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Being totally impartial and retaining my journalistic integrity…they aren’t getting this one back without a court order!

Of all the devices we get sent to review or are given as suggestions for Cool Thingy’s, The Ring is by far, the most enjoyable, innovative and reliable product that I have received

The Unboxing

The Ring contains everything you need to get it up and running within a few minutes…and I mean EVERYTHING. This unit comes with all the screws and plugs that you’d expect for a wall mounted appliance but it also comes with a double ended screwdriver for the wall attachments and the security screws. It even comes with the correct masonry drill bit that you will need to drill the correct size holes for the plugs. They have thought of everything

The Installation

Like most of the appliances that are for home automation, the pairing of The Ring is as simple as switching it on, downloading The Ring App from the App Store and then linking to its own WiFi so that you can give it the password to your WiFi for a permanent connection. This process takes one minute to do and unlike many Automation devices where it loses the connection and you need to ‘re-pair’ it in a couple days of using it, The Ring it hasn’t missed a beat (unlike the WeMo which I had to put back within 2 hours of first seting it up)

You can mount The Ring and wire it to your existing bell wire and power supply from most Chimes and its a relatively easy job with the wiring provided in a simple diagram. But, OK, lets suppose that you don’t have a power supply and aren’t keen on wading through a pile of batteries on a regular basis…you don’t have to. The Ring is a fully rechargeable unit which charges from a Micro USB connection on the back. Also don’t worry about checking regularly when you need to charge it, as when it hits 15% of battery charge, The Ring sends you an email to let you know that its getting low. If you’re out for the day or maybe even the week, then don’t worry as long as the motion sensor isn’t firing off constantly and you aren’t checking the video a lot it should last you for another couple of weeks but when I got my email, I took it off the wall and it charged completely overnight. Typically Ring and the users I’ve spoken to, are suggesting that 6-12 months of battery life between charges is not uncommon.

The Motion Sensor

This is a bit of a ‘suck it and see’ issue.

There are 3 sensitivity settings and also a radar for distance. So you can set it to catch all the motion outside or ignore repeated motions (handy if your partner is loading the car or the kids are playing outside) The motion radar UI also lets you set how far away the motion is that will trigger The Ring.

The Ring works on heat detection and on full sensitivity, passing cars about 20 metres away were setting it off regularly which became annoying. Also as the sun came around to the front of my house in the evening, a hanging basket which would periodically shade the bell from the sun and then swing away again would set it off. I ended up backing the sensitivity down to about 3 metres and it worked perfectly. Its unlikely that you’ll get this set right first time but its worth persisting

The Ringing of the Bell

Perhaps the only criticism I have is that The Ring doesn’t look a lot like a bell to some of the people who’ve called. Regularly I’ve caught deliveries only because of the motion and seen them banging on the door rather than using the push button. That said, I do have it mounted lower than a regular doorbell next to the handle and there is also a space to put a door number on it which I will get around to and might help.

When someone does use it, its been an absolute treasure. I have an office about 10 doors up from my house and Amazon are notoriously bad at deliveries around my area. Although my work is listed as the alternate delivery address, only once have they bothered to come up and deliver packages choosing to deliver to neighbours instead which is infuriating.

This has all stopped now thanks to The Ring. Once they use The Ring, I just ask them to put the parcel in the garden waste bin outside the front of my house and I’m already walking back to the house to collect it, so its not getting stolen.

The other cool thing about The Ring is that you don’t need to let them know that you aren’t home. “Sorry mate but I’m just in the bath”, “in the loo”, “down the garden”, “up the road” is easy to trot out and solves all the problems. Its fitted in with my life perfectly and I really love it.

My kids regularly call me on it to say Hi and mess me about not realising that the previous 2 seconds before they pressed The Ring are being recorded and I can catch them doing it. Its been fun to play with for all of us…except the wife who is convinced I’m stalking her.

Compatibility

As you would expect, you’ll have no issues running The Ring with your iOS devices and Android devices but whats quite nice is that Windows Phone is also catered for as long as you’re running Windows 10 OS, bad luck if you’re on one of the older models as V9 won’t run it.

Back Up & Security

One of the features available to you is to have all of your motions and calls logged by Ring themselves and then view these at your leisure afterwards. The service costs £25 per year and lets you see and manage all of the motion sensor alerts and bell rings online either through your phone or a web browser this has been really cool letting me look back at missed events and see who was there and what they’ve done.

What’s also nice is that you can also set it up for multiple devices on multiple platforms, so every person in your household can receive a notification if that’s what’s wanted.

Ring also had a security vulnerability identified last year, but that was patched pretty swiftly and the knowledge that there is aftercare like that means a great deal to me

Summary

BUY IT!

At £150 its not cheap by any means but the features and ease of fitting and use and the fact that this really has just slotted right into my life and provided benefit, I can’t see why I wouldn’t buy one. Its Great!

Ewen

Author

Ewen Rankin

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