Ring Video Doorbell 2 review – in pictures

Ring Video Doorbell 2 review – in pictures

It’s quite hard to escape a camera lens these days. Between security cams, smart speakers and even alarm clocks, your house can soon make The Truman Show feel like a paragon of privacy. But if there’s one place that most people would be happy to mount a web-connected snooper it’s outside their front door. Ring’s Video Doorbell uses two-way audio and a fish-eye camera to let you see and talk to visitors on your smartphone, whether you’re around the corner or on the other side of the world. But is it any good?

Installation: keeping it simple

Most smart home gadgets can be ranked on a ‘faff scale’, which goes from ‘plug it in and press power’ to those scary words ‘professional installation’. Apart from a drill, the Ring 2’s box contains everything you need to have it fitted in about 10 minutes. Hooking it up with your existing doorbell wires is a bit more involved, but the app has a ton of walkthrough videos to help. Once you’ve charged the battery (which is good for around six months), you just screw your Ring into the wall and connect it to the Wi-Fi.

Design: plain and simple

So what does the Video Doorbell 2 look like when mounted? It’s quite bulky and maybe even slightly intimidating. You might find people preferring to knock than press the button. It is at least pretty safe from being stolen itself – getting to the battery involves removing its proprietary screw and faceplate, while snatching the whole thing would require your thief to come disguised as a handyman. In this situation, Ring will also provide a free replacement if you file a police report.

Features: alarming behaviour

Stick with normal ‘ring alerts’ and the app will ‘call’ you when someone presses the button, giving you the option of receiving it or hanging up while it shows a live video feed. Turn on the motion alerts, though, and you’ll also get prodded when Ring spots any movement in its 160-degree field of view. You can set and adjust the sensitivity of ‘motion zones’ to prevent it going off every time a car drives past, and while the 1080p video is only 15fps you do get night vision.

Video storage: pay to play

And what happens to all of your lovely videos? After your 30-day Ring Protect Plus trial ends, you then have to pay £25/year (or £2.50/month) to keep them for 60 days, or £80/year for Protect Plus, which covers recordings for multiple Ring cameras. While it’s a shame there’s no free basic plan for storing clips, Ring’s cloud storage is a fair bit cheaper than something like Nest Aware, which starts at £8 p/month, plus it’s pretty reasonable compared to dedicated security cam subscriptions.

Performance: a bit ring rusty

All smart home gadgets rely on the strength of your broadband and Wi-Fi connections, but that seems particularly true for the Video Doorbell 2. Video quality and overall responsiveness can be a little patchy, which is potentially a problem if it’s going to become a daily essential. That means it’s worth bearing your house’s layout, router location and general Wi-Fi performance in mind before shelling out.

Ring Video Doorbell 2 verdict

If you regularly miss visitors or courier deliveries and want to add an extra layer of security to your home, then the Video Doorbell 2 is a potentially worthy buy – particularly if you want to avoid hardwiring it into your wall. But its performance and ultimate usefulness is very dependant on your Wi-Fi and the layout of your house. With Nest’s Hello and Blink’s Video Doorbell due to arrive this year, it might be worth holding out until taking the plunge.