone else, I am an expert on everything I do (insert sarcasm here), but in all honesty I have been a technician for the past 33 years of my life and am very well up to date on modern technology, my home is a "smart" home, and I tend to use these types of devices to their fullest capabilities. That is why, when I chose Ring, I did so under no assumption that it could do everything I wanted it to do. I chose it because, being an Amazon company, I am hopeful for its FUTURE capabilities as well as its current ones, and it does integrate well with certain portions of my smart home. I havent been disappointed yet, although some things are slow in coming. I am hoping for much better smart home integration in the future from the Ring security system. It has the potential!
The base station is clean looking, and I have it mounted on a wall in a hall, away from entry doors, surrounded by motion detectors, and I bought a secondary plug for it so that I could cut the end off, run it through the wall, and have it plugged in somewhere else in the house unrelated to its actual location. Even if someone wanted to unplug it, they would be hard put to find the actual plug for it to begin with. Its 24 hour batter back up would take care of any power issues however. Once my home did lose complete power, and the bases station went into battery and cellular mode. All the devices attached to it remained active and the system was still 100% in control of my house.
The siren is LOUD. For me, whole house loud. There is no need for a seperate siren because if that goes off, and you dont hear it, you need to get your ears checked. The lit up colored ring is a nice touch - a very quick glance on the way to bed tells me if the alarm is set (red ring) or not (blue ring). Adding devices to the base is fairly simple, even if you are not familiar with Z-Wave technology. The application, with "certified" devices, gives a good representation of what needs to be done to add the particular device (such as window / door sensors, motion detectors, and others) so its easy to do. The application on your android or iOS is fairly intuitive, has most of what you need on the dashboard, and for me has been stable in its use.
Keypads - Id like to see a better implementation of the keypads in the future. These are meant to be easy to use and simplistic. And they are. However if you have a fault, it does not tell you what that fault is and you have to use your app. There is no screen to give you a status update on any attached devices. Its basic, simple, does what its intended to do which is simply arm or disarm your alarm and act as a repeater for the siren. I however would at least like to see an option for a better keypad somewhere down the line that I can purchase for the main entry door that i use all the time, giving me a better overview of the entire system. I havent heard that anything like this is on the horizon but its on my wish list.
Door / Window sensors - these are large. Very large compared to almost every other system I have ever seen. However I will say that the batteries in them last for forever. I have not yet had to change a single battery and my system has been up for well over 6 months. Their size makes them quite obvious and difficult to "hide" for appearances sake. It also may limit your placement depending on the types of windows you have. If you have double hung windows, those that open from either the top or the bottom, you will most likely need 2 sensors on each window for full coverage. The sheer size of these sensors has made me look for alternatives (I used a different, strong flat magnet for one window) because it simply would not fit.
Motion Sensors – I really don’t have much to say about these. They function well, are somewhat adjustable for motion thresholds, they are easy to place and test. When I initially set the system up, before it was professionally monitored, I tested them by trying to walk, crawl, creep, etc past them without causing an alert. I was never successful. I have positioned them so that they not only surround the base station, but would alert me if anyone was getting closer to going up my stairs. I have no pets, so that is not a concern for me and also I can not test how forgiving these motion sensors are to having pets like dogs and cats. I can say that my fish have never triggered the motion sensors 😊
Fire / CO Alarm – The Ring system allows for 1 type of fire / co alarm to be used with the system. This can also be monitored centrally and was one of the main reasons I chose Ring. I am exceptionally fire conscious in my home (alarms, extinguishers, proper evacuation methods even from second level) and this was a key for me to have. The first alert z-wave alarm systems are quite good actually. They do tend to pick up steam fairly easily and trigger a false alarm for that. I had to play with the placement of 2 of the alarms – one outside a bathroom where a good hot steamy shower could trigger it once the door was opened, and the one in the kitchen when I steam veggies or something like that. Once I adjusted them properly, out of the direct line of the steam, they were fine. I have 5 in my home to cover all levels and areas. I noticed that when they go off, the Ring system triggers its alarm, and all the other CO / Smoke alarms in the home go off as well. This is an EXCELLENT feature. While they are loud, if I am upstairs and asleep I may not hear the one all the way in my basement go off. The way its handled with Ring and the other alarms in the house, there is no chance of missing an alert if it goes off.
Door locks – As mentioned, my home is set up as a smart home. One of the great additions to this is the smart locks. Several are certified for use with the Ring alarm system, I purchased 2. The ability to enter my code when I leave or enter my home and have it arm or disarm my alarm system is awesome. I have set it up so that only mine and my wifes code will arm or disarm the alarm, while others I may give a code to will not. This means they have to do it manually, but it also means that Im not going to have anyone sneaking in when Im not paying attention. Not that any I give a code to would do that (family etc).
Cameras – I currently have 2 cameras attached to my system. I am a bit disappointed with the integration of the Ring cameras with the system, although it does work. I have a ring doorbell, which chimes through the Ring alarm system, and I can view it from the Ring app with the rest of my security system. If the alarm goes off, it will automatically trigger the camera to start recording. What I am not happy about is that they are not Z-Wave cameras, they have very limited interaction with the alarm base station to schedule, and they can not trigger an alarm to the central monitoring station. That’s not a bad thing as its not necessarily needed, but… The other camera I have is a wired stick up cam, which actually is an excellent camera. I have it covering my driveway, cars, back entrance to my home, etc. The motion field is easily adjustable, clarity at night is decent, and like the other camera it will record if an alarm is triggered. My disappointment really is that they are not Z-wave and are reliant on my wifi. If my wifi goes down for whatever reason, the z-wave still functions and my alarm still functions, but my cameras go blind. I sort of remedied this by using a battery backup on my modem / router, but if it goes down from outside, say a line goes down or whatever, there goes the cams.
Water / temperature sensors – not much to say about these. I have them placed in strategic locations within my home such as by the water heater, in the basement, behind the dishwasher, etc. Over the winter, one of the ones in the basement registered cold temps (below 40degrees) and since it was sitting on cement in the dead of winter on one of the coldest days imaginable, I can see why it went off. I also have a slight leak in my basement and at the end of the winter when the ground thaws, I do tend to get a little bit of water in one area of the basement. That one did trigger once alerting me to water and allowed me to go into the basement with a mop and take care of business.
The App – The application on iOS and Android (we have both between my wife and I) are fairly easy to use, intuitive, and at a quick glance you can see the status of the system. Adding devices is simple, arming / disarming and locking / unlocking is simple. You can view the battery level of all the attached devices and also see the history on the devices. It’s a good app, I really don’t have any issues with it. Does what is needed to do.
Central Monitoring – Only due to the steam issue with the smoke / co detectors has my system gone off. During this time central monitoring called my phone literally each time under 10 seconds. When this happens, the first thing I do is run to find my phone so that I get their call, otherwise they may alert the fire dept. Once I get my phone, only then to I go for the system to shut it off lol. They are quick to respond, VERY professional on the phone, and quite frankly I cant believe a system like that is available for $100 a year.
Cons of the entire system – As mentioned, I do wish the cameras were z-wave. This would allow for better integration into the whole security system and take them off reliance on wifi. It would also be a step in the direction of making Ring a true smart hub. Also, while Ring is STARTING to get into lighting, I would truly like to see Ring act as a full smart hub. Allowing me control my lights from within Ring itself. Before Ring, using Hue and Smarthings by Samsung, I was able to connect the 2 systems so that if my fire alarm went off, all the lights in the house would turn on. This is excellent for safety reasons and I really liked the ability to do this. Not only sound, but a visual that there is potentially trouble somewhere in the house. I don’t have to be snapped awake by an alarm and being half asleep and nowhere near awake fumble for lights and try to figure out what is going. I lost that ability when I switched to Ring (but gained central monitoring of my smoke / co detectors, so chose that over the lights). I would also like to see house lighting further integrated (they are starting to get outdoor lighting intergrated) such as partnering with Hue or something so that I can use the lights for different things – scheduling while on vacation, alert triggers, etc. I can do some of that now using the Hue hub, but it would be much nicer to have everything “smart” on a single integrated hub. The same goes with plugs. Ring is starting to introduce plugs and switches, but they are hardly integrated into the system. They can turn on and off with the app, but there is no scheduling ability or integration (if-then) in the system. Hopefully they will soon become certified by ring, offering further integration. I am anticipating that will happen. I also feel there is one area which is lacking – there is no glass break detector. I really, truly think that Ring needs to get going on that.
Overall – the system is good for what it does. The cameras are a bit pricey for what they are, and as mentioned there are a few things I would like to see added to the system (my #1 on the list is to become a smarthome hub with lights) but I can tell you that when I went away with my family on vacation – I was actually quite secure with the safety of my home. If a professional well trained thief wanted access to my home, they would probably get past this, however since I am not fort knox and there is nothing like fine art in my home, the average joe looking for a target to break into wont get past this without the system alerting me to something going on. I feel confident in my fire protection, love the fact that I can check status of my locks, I do wish there was glass break detection, but I tried to use the motion sensors to cover that, but the motion sensors are disabled in home mode, so that leaves a bit to be desired. The app is good, alerts are good, monitoring seems quite capable, and the devices all seem to be good quality and the battery life on all of it is exceptional since it is Z-wave (again the cameras fail slightly there as they are wifi). I would recommend this to anyone who is familiar with z-wave, maybe has a smart home and wants a bit more. Set up is super easy, and I like the fact that I was able to do it on my own to my specifications. I can add, detract, etc to the system as I see fit.
