The second-gen Ring Spotlight Cam Pro records video when it detects motion, but there’s no local storage—instead, the footage is stored in the cloud. That’s where the subscription comes in. To access the video, you need to sign up for a Ring Protect plan, which also unlocks a number of other features. With a $4.99-per-month/$49.99-per-year Ring Solo plan, you get 180 days of video history, smart alerts (for people, packages, and vehicles), extended live view (up to 30 minutes continuously), and device modes (remote arm and disarm) for a single camera.
The $9.99-per-month/$99.99-per-year Ring Multi plan gives you everything from the Solo tier but supports all of your Ring cameras at one location and offers an extended-warranty benefit. Stepping up to the AI Pro plan—$19.99 per month or $199.99 per year—gets you 24/7 professional monitoring and additional features, including AI video descriptions and search, plus everything from the Multi plan. A couple of other available features in the AI Pro plan are currently in beta: Familiar Faces, which can identify visitors, and AI Single Event Alert, which reduces clutter by combining similar notifications from the same camera. Finally, the $99-per-month Virtual Security Guard tier provides everything from the AI Pro plan and adds live video monitoring, with active threat deterrence from professionally trained security staff and emergency dispatch when necessary.
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(Credit: Ring/PCMag)
The second-gen Spotlight Cam Pro uses the same iOS and Android mobile app as other Ring devices, and gets its own panel on the dashboard screen, along with other installed Ring cameras. Here, there’s also a tile for accessing the Neighbors community app, and a History section for viewing recorded events. The camera panel displays the last captured image and a button with three dots. Tap that button to open a screen where you can enable/disable motion alerts, turn the lights and siren on or off, and access camera settings.
Tap the camera panel itself to launch a live stream. From there, you can expand the picture to full screen or zoom in. Just below the live stream panel are buttons for muting the sound, initiating two-way talk, and manually recording a video. At the very bottom of the screen, you’ll find controls for activating the siren, turning the lights on and off, playing a pre-recorded message, and accessing tools for controlling other Ring cameras and light groups.
In the upper-right corner is a gear icon for accessing the camera settings, where you can enable motion detection and alerts, activate the lights and siren, and switch back to a live view. Here you’ll also find tiles for viewing recordings, configuring modes (disarmed, armed, away), creating motion and light schedules, enabling AI alerts (including video descriptions, Familiar Faces, and Single Event Alerts), and configuring smart alerts. Other setting tiles allow you to set up smart responses, configure motion sensitivity, and establish Bird’s Eye zones.
In terms of device integrations, the second-gen Spotlight Cam Pro works with Alexa and IFTTT, but does not support Apple HomeKit or Google Assistant. The Aqara G5 Pro offers much more in the way of connectivity features; it serves as a hub for the Thread and Zigbee protocols, and supports Matter for easy integration with the smart home platform of your choice.
