Too bad it wasn’t a 3…would have pulled trigger
The neighboring county just signed an agreement with Ring to allow access to cameras by the sheriff’s department. Ummm… no.
i bought this last year from woot.
yeah…don’t buy. this is the 1st gen “video doorbell 2”. there were manufacturing problems and you can’t make it connect to your old school ding-dong doorbell chime AND it won’t charge via the doorbell wire so you will have to take the battery out periodically to re-charge. the battery removes easily and charges quickly.
Sooooo…if connecting to your existing doorbell chime isn’t a problem for you this would be OK. you can also buy a Ring wireless chime if you want to hear a doorbell actually chime.
OR you could buy a Ring Video Doorbell 2 (gen 2 (2020)). that is what i needed up doing and it connects to ring my doorbell and charges the battery. it was still hard to hook up because the doorbell wires coming out of the house were very short…i had to splice some additional wire to each to make the connection with the back of the ring video doorbell 2 (2020).
I chose this doorbell because I did not have an existing doorbell not electricity wired for a doorbell (condo built 40+ years ago). It has worked out pretty well for me.
I did have to buy the chime, and to deal with the whole battery issue I bought a solar charging base plus an extra battery. The battery needs to be charged every 4-6 months (vs 2-3 months) and takes all of 45 seconds to swap out.
The features say that it can be connected to the doorbell wire for continuous charging. I bought a Ring 2 off Woot back in 9/2019 and I wired it directly to my doorbell circuit, replacing the old button. It works fine, the doorbell still chimes like it used to and Alexa also announces when someone is at the door.
I don’t see any mention of the fact that you have to subscribe to be able to see video. I bought one of these during Prime Day and was very happy until they sent me notice that I wouldn’t have access to video footage unless I paid $3 a month. I know it’s not much but they should tell you this in the description.
Some misinformation in the other posts; we bought this from Woot a few weeks ago and installed it a day or two after we received it. There was one tiny scratch on the plastic, otherwise it was perfect. And the price is very good. This is version 2, not 1. It connects to your existing doorbell if you have one, and the electricity keeps the battery charged. The old doorbell continues to work as it used to, but now Alexa will announce that someone’s at the front door, and will alert you if motion is detected even if they don’t ring the doorbell. If you have either the Alexa video monitor or a Fire table which operates in “show” mode, you can see who is at the front door. If not, you can see who’s there on your smartphone or tablet with a couple of clicks. You can talk to whoever’s there and listen to their repsonse. The video is 1040 HD. You can’t view prior videos unless you subscribe to a $3/month service. We didn’t.
In short, this an excellent price for a very good video doorbell.
The only downside for me was the creepy paranoid neighbors chat option, which lets you see everybody living nearby who has a Ring doorbell and heard a strange sound overnight. No thanks.
We’ve got the Ring video doorbell pro, not sure what the big differences are here. But ours works fantastically. I wired it right in with no problem and even got a chime extended so we can hear it upstairs when someone rings.
I can’t be arsed to pay $3 a month for video, but if you get a notification and go live you can see who is there easily enough. These days, it’s just the snowplow.
We also live in a quiet suburban neighborhood where porch pirates have never been an issue.
Do I get a small notification video with each missed ring at the door bell that I will be able to see at a later time?
Can I use this just on battery and NOT have it hard wired ?
Thank you
You have to pay a monthly fee, in order to see that. But yes, you can.
Not much of a deal here. You can get the new version for $99
[MOD: That’s the original. The RVD2 is $199 new.]
Nope. Bought one about 18 months ago. Video alert takes about 1 minute to alert me on phone. I have a home office and many times have had clients walk in my home (which is allowed) only to get an alert after they are already standing in my office doorway. Also, chime alert takes the same amount of time. No problems with any other Wi-Fi connections in my home other than this. I even tried to set up a separate Wi-Fi just for the Ring without success. Customer support (which cost extra) was no help other than saying my Wi-Fi or internet was not connecting fast enough even though I have 260mb download speed and 26mb upload speed. DO NOT BUY! DO NOT BUY! DO NOT BUY!
What is all the chater about. Every time this comes up we here happy and not happy experiences. Once, again this is a decent doorbell for its free purposes. Although, at first your given open video services… Once, the free trial period ends just long enough to have a taste of full access to keep it; users must pay monthly subscription plan. No thanks and many other manufacturers do the same to there customers. Well, as some of you may not know there ACTUALLY is some doorbell manufacturers who let you see stored motion alerts or doorbell rings totally FREE. 1. No monthly fees 2. No neighborhood chat dialogs…who heard that noise late last night I believe around midnight? What was it? 3. No shared video feed access to government sources. Finally, I found Eufy as one of those free video recording access doorbells and no complaints since. Glad I left Ring and Arlo years ago good bye monthly fees.
Definitely wait for the three I’ve had the first version and I’ve had the second and this is the best by far with hardly any missed notifications at all and no false notifications I’m happy with my three and one by anything else