Hello, I'm Tristan. I am a big fan of Ring's products - I have five of their cameras and
doorbells, and the Ring alarm system too. I love how simple they are to set up, manage in
the Ring app, and also integrate with other Ring and Amazon products. But sometimes I find some of
the functionality and products a bit lacking - especially on their doorbells and cameras.
So today's video covers five features that I wish Ring rolled out on their products.
Firstly, recording quality. A big benefit of security cameras (or doorbells) is obviously
being able to see people and cars going past. But the "full HD" recording quality that Ring offers
is often not sufficient. I know that the Ring Doorbell Pro 2 improves on this slightly with
1536p quality, but this is still classed as HD. I think that 2k quality should be a minimum, but 4k
would be ideal. Many of Ring's doorbells and cameras cost a lot more than $100,
and still only offer 1080p quality - which I find a bit annoying considering that you can
go out and buy awesome 4k cameras costing under $100 from companies like Reolink and ANNKE. The
difference in recording quality is massive, which I have looked at in another video.
It seems like right now with Ring, I can only make out detail which is 15 foot (or closer)
from my doorbell or camera. And that's during broad daylight. During the night,
it's hard to make out any real detail unless someone is standing right next
to the camera. It's frustrating, and I think that Ring should improve this.
Secondly, I'd like to see more Ethernet support. Most of Ring's cameras and doorbells rely on
Wi-Fi. But Wi-Fi can be unreliable, or it can even be jammed by a burglar or neighbor.
This results in you losing all motion-based recordings that occur during this time. There
are two solutions to this: proper local storage (which I'll discuss later), and Ethernet support.
By running an Ethernet cable from your router (or a network switch) to your Ring device,
you are protected against general Wi-Fi issues and also jamming attacks. I'm a big
fan of Power over Ethernet since this allows you to run a single cable to your device,
but supporting Ethernet (alongside a separate power cord) would still be a big step forward.
Of course, Ring does offer two PoE devices - the Ring Doorbell Elite and the Ring Stick-up
Cam Elite. But they are both quite expensive - the Ring Doorbell Elite is $350, five times
the price of the Ring Doorbell Wired, even though they both have pretty similar features.
It would therefore be nice if Ring added an Ethernet option to most of their cameras...
or at least dropped the price of their current "Elite" products.
Thirdly, I'd love real local storage. Yes I know that Ring brought out "Ring Edge" in 2021,
but this requires you to have the Ring Alarm Pro (costing $250) AND pay $20 per month for a
Ring Protect Pro subscription. Over 3 years, you'll end up paying almost $1000 in total.
But REAL local storage should be free - just add an SD card slot to each Ring camera/doorbell,
then people can record locally without being dependent on the cloud. Or add support for
streaming to a NAS - either via simple FTP functionality, or RTSP support. There's various
different ways of achieving local storage, but the point is, Ring don't offer any of these. Ring
Edge is overly expensive and restrictive, and it isn't available outside of North America either.
This is partly why I love my Reolink camera - it supports FTP, streaming to a NAS, local SD
card recording, and more. Now, I understand why Ring don't offer real local storage
(this is where Paul Hibbert would shout "CORPORATE GREED"!), but it's still frustrating.
My fourth gripe is 24/7 recording support. In other words, being able
to record continuously - even if no motion is detected. This would be especially important
because Ring doorbells and cameras do miss motion at times, meaning that you sometimes
get no recordings at all of something really important that happens around your property.
Ring promised everyone 24/7 recording support back in 2018, and they... seem to have given up on it!
Yes I know that it would cost them more to store the extra videos on the cloud,
but since they now offer "local storage" to people in North America (but no-one else in
the world... #totallyNotBitter) you'd think that they'd actually offer 24/7 recording as an option
to Ring Edge users. Who knows - maybe they will deliver this at some point, but right now it
seems as distant as the HomeKit support they also promised but never delivered. #totallyNotBitter
Okay, my fifth and final point is night vision control. Many cameras allow you to choose when
night vision will come on - or they even allow you to disable it completely. Ring sadly don't offer
either of these features. Now, I know this doesn't sound too important because if it's pitch black,
then you obviously wouldn't see anything when you disable night vision. But sometimes there are
light sources nearby that make the night vision quality pretty terrible. But if this affects your
Ring recordings, you currently have no control over it. It would also be nice to have control
over when night vision mode kicks in - this is called lux (or daylight) control. After all,
sometimes there's still some daylight left, but the Ring camera has already switched to
night vision mode and the recording quality isn't great as a result. Adding a little more control
over night vision shouldn't be hard for Ring, and it'd be a really nice feature for some users.
And that's pretty much it. I do really like Ring's products - they look good, they're easy
to install, and are easy to control and use. However sometimes they feel a little bit dated
too - being stuck at 1080p recording, having no 24/7 support, no local storage,
no Ethernet support and no night vision control seems to contradict Ring's premium price tag. But
maybe that's just me - what do you think? Do you agree with the five feature requests I mention?
Are there other features you think Ring should introduce? Let me know in the comments below.
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