I have fallen for the Ring Doorbell and camera suite. The ease of use and insane number of features in them have made it a no-brainer for people who want a little more security without the cost of an expensive monitored security system. Heck, even getting a pug to keep your house safe these days is too expensive. Did you know that pugs need to be fed every day?
Anyway, pugs aside, this suite of options has a new entry, the Ring Battery Video Doorbell Pro. And let me tell you, it’s pretty sweet!
Setting up the Ring Video Battery Doorbell Pro
Like its predecessors, the setup for one of these Doorbells is so damn easy. You pop the cover plate off, and there are four holes. Screw them into the wall, and boom, you have installed your Ring Battery Video Doorbell Pro. With the cover plate back on, you pop a uniquely shaped screw in the bottom, and your doorbell is secure.
Switching the battery is a piece of cake. Open that cover slot with the screwdriver, press the button, and it slots out. Charge it and do the opposite. Super easy. When it comes to setting the doorbell up, you follow the steps on the Ring app, which does an amazing job of walking you through setup. It’s seriously easy and takes all of a couple of minutes. Slightly longer if you’re new and need to set up your Ring account.
If this is your first doorbell
The Ring Battery Video Doorbell Pro and the Ring Video Battery Doorbell Plus share a lot of similar features. These include the exceptional 1536p HD video quality, which is plenty to keep an eye on what’s going on in your front yard. This is paired with an insane 150-degree viewing angle, both horizontally and vertically. Nobody’s going to sneak past your Ring without being spotted.
The colour night vision is also shockingly good, so as low light appears, it picks up more colour than my old man’s eyes do at the same time of the night. A simple press of the button on the doorbell will alert your phone, where you can talk back and forth with the person at your door. You can also buy additional things like a chime, to make the doorbell even more doorbelly.
Like the Ring Video Battery Doorbell Plus, this doorbell is an absolute classy bit of kit.
A quick note is that some of the Ring’s best features are hidden behind a small paywall. There is a $4.95 per month subscription for the basic plan or $15 a month for the Plus plan. The main difference between the two is how many devices you have. If this one doorbell is your only ring purchase, then the basic plan is all you need. This gives you features like recorded video, so it is well worth the fee.
So what does it do different?
The biggest new benefit I found is Audio+. It has stepped the noise cancellation up to an insane degree, making it way easier to hear people when there is background noise. This is especially useful in Wellington, where we have been known to have a bit of wind.
The other major perk is the Bird’s Eye View feature. Both doorbells offer motion detection to tell you when there is movement in range, which you can tweak to ensure it only alerts you when someone is in a certain area. With Birds Eye View it will tell you where the movement is occurring on your property, which is cool.
The Ring Video Battery Doorbell Pro also supports Dual Band Wi-Fi. If you don’t know what that means, the good news is you don’t have to. Odds are your router is spitting out both, and so the Ring device being able to use either is useful.
Should you get one?
The Ring Battery Video Doorbell Pro is an incredible kit. If you are in the market for a new doorbell, then this is a banger. At $360, it isn’t the cheapest bit of kit, but you do pay for quality here. The good news is that with a newer release, you can pick up the Doorbell Plus for under $250 now, and you’ll be happy enough with one of those, but the Pro’s features are awesome and well worth the investment.
It ain't but the features easily justify the price. This is an absolute banger of a video doorbell!
