Hello, I'm Tristan from Smart Home Point.
Back in 2018, Ring announced a range of new features - including the ability to set our
wired Ring devices to record continuously - in other words, 24/7.
This would be for an extra fee and it would DEFINITELY be released in 2019.
Well, it's now 2021 aaand..
Ring still doesn't offer 24/7 recording.
Of course, this shouldn't be surprising - Ring unfortunately have a history of announcing
features that they never release.
"Yes, we'll soon be releasing HomeKit support" said Ring more than half a decade ago... did
they release it?
Uhm, let me see...
That's a no.
Of course, Amazon did purchase Ring after the original promise and it probably wouldn't
benefit Amazon if HomeKit support was adopted.
Just saying.
Anywhoo, back to the main point: the short answer to this video is that Ring does NOT
offer 24/7 recording capability - despite a random blog incorrectly claiming that they
do offer this.
It's not clear why Ring never delivered this feature - it might be that the cameras and
doorbells have a hardware issue (such as overheating) that prevents 24/7 recording.
Or maybe it's simply that Ring worked out that it'd cost them too much money to deliver
the feature.
After all, it'd cost more for video storage, and extra software support would be required
too.
And only a fraction of customers would pay extra for continuous recording.
So some business person at Ring probably calculated on a spreadsheet that the cost-benefit ratio
was... not good.
I dunno, I don't have an MBA.
Oh no, the BCR projection for 24/7 recording would be negative.
We're doomed!
Nigel, kill the 24/7 feature.
No I don't care about the customers - just promise them HomeKit support again.
That'll probably shut them up.
So if you don't get constant recordings with Ring, what do you get?
Well, Ring DOES offer snapshot captures which are low-res photos that get taken between
30 seconds and 3 minutes.
These help to fill in the timeline, so that you get a rough view of what's happening near
your camera.
Equally you can increase the recording length of videos up to 2 minutes, and also increase
the motion sensitivity so that more recordings take place.
This is all pretty decent, because if your Ring device is pointed at an area that people
walk past frequently, you will get quite a lot of recordings.
Finally you can use linked devices, so that when one of your devices detects motion, all
your other devices start recording too.
What this all means is that my Ring Doorbell actually records over a hundred times a day,
and sometimes 5 or 6 times in a 10 minute period.
However none of this is perfect, and it certainly isn't comparable to 24/7 recording.
You will miss some important events.
Even something as simple as someone moving your bins at the edge of the motion area,
or someone running past quickly, will probably get missed.
Plus Ring devices often have a 'cool down period' between recording events, meaning
that sometimes an important bit of motion won't get recorded if your Ring camera has
just stopped recording.
So what can you do?
Well, if continuous recording is important to you, you'll probably have to look at other
products.
The Nest Hello doorbell offers genuine 24/7 recording under the Nest Aware Plus plan which
is $120 a year (the basic Nest Aware plan is $60 a year).
However if you're set on a Ring doorbell, you could always install a separate 24/7 camera
nearby and you then get the best of both worlds: the convenience of a Ring doorbell, and the
protection of 24/7 recordings.
A traditional CCTV camera will work fine for this, and also some smart cameras from Eufy
and Arlo also offer 24/7 recording as my blog covers (I've put a link to that post in the
description).
Finally, a camera from Annke will also offer 24/7 video and many of their products offer
4K resolution which delivers high image quality.
And that just about wraps up today's video.
To recap, none of Ring's doorbells or cameras offer continuous recordings.
If this is important to you, either get the Nest Hello doorbell or rely on a separate
24/7 camera.
I hope you found this video useful.
If you did please click the thumbs up button which will tell YouTube that more people should
see this video.
Please also consider subscribing to my channel and clicking the bell icon which will notify
you when I release new videos.
Thank you!