on the bench in front of me is the ring
alarm system and I'm going to show you
the different parts of it the way the
app works and how this all sort of works
together when this first came out tech
I've reviewed it and ranked it as the
number one top smart home security alarm
system and that rating is still current
as we're recording this video in August
2018 so for 199 dollars this is what you
get the largest unit and the most
obvious here is the main base unit this
grill here hides the speaker the alarm
is also inside here there these status
LEDs a couple more status LEDs on the
end here for Wi-Fi empower you're not
going to be interacting with this box
there's no buttons on it but because it
has the alarm in it you need to put it
somewhere in your kitchen or living room
or somewhere where the sound is not
going to be muffled so don't hide this
away in a cupboard no but this doesn't
need to be necessarily out and on show
it also needs a power connection there
is a battery inside and it will run on
battery power for a small amount of time
after the electricity fails when it does
that it also automatically falls over to
a cellular connection there's a cellular
chip inside here because the assumption
is that if you lose your power in your
house and you've probably lost Wi-Fi as
well so rather than waste the battery
searching for Wi-Fi for minutes or hours
it just automatically jumps to cellular
the cellular service though is only
available with the monitoring option
which I'm going to talk about later
right now the bit that you are going to
interact with is the keypad the keypad
here most large buttons here with with
bumps on the front indentation on the
number five and a couple of extra bumps
on the X and the tick mark here and
that's for people who are visually
impaired also you've got your buttons
here for disarming at home and away this
does run on a battery and it has a wall
mount you put that on your wall and you
can slip this into your wall mount like
so it also means you can take this unit
around with you in two different areas
of your house if you need it normally
you put this by your front door and then
the starter kit comes with a couple of
other things all of this communicates
with a technology called z-wave
it's not Wi-Fi it's a sort of lower
power version and that's gonna help save
the battery on all these units but it
does mean that there's z-wave in the
base station and then they also give you
this z-wave range extender which you can
put at sort of the far end of your house
to make sure that all of the sensors
down that end to their house still work
with the system and then there are two
sensors if you have an alarm system at
the moment these might be familiar to
you
this is a basic contact sensor magnet in
here sensors in here and when you pull
them apart the system detects that
they've been pulled apart you would put
this on a door or on a window so there's
one of those in the box and then this is
an infrared motion sensor this will look
for large heat sources that are moving
around there's an infrared sensor inside
it's not a camera so it's not gonna do
facial recognition or anything like that
but if you or say a large animal is
moving around inside your house this
should alert so this is the basic set
that comes for $199
up next I'm going to show you the app so
if you're already using ring then the
app will be familiar to you
you have your doorbell and cameras here
in this section this is new for the
security system it's a block at the top
here that gives you the main security
modes
disarmed home and away those three modes
I'll explain in a minute you've got your
alerts down at the bottom here as well
so that's the basic way it looks and
then if you go into the settings menu
here and into devices you'll also see
now that as a new security section click
that and you've got the different parts
of your security system everything is
joined onto the system except for the
infrared sensor I want to show you how
you add a sensor to the system so we
going to kick plus there to add a new
ring device security devices sensors and
then it is a motion detector like other
ring units it has a QR code on the back
so if we just if we just scan that code
then it comes up all right
now it's going to be looking for that it
needs power so I'm going to put a
battery inside it it uses the pretty
common cr123a batteries that a lot of
these security systems use alright
that's come on
so it's found the sensor and it's set up
tap here it's a room sensor and we're
gonna say it's in the living room you
can use any name you want I'm just going
to use one of the pre-programmed ones
and the suggested room name as well
let's also go for a living room so
install it and then they'll wave our
hand in front to make sure it works you
know it's all that changed there we go
so we're going to continue and setup is
complete and now if we go back to that
go back to that device dashboard you'll
see that the living room motion sensor
is now added now show you along the top
ribbon of that app there are the
different alarm mode settings the app
assumes that you already have a passcode
or lock or something on your cell phone
so you don't need any special code to
arm or disarm the system you simply go
in here and you press a button and you
hear the home alarm from from both the
main base station and from the keypad
here they're next to each other but
normally they wouldn't let's disarm it
and then if you want to do it on the
keypad it's pretty much the same thing
but you've got to type in a gotta type
in a code first so I've got a very
simple code here and we've now set this
to away mode when you're putting it in
to away mode you get a count down that
gives you a certain amount of time to
get out the house before the system is
armed you can adjust that anywhere from
thirty Seconds to three minutes in home
mode you can have it start from zero
seconds to three minutes
and the same for when you come back
there's a certain amount of time before
the alarm will sound I'm going to switch
this off by entering the code again
that's how you arm and disarm the system
through the app or through the keypad
so ivory armed the system it is in home
mode that's the mode you would use when
you're at home say sleeping at nighttime
all of the sensors around the outside of
your house there door and window sensors
are all armed but the motion sensors are
not because you don't want to set off
your alarm if you get up for a glass of
water in the middle of the night but if
someone tries to break into your house
and opens a door or window the alarm
starts the 30-second countdown begins
close the door or window and of course
it doesn't stop the only way to disable
it now is with a ping code on the pad
here or there is a large disarm button
in the app I'm going to let this go off
though just so you can hear what it
sounds like the other mode of course is
away and that's when all of the sensors
including these are active but this is
going to sound now as if no code is
entered so that's about 85 decibel alarm
on here
and that's one of the reasons why you
want this in you don't want this in a
closet or someone you want this out in
an open room it's very loud if you have
the monitoring service with this then in
a few seconds you'll be getting a phone
call to establish your ID and that
everything's okay if either of those
doesn't check out then they'll be
sending the police to your residence I
mentioned earlier the system works on
z-wave as far as we can tell it's a
closed system because it's a security
system so if you do have other z-wave
devices in your house say things like a
smart lock you won't at the moment be
able to interface that with the security
system and that's probably a good idea
because you don't want unknown devices
being able to influence the status of
your security system so that's a look at
the ring alarm I hope that gives you a
better idea of how it all works the
pieces that are part of it and what the
app looks like a tech I've rated it 4
out of 5 we're excited for the system we
love the 199 dollar price and we're also
looking forward to expansion in the
future not just with extra sensors and
other devices but hopefully sometime
where ring will be coming out with an
indoor security camera to keep watching
Tech I've on techyv.com and YouTube
for more coverage of the ring alarm some
of these additional units and
importantly some of the competitors so
you can make an informed choice when you
come to buy one of these smart home
security systems
[Music]