SOMETIMES the best tech is just the stuff that’s easiest to use.
That’s always been Apple’s style – and Amazon has managed the same feat with its top-notch Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus.
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It’s not the catchiest name, but this is one of the best smart home gadgets on the market.
Ring video doorbells hardly need an introduction.
They sit next to your front door, waiting for motion and then filming it for your smartphone viewing pleasure.
More of my neighbours have them than not.
Read more on Ring doorbells
It sounds a bit 1984, but they let you dodge people selling solar panels – and there’s a speaker for telling delivery drivers not to leave your package upside down in the rain.
And naturally we all hope that they’ll put off trespassers and even burglars from trying their luck too.
But one thing has always turned me off Ring doorbells: drilling.
Hate it. It’s faff. What if you don’t have a drill? What if you don’t want to drill? It’s a layer of annoyance I just don’t need in my life.
Enter: the Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus. My hero. My £129.99 hero.
- Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus at Amazon for £129.99 – buy here
I’ve been trying it out for weeks now, and I’m convinced it’s one of the best products I’ve ever owned.
STICK TO IT
Normally a Ring doorbell connects to your house in two ways, neither of which I love.
The first is through the wires that would connect a regular doorbell, giving it power.
And the second is through screws, which turn into holes that you’ve drilled in your wall.
They’re both layers of friction that I don’t love, which is why I do love the Battery Video Doorbell Plus.
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For a start, it doesn’t need any wiring. It has a built-in battery that needs a recharge every four to eight months.
I’ve been using mine for nearly two months, and the battery has dropped by about 30%. So that feels about right.
This doorbell can be drilled to the wall, but I picked up Ring’s sticky mount for £17 (buy here). It slaps straight onto the wall (though you do have to press it down for five minutes), and then you’re sorted.
Now if I ever want to remove my doorbell setup, I don’t have to disconnect wires or fill any holes. I just yank it off the wall and away I go.
Set up is easy. The doorbell connects to the Ring app on your phone and away you go.
EASY VIEWING
So what else does it do, besides attaching to my wall in a simple and effective way?
At its most basic, you can get it to notify you when someone presses the doorbell or comes onto your property.
Motion Zones make it easy to avoid detecting movement on the street – you can just draw on the app’s video feed to block out areas you don’t want monitored.
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And you can set up Privacy Zones to shut out your neighbouring properties too (or your own windows, if your front door is set back).
Two-way audio lets you chat to visitors.
And it the doorbell can even detect whether it’s seeing a person – or an animal, or car.
Automated replies work like an “out of office” for your home, telling couriers that you’re away and to leave the post at the door.
And you can have different settings depending on whether you’re at home or away using a “geofencing” feature.
It’s got night vision. Even colour night vision.
And Smart Video Search lets you type in phrases (like “red car”) to spot specific moments. You might even find crooks with a search like “person in garden last night”.
It’ll find basically anything you’re looking for in seconds. Very clever.
The video quality is very sharp. It’s officially 1536p HD. But a more useful description is: you can easily see details even at a distance, and it’s effective even in poor lighting.
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It has a broad field of view, so you shouldn’t miss a thing. You can always mount it with a slight tilt too, if needed for awkward porch/garden layouts.
The other accessory that I snapped up to improve my Ring experience was a Chime.
It’s basically a speaker for your doorbell, if you want something more traditional than just phone notifications.
You plug it into the mains, and leave it there. They cost between £20 and £30 (buy here), and they’re decent – but by no means necessary.
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A-DOOR IT
The doorbell’s main benefit is peace of mind.
Your house has all of your stuff. Your precious belongings. Your front door is the gateway to that treasure trove.
Knowing who is at your door – no matter where you are in the world – in some ways feels priceless.
It resolves the issue of not being able to contact delivery drivers while you’re away, or the fear that suspicious antics are going on while you’re on holiday.
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And I think it gives your neighbourhood a more general feeling of safety. It’s neighbourhood watch in the literal sense.
And maybe it’s not technically a feature, but I love seeing surprise clips of my wife pulling funny faces at the camera for me to watch later.
It turns a boring part of our lives – opening and closing the door – into a fun scrapbook of easily-missed memories.
It’s also had some tangible perks.
I couldn’t for the life of me find my cap the other day.
It was only be reviewing Ring footage that I could see I’d left home with it earlier in the week – and came back without it.
I never did find that cap. But I knew I’d lost it in a place I’d never get it back.
So it gave me the peace of mind to buy a new cap, rather than going through the cupboards and drawers again for the sixteenth time.
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CASHING ON
The main downside is that some of the best perks are locked behind a subscription.
The £129.99 fee for the doorbell only gets you the gadget itself, plus basic benefits like notifications for a doorbell press.
If you pay £4.99 a month, you get 180 days of Video Event History and package alerts.
Then there’s Standard, which is £7.99 a month and adds in doorbell calling, extended live views, cover for all of your devices, and all of the Basic perks too.
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There’s a Premium plan for £15.99 a month that wraps in 24/7 recording, continuous live view, and Smart Video Search.
The one you pick comes down to your own needs, but you can probably get by with Basic. Anything less and I think you’re missing out, personally.
RING IT UP?
This is a brilliant device.
It’s not the cheapest Ring doorbell (or even video doorbell generally), but it’s easy to use, very effective, and has no-nonsense set up.
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Now I’ve got it, I can’t imagine not having one. And I suppose that’s one of the best endorsements a gadget can get.
The Sun says: Easily worth the £130 fee – but you’ll need the monthly subscription to get the best value from it. A genuinely life-improving gadget that I’d struggle to give up. 4.5/5
- Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus at Amazon for £129.99 – buy here
All prices in this article were correct at the time of writing, but may have since changed.
Always do your own research before making any purchase.
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