Ring Video Doorbell 2 Review

Ring Video Doorbell 2 Pros and Cons

What are the best and worst things about the Ring Video Doorbell 2, you ask?

I love that you can choose to hardwire it into your home or operate it by battery. It also has 1080p HD video display, a 160-degree field of view, two-way audio, infrared night vision, and an Amazon Alexa integration.

Unfortunately, the Ring Video Doorbell 2 lacks person detection and free cloud and local storage, although cloud storage is available for an affordable price starting at $5 per month for a single camera, or $10 per month for unlimited cameras. Ring also offers a professional monitoring service that costs $20 per month. That’s pretty good compared when you consider that the price of ADT’s video monitoring starts at $35 per month.

Ring Video Doorbell 2 Design

A slim silver rectangle under a black camera, the Ring Video Doorbell 2 is simple, sleek, and pretty cute for a doorbell. I like that the button is outlined in blue, and the minimalism definitely appeals to me.

Aesthetics aside, the doorbell operates in temperatures from five to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. You can either hard-wire it into your house or use batteries. While using batteries will inevitably make installation easier, keep in mind that you’ll have to replace them about twice a year.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Ring Video Doorbell 2 (or any Ring video doorbell except the Video Doorbell Elite) requires Wi-Fi. You have to make sure your Wi-Fi reaches outside your front door, as the doorbell can only send notifications, stream live feeds, and record footage when it’s online.

Ring Video Doorbell 2 Features

Let’s talk about the Ring Video Doorbell 2’s camera. After all, that’s what turns a doorbell into a video doorbell, so it’s essential that it be of the utmost quality.

Video

I’m impressed with the Ring 2’s video, although it can’t zoom. It has 1080p HD video display, the industry standard, plus a wide field of view of 160 degrees. I feel pretty confident that I’ll be able to identify a potential thief if necessary.

Audio

The doorbell camera comes equipped with two-way audio, which enables you to speak to whoever’s at your front door. This comes in handy when greeting visitors, directing delivery people, or giving intruders the heebie-jeebies.

Storage

To receive any cloud or local storage, you’ll need to invest in a monthly subscription plan- either Ring Protect Plus or Ring Protect Basic. Both will give you 60 days of cloud storage and the ability to download your footage locally. As you can see, the Protect Plus Plan also gives you an extended warranty and a discount at Ring.com. It also covers an unlimited number of cameras installed at the same address, so you’ll pay $10 per month whether you have five cameras or 20. If you want professional monitoring as well, you’ll need to pay an extra $10 per month for the Ring Protect Pro at $20 per month or $200 per year. It includes all of the features of Ring Protect Plus as well.

While I’m glad that Ring provides both local and cloud storage, I wish it offered at least one free storage option. Don’t they know that the best things in life are free?

Smart Platform Integration

As Amazon owns Ring, it’s no surprise that the doorbell integrates with Amazon Alexa. For example, you can ask Alexa to show you the front door camera on your Fire TV. In addition, your Echo devices will show you when the doorbell has been pushed or when it has detected motion, and then allow you to see and speak to your visitors.

Artificial Intelligence

Unfortunately, the Ring Video Doorbell 2 does not come with any artificial intelligence features like person detection. While the camera can sense movement, it can’t tell you what is moving- a person, an animal, a car, etc. While some cameras can even learn your friends and family’s faces over time, the Ring 2 can tell you simply when it detects motion.

Extras

If you’re familiar with security cameras, you may be wondering about your notifications. Obviously, constantly being bombarded with irrelevant notifications is not making you any safer. Ring’s solution is to give you customizable motion zones, which tell the camera to focus on some areas over others. You can have the camera ignore the street and sidewalk and only tell you when someone is on your property, for example. This will lead to less irrelevant notifications, although you can still expect some notifications that aren’t about people.

Installing the Ring Video Doorbell 2

There are no prerequisites to installing the Ring 2, and you can do it yourself. I installed the Ring Video Doorbell 2 in two different places, a house in Texas and my apartment in Brooklyn. Let’s start with Texas, which was a hardwiring situation. Using the video tutorials from Ring, I easily installed the Ring Video Doorbell 2 using the house’s existing chime and doorbell setup. When I realized that my router was too far away from the front door for the Ring Video Doorbell 2 to work, I simply added a Ring Wi-Fi Range Extender and it worked perfectly.

In Brooklyn, I set the Ring Video Doorbell 2 up via battery, as I don’t have an existing doorbell setup. This also meant that I had to plug in the Chime Pro, both a range extender and a chime so that I know when someone’s at the door. Both methods were really straightforward, and installation took no more than half an hour at each location.

The Ring-Always Home App

If you’re not near an Echo device or even out of your house, you’ll be able to control and monitor your Ring Video Doorbell 2 through the Ring Always Home app. I want to know exactly what you can do on the app and how customers like it.

Features

From the Ring app, you can livestream your doorbell camera’s footage, speak to visitors, get real-time crime and safety alerts from your neighborhood network, and set customizable motion zones.

Reviews

In a rare occurrence, the Ring app has a 4 on the Google Play store and a 4.6 on the App store. Ring has really improved this app recently, so notifications aren’t as delayed as they were before.