Hello, I'm Tristan.
When a company emails you and starts by saying "over the last few years, we're proud of what
we've built and we can't WAIT to deliver loads of new features to you"...
you know you're about to get screwed.
And that's exactly what Ring did yesterday.
Their most popular Protect Basic plan is going up by 33 to 40% depending on where you live
(with the UK and Europe tending to see 35-40% price hikes).
What's more, they're only giving us one month's notice of this change.
Protect Basic used to cost £2.50 per month or £25 a year in the UK, but now it'll cost
£3.50 per month or £35 per year.
In America it used to be $3 per month or $30 per year, but this is rising to $4 per month
or $40 per year.
Whilst $1 more per month might not SOUND like much, remember that this plan is PER DEVICE,
meaning that if you have three Ring devices, it'll cost you an EXTRA $3 per month or $30
per year.
And if you decide not to pay anymore, you lose a bunch of features.
Your recordings won't be saved at all, you lose out on improved notifications, you won't
get snapshot captures, and you can't download or share footage either.
I cover this more in another video, but for most Ring customers, going subscription-free
probably won't be an option.
So, why are Ring doing this?
Well, their blog post mentions how they haven't increased the price in quite a few years,
and since then they have delivered many new features.
Plus they plan to add new features to the Protect Basic plan, including custom alerts,
sound detection, a 10% discount on Ring.com and more.
This revised plan will also store all video clips for up to 6 months (180 days), an increase
from 60 days in America and 30 days in the UK and Europe.
That's a decent set of new features.
However it's also ANOTHER pretty annoying change by Ring.
Last year they DOUBLED the subscription price for Ring Alarm customers (those with cellular
backup and professional monitoring used to pay $10 per month, but Ring doubled this to
$20 per month).
It also comes hot on the heels of Wyze hiking up their own subscription fees, which makes
me cynically think that some business person at Ring seized the opportunity to hike up
their own fees.
In their mind, there's one less competitor to worry about, after all.
If you're unhappy about Ring hiking up their fees 40% in a month's time, what are your
options?
Well, there's four main options.
One - stick with it.
You could argue that the Ring Protect Basic plan is still decent value for £35 (or $40)
per year, and you could just keep paying.
Alternatively, you could upgrade to the Ring Protect PLUS plan - this costs £80 (or $100)
per year but covers an unlimited number of devices, plus it gives an extended warranty
on qualifying devices.
Your third option is to STICK IT TO THE MAN and cancel the Ring Protect plan entirely,
and monitor your cameras yourself whenever you get a notification.
This option doesn't work for me (I have to sleep, after all!), but it might work for
you.
Finally, you could move to a competitor.
Eufy offers better recording quality than Ring, and they DO store your recordings without
requiring a monthly subscription.
Blink and Wyze are also good options, although there has been some recent controversy about
Wyze's subscription changes.
I also quite like Annke and Reolink, who both offer lots of features for free.
For now I'm going to stick with Ring, especially since I have the Protect Plus plan and this
hasn't increased in price, but it's only a matter of time before they hike this up too.
But what about you?
Are you going to leave Ring behind?
Let me know in the comments below.
And that pretty much wraps up today's video.
I'll put more information and links down in the description which cover some of Ring's
competitors in more detail.
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