Ring Stick Up Cam Pro Battery Review

Since I have been playing with the Ring cam range, I have been consistently impressed. From the doorbells, to their indoor camera, the quality and ease of use have made these easy recommendations. 

So, naturally, when given the chance to try out the Ring Stick Up Cam Pro to try some outdoor security, I was keen.

Setting this beauty up

I have been consistently impressed with the Ring suite for its easy setup. Yet again, it was easy as hell with the Ring Stick Up Cam Pro. Pull it out, plug it in and then scan the QR code from the app, follow a few prompts and you’re done. If this is your first Ring device, you need to set up your account, but if you already have one, you know this process, and it’s damn easy. 

Installation of the camera is easy. Thanks to its swiveling base that can pop out at an angle, it’s simple to put it where you need. Want it on a wall? Install it on the wall and point the camera where you need. Want it upside down on the ceiling? Same process. Want it as a camera that can sit on surfaces and be moved around? Same process, without the screws. 

It’s so damn easy to mount to whatever surface you need, and position the camera to watch what you need.

Watch where you guests have gone

The Ring Stick Up Cam Pro has a funky feature, where it can track where people have moved on your property. Using this, you can see dots showing where they traveled, within the camera’s view of course. It won’t tell you that your milkman stopped by Maccas for a cheeseburger on the way to your house. Well, unless you live next to a Maccas that is.

This is especially useful for parents. “Are you sure you didn’t dig that hole in the garden? Well Mr Ring says otherwise” 

This beasty also comes with two way audio. This is even more fun for parents. “Oi, don’t throw your maccas wrapper there son!”… I might be mixing my anecdotes up. Obviously this feature’s usefulness depends on placement, on the roof eave on your second floor, the audio is only going to be so good. To be fair, the sound quality, and the speakers were much better than I was expecting. The smarts in the camera helped tidy up the sound to not pick up as much background sound as anticipated.

The video

All these features are fun. But what good is a security camera if the video quality isn’t any good? Well, great news, it is good. The video quality is 1080p which is plenty for a home video camera. With a 155 degree diagonal field of view, it captures a damn wide area 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a light in it. With decent ambient light it did a surprisingly good job of capturing what’s going on outside, and it does have some decent black and white night vision. Of course, that quality drops a fair bit, but it’s enough to know what‘s going on.

If you need to capture more detail, Ring does have floodlight versions of cameras, but this one, not so much. Still, easily good enough for my use.

But how long can you leave it up?

I’ve been using it for a month or so and haven’t come close to 20% on the battery, so that’s a damn good sign that this thing will go for months without needing a charge. This may also help determine where you are going to pop the camera, as having to pull the battery out for a charge is going to be more of a pain if you need scaffolding to reach it.

There are options to get a kit that charges it via solar power, but I haven’t played with that to confirm how easy or effective it is. But at the end of the day, it’s a battery camera. If you don’t want to go down the battery route, then you’ll need to cable it in, which is a lot more work. For something that you can screw in, the effort of charging the battery a couple of times a year is well worth it.

So should you get one?

Hell yeah. This camera, while not the cheapest at $329, is worth it. The features, quality, and ease of use make it well worth it. The only drawback is that without the Ring subscription, it only provides live video with no storage. Given the price of $5 a month or $15 a month for more than one camera, this isn’t a massive cost for the benefits.