Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsReally helpful for disabled people but very laggy and misses motion of people on driveway
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 30 July 2019
I am disabled and have CFS/ME. I wanted one of these for a while as due to my illness for extended periods I’m bedbound and I’m not able to get to the door for parcels etc so would be good to speak to and see who is there from my bed. I bought this one as it had the privacy zones option where you can ‘black out’ certain areas of your street. My house is on a small cul de sac directly facing a house across the street and I was reluctant to get a previous model in case they had issues with privacy. With this model, I’ve blocked out their house so no problems in that area.
It was incredibly easy to install, my door is a composite door and it must have been at the top end of the thickness range as the doorbell only just fit through. I followed a tutorial on the app which showed step by step what to do. Easy peasy.
It’s been installed since yesterday morning, so a day and a half and I wanted to leave this review as I was a little disappointed with it. It has pre set settings for motion detection sensitivity and range which are set in the middle. I am getting notifications each time a car drives past my house into the cul de sac (I have a drive and garden in front of the road) or when someone walks past on the pavement. What I didn’t get was a notification when someone pulled into my drive! I did get a notification that someone came into the house but it was so late that they were already in by the time I opened up the app. This wasn’t a burglar, just a carer but I thought how ridiculous! So the app seems very hit and miss as I would expect a notification the moment a car pulled up. So I have maxed out the motion sensor sensitivity and range to see if that changes things and I will update accordingly. I got mail yesterday and the sensor didn’t pick up the postman, or if it did he had gone by the time I got the notification.
Another thing is lag. It is extremely laggy. There is a few seconds delay on the stream and then it takes a few seconds for the app to open, so in that time people have come and gone. I’ve gotten a lot of notifications and opened the app and there is no one there, so I think it’s not quick enough to catch a postman. I have high speed internet, the router is literally right next to the front door. It is useful because of my condition i can see who is at the door. If I had a visitor or a parcel, they would stay there longer than 6 seconds, I would hope.
I have updated the settings so I will update my review when I have tested it more.
Edit 1 (Day 2) - I’ve realised that my doorbell motion sensors are being activated by birds, butterflies and just now, heavy rain. My neighbour has a bird table so it explains the countless motion notifications and no one being there when I’ve opened up the app, only birds.
Edit 2 (Day 3) - It did not alert me to the binmen this morning coming onto the driveway to collect my black bin. So I’m unsure of its ability to be a security camera.
Edit 3 (Day 4) - Today I got a motion notification when a bee flew into the camera. But again, when a car pulled into the drive, no motion detection. This person knocked the door, and I did get an instant knock notification which was good and I asked her to help me test the bell. She pressed the bell and it took 3 seconds to chime for her and then another 3 seconds for my phone to ping. So again, very hit and miss. It’s the motion detection of cars and people on the driveway that’s the problem. After posting my review, someone at ring contacted me and I am speaking with them on Friday about fixing the motion issues. I will update.
Edit 4 (Day 5) - the doorbell continues to notify me of cats walking across my driveway and birds flying across my garden but another visitor coming onto the driveway in a car and walking up to my door doesn’t generate a notification. Again, I did get a notification when they knocked which is something. No contact as yet from Ring in the US.
