Ring is one of the most popular brands of video doorbells, and I’ve owned one for years. Here’s why I’ve reached the point where I’m ready to replace it with a different brand.
1
Person Detection Is Hideous
The most pressing reason why I’m getting rid of my Ring doorbell and moving to a different brand is that it just doesn’t do the thing I want it for the most. There’s a basement apartment beneath our house that we rent out. The living room is directly beneath ours, and the floor isn’t hugely soundproof.
That’s why it’s useful to know when there’s someone home downstairs so that we can be more mindful of noise. Ring person detection should send me an alert when someone is detected by the video doorbell. When I first installed the doorbell, it seemed to work fairly well.
Now, however, person detection is hideous. I get so many false positives a day that it’s unusable. I changed every setting I could from setting up motion zones to turning the sensitivity right down, but almost every alert I get is a false alarm.
In the end, I had to turn the alerts off as they were getting too annoying. When a product can’t perform the function you bought it for, you know it’s time for a change.
2
I’m Sick of Paying for Cloud Storage
To make matters worse, I’m currently paying $4.99 per month for cloud storage, which is the cheapest option that Ring offers. I was paying $3 per month when I first got the doorbell, so I’m now paying more for a product that is somehow worse.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are plenty of doorbells out there that offer the option of local storage. Many devices will let you save recordings to a memory card or export the footage to a local network video recorder (NVR) or some sort of home hub. If you’re an Apple user, video doorbells that support HomeKit Secure Video allow you to store your footage in iCloud if you have an iCloud+ subscription.
I plan to go for a Reolink video doorbell. As well as offering local storage, I can stream the video to an NVR, and although it’s not directly compatible, using Home Assistant, I can even store recordings in iCloud via HomeKit Secure Video.
The best part is that I can do all of the above without having to pay a subscription of any kind. The monthly savings mean that the new doorbell will have paid for itself in less than 18 months.
3
Alexa Integration Is Too Slow to Be Useful
Another potentially great feature of the Ring doorbell is that it can stream the video feed to any Echo Show devices that you may have, so that you can see who is at the door whenever someone rings the doorbell.
In theory, this is perfect; when someone is at the door, you can glance at your Echo Show, see who it is, and decide whether you need to answer the door or not.
When packages are delivered, the couriers will often dump the package, ring the doorbell, and leave. Seeing the feed on my Echo Show should mean that I don’t go to answer the door unnecessarily.
The trouble is, the majority of the time, the integration is just too slow to be of any use. The doorbell goes, and my Echo Show starts to fire up, but it takes an age before the feed finally appears. By the time the video does appear, the caller has often left, leaving me to check the recording on my phone to see who it was.
The feature is a nice idea, but it’s just too flaky to be of any practical use.
4
I Want Better Integration With Home Assistant
I have a Home Assistant server set up to control and automate my smart home tech. It’s an incredibly powerful tool as you can integrate smart home devices from a huge range of manufacturers even if those devices are incompatible with one another. The ability to create your own automations is also very powerful, although there is a fairly steep learning curve.
The Reolink video doorbell I’m going to replace my Ring video doorbell with integrates easily into Home Assistant as there’s a ready-made Reolink integration. This integration automatically generates a whole host of entities that I can use to automate my home.
For example, I can trigger an automation when someone presses the doorbell, when a person is detected, or when a package is detected.
There is support for Ring doorbells in Home Assistant, too, but the problem is that the person detection trigger is based on the person detection from the doorbell itself, which as explained above is just appalling. It is possible to create your own motion detection automations that examine the images from the doorbell video feed and look for motion, but it’s a hassle and resource-intensive.
5
Ring Collects a Ton of Your Data
Another reason why I want to replace my Ring video doorbell with another brand is that your Ring video doorbell collects a lot of data about you. Since Ring is owned by Amazon, it’s unlikely that the information it collects is being used for the benefit of humanity.
Ring’s privacy policy states that the company can collect, among other things, your name, phone number, the location of your mobile device, data about your interactions with Ring’s websites and apps, and even what you’ve chosen to call your video doorbell in the app. If you jokingly opted for “Neighbor’s bedroom cam” you might be beginning to regret that choice right now.
It doesn’t have to be this way. If you have a doorbell that offers local storage, you can block its external internet connection and be sure that no data from your device is leaving your home, while still being able to use many of the features. You won’t be able to use features such as app alerts, but with a system such as Home Assistant, you can set these up locally, too.
When I first bought my Ring video doorbell, I had high hopes that it would offer the majority of the features that I needed. Over time, the performance has gotten worse, the price has gone up, and I’m ready to move on. Thankfully, there are alternative options that should work better, maintain my privacy, and save me money.
