I never knew I needed to say “no” to a $200 doorbell.
Sure, the alerts when someone’s coming are an interesting aspect, but for that price I’d rather look at something that has a bit more of a view than just from the wall in front of the door.
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What the story doesn’t tell is who else might be watching. Apologies to Tolkien but this magic Ring is something to be careful with. Businesses have a habit of collecting all kinds of data that pass through their systems just because they consider it precious.
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The predecessor product to Ring was Doorbot. I bought one on their Kickstarter. It worked a few times and then just out and out failed. It looked like it was working to someone at my door, but I would never get notifications. They just stopped. Doorbot/Ring said it was a poor wifi connection, but the unit was within 10 feet of my router.
See the Amazon page for Doorbot for a sampling of issues: Doorbot
There’s tons of complaints out there if you look. I suspect it was so bad they decided to change their name.
The company was pretty good, though, in that they sent me a full refund after I decided to stop wasting time trying to get it to work.
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Well, they certainly saw you coming.
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And I bet it’s totally secure on my WiFi.
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Once you reverse engineer the Ring’s firmware, you must show someone else how within 7 days or you die.
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Actually, a $230 doorbell. If you want a chime, as opposed to just getting email or app alerts every time a squirrel walks in front of your door, you’ll need to shell out for the $30 mains powered “wireless” chime.
But, having to locate the chime within power cord distance of an outlet may not be such a bad thing, because with RiNg, you have to actually unmount the device (using a special tool for the tamper-resistant screws) and take it out of service for 5 to 10 hours to charge the battery.
[quote]To charge your Ring Doorbell:
Remove your Ring Doorbell from the mounting bracket.Connect any micro USB charging cable to the charging port.Verify blue and white lights spin on the front of your Ring Doorbell. If no spinning lights, see below for next steps.Allow your Ring Doorbell to fully charge (may take up to 10 hours).
When the lights stop spinning and glow blue the unit is charged.
If the battery fully depletes, it may be necessary to go through a
setup of your Ring Doorbell to reconnect it to your WiFi network. If
your Ring Doorbell plays the correct tones after charging but does not
send a notification to your device, re-perform a setup.
[/quote]
Sooo convenient 
Of course, it is possible to power RiNg off of a doorbell transformer if your location for the transmitter unit is wired for it. Even so, the toted totally wireless capacity is marred by the unnecessarily award charging system that doesn’t just allow you to swap out the batteries and charge them externally. Curiously, the review mentions none of this, though it has time to glowingly note “The battery in the RING device is USB rechargeable and holds its charge for a full year!” Of course “holding” a charge for a year isn’t the same as only needing to be recharged once a year - which would likely depend on how much the power hungry video feature was used. The FAQ claims 6-12 month capacity for “normal” use.
Also, the video feature will work live without a subscription, but if you want to have archives you can access, you’ll need to shell out $3/mo or $30/year archives that last no more than 6 months. (Another detail curiously missing from the review.) Even so, this could be just the thing for some people.
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Please tell us now about the insayayayayane security flaws that will be exploited for our fine customers.
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A year of battery life for a motion detection camera? Is this thing nuclear powered? Come on.
I had the misfortune of backing the DoorBot the predecessor to “ring”. I live in Ottawa, it doesn’t work when it’s below 0 degrees Celsius. Which it is half of the year here. I also had to disconnect it and reset it anytime my wifi access point turned on and off. I replaced my Doorbot with a 20 dollar door bell because it’s more reliable.
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I have an Arlo camera from Netgear. It’s also a wireless motion detector camera and it gets 4-6 months on it’s battery.
So it’s one of those products not designed for people who live more north than Silicon Valley. Got it.
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Pardon? I hoped my comment was within the rules of the BBS.
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No no no, this sucker’s electrical. But it needs a nuclear reaction to generate the one-point-twenty-one gigawatts of electricity it needs.
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[quote=“burble, post:34, topic:69803, full:true”]
Pardon? I hoped my comment was within the rules of the BBS.[/quote]
Your comment may well be fine, but “The List” is a Google doc that names and shames people who criticize Boing Boing in the comments section, regardless of whether those comments break any rules, or even whether the criticism is on all fours.
It is a way of categorically mocking and dismissing criticism.
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It’s on Facebook? I find that highly disappointing.
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There’s a google doc on Facebook? I confuse.
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Seems a rather roundabout way to get to a Google doc.
