I had the original Ring Doorbell for about one year. It was almost like this product of yours but 720p and no removable battery. It was unreliable. Most of the time with the device, I was either deleting the choppy notifications (and videos) of movement detected from cars passing by the street, or disabling the notification and video recording from the device. It was a very, very unsatisfying product. But I was living in a small town, some of the poor experience was my ISP’s fault by only providing a whooping 10/0.8MBps DSL circuit, so we had to live without these features.
Fast forward to July 2017 and here I am in Baltimore, MD. The motion detection was a must, because safety. As before, one notification a minute for a car passing by the road. At least the video was now crystal clear, with a true high speed Internet service. I contacted Ring and, long story short, we managed to replace the unit by the Ring Pro. Nothing wrong with the hardware, it was a product limitation.
The difference was night and day. The Pro has features found in other more common security cameras, like the ability to create a movement map area, but in what we bought the product for, we are finally able to use it as intended. While the Pro is only hardwired to your chime (for power), it has 2.4 and 5Ghz support, but it is thinner than the regular Ring, and to the reviewed product, 1080p as well. Yes, we rely on the company not going bankrupt. Yes, we pay extra (although $30 a year is not bad) to have the recorded videos streamed and stored in the cloud. But all in all, it is a good investment and it has saved us with a few damaged parcels with couriers and trouble with insurance - not to mention we can, as advertised, be “always home”, answering the doorbell even while traveling outside the country as if we were at home.
[EDIT] Another very handy feature of the Ring system is the ability to share videos anonymously within your area, and to receive notifications from other users around your area, if they see something going on at their places. Word is that some persons have been identified and jailed because of these surveillance systems.[/EDIT]
It all goes down to what you need and what you are willing to afford. When integrated with other devices like the Kwikset door locker, it makes a good set of devices to protect your home. Even without HomeKit support, it is worth its premium price.
I am not associated with the company, but I had pleasure to interact with the company owner/CEO Jamie S. in a few occasions, and all his “promises” were fulfilled by the company.
Bottom line, yes, I would recommend one. Just plan before you buy it: if your door is facing the street, you might find hard to unable to configure the motion detection properly with the Ring Doorbell, but it should work just fine with the Ring Pro.
