Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsI OWN NUMEROUS RING ID CAMS *****NEW UPDATE 11.21.20*****
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2020
I own 5 Ring indoor cams, along with a Ring Elite doorbell and a stick up elite POE cam. This is just my input regarding these cams as I have been testing them and using them for quite sometime. First thing is not every indoor cam works the same, some arrive with older firmware and need updating. Plug in close to your router and do the full set up and do your updates. Once you add the cam to the app and it’s working well, unplug it and move it to the area you want to monitor. Do your set up either by mounting it or setting it on a shelf. Get the angle of view your looking for and then set up your motion zone and sensitivity. Make sure you check the “health” box to see your signal sensitivity. If you are using a mesh router network, you should reconnect to the closest link for it, if not you may have to reconfigure to the nearest of it isn’t automatic. Make sure you turn on the snapshot option as well. If you don’t want to have the indoor cams record or send alerts while your home, you can turn that ability on and off with the new quick access buttons in the app. You will get 30 days of free recording for ALL your cams, with each cam you buy. So if you decide to buy one a month, till you cover all your angles in the home, you will literally get an additional 30 days for every cam on your network covering the 50 days of cloud storage for free. Why not use this option while it’s still available. After you cover your needs, opt for the yearly service. I have 5 indoors cams, covering almost 4000 sf. I love that I can drop in and watch over the home as well as hear and talk through the cams. Night vision in a room is great too. Makes a great baby cam as well. I have had 2 indoor cams give me problems in the past, either dropping off my network, or the snapshot option not working. If you have read my ring reviews before, I am well versed in networking and I have found that some ring reps want to always point the finger at every else but their devices. I can say I have found problems in a couple of their devices and once they were replaced, the problem was solved. Don’t allow them to drive you insane, the community forums are good but they only can go so far for help as well. Sometimes a quick swap of the unit with a new one solves the problem. Amazon has always backed me and they are truly behind their customers.
4/2020: I wanted to be able to watch the main entrance and hallway in my home, have an eye level view, no wires at all showing, and nothing that stood out of place. So review the attached pics, maybe this install will gravitate people who are inclined to custom installs, know there is no limit to what you can do. Just plan out your work and never rush. I was able to recess an indoor cam into my wall, and still provide me with all the aforementioned needs. I used a double electrical box as it provided me the necessary room without modifying the box. I used an indoor/outdoor ring power supply and reused the indoor cam plug on the power supply as it fits perfect and locks in. I obtained 120v power from a nearby electrical outlet, and brought my wire into the box from behind the wall. I mounted the ring power supply on the back of the electrical box, and prepped the box to accept the camera. I created a clear acrylic template and was able to use that to cut out the blank wall plate. What’s really nice is I can still unscrew the wall plate and easily remove the cam if I need to do a reset or adjustment. This solved many issues for me and still provided an eye level video shot of persons entering the front door. Since the ceilings are 12’ high, mounting the cam at the ceiling with a downward angle wasn’t conducive in getting a good facial shot. This is just one example of several I have designed myself to combat issues most of us have dealing with wires, angles, placement, etc.
11.21.20: After almost a year of Ring use, I have to say I am disappointed in the Ring community forum, their tech support, and products. Just recently, I had two of the ID cams drop offline. No matter what I did, no luck getting them back to work. I actually unplugged a back up ID can and went to move it, that one also dropped offline and never came back up. Tech support was of no help, and the community forum mod just tells you to call in.
I would think using 10 ring cameras, I know a little about them. Based on my research, they connect to WiFi, but can’t get to the internet. It appears that there is a high probability that my ISP is blocking the camera for possible threats, even though I turned off my firewall, set up a DMZ zone, and just about created a WiFi bridge to push the Ring cameras too, they still won’t work. They don’t play nice since the last firmware update. So as they fail, I am replacing them with another company. Honestly, I don’t care what brand I use, as long as it works. Read the community forums, and see for yourself. Setting up cameras is not really that difficult, troubleshooting isn’t either as long as you have full control of all devices. Ring doesn’t allow for device control outside of normal settings. Also, Ring devices CAN NOT, be wiped clear of stored memory setting for your home network. It’s embedded in the device. Even if you remove it from your home network, and sell it. It still has your network mirrored in its memory. Found this by pure chance. At the very lease you should have the cams IP address to clear out stored info and reset it. Wow
