I was looking at getting a video doorbell. Wondering what everyone’s experience is with both. I’m looking at a couple video doorbells and a couple security cameras and trying to decide what system to buy. Appreciate the thoughts.
Arlo vs Ring
- Thread starter wheels686
- Start date
We have blink cameras. Installed one by the front door and it works almost like a doorbell. Activates when they get so close and you can speak to them through it.
We got a Ring as a closing gift on our current house and put it on the front door. At first, I was annoyed by all the alerts coming to me anytime a car drove by or when plants moved on windy days. Once I figured out the facial recognition setting (it only alerts when it sense a person), it was really nice.
Can't speak for other options, but with Ring you have to buy the subscription to store videos. I don't recall the exact specs, but without the subscription, you only have like 2 hours to review videos before they auto-delete. The subscription is something like $30/year and stores the videos. That would be handy if anything nefarious ever happened.
Here's a quick story that made the doorbell totally worth it... My wife and I are watching a movie at 11pm one night when we get an alert that there is a person at the front door. I think "that's gotta be wrong" but when I pull up the live shot, I see two guys running away from our house. I go back in time on the recording and see that as they walk up to our door, one goes "Oh s*** they have a ring doorbell!" and ran away. No idea what they were planning, but glad we had the Ring.
Can't speak for other options, but with Ring you have to buy the subscription to store videos. I don't recall the exact specs, but without the subscription, you only have like 2 hours to review videos before they auto-delete. The subscription is something like $30/year and stores the videos. That would be handy if anything nefarious ever happened.
Here's a quick story that made the doorbell totally worth it... My wife and I are watching a movie at 11pm one night when we get an alert that there is a person at the front door. I think "that's gotta be wrong" but when I pull up the live shot, I see two guys running away from our house. I go back in time on the recording and see that as they walk up to our door, one goes "Oh s*** they have a ring doorbell!" and ran away. No idea what they were planning, but glad we had the Ring.
Speaking only for Ring...
Depends on how you install it. I just kept mine simple and they are battery operated. Batteries are rechargeable with USB charge (comes with it). I usually have to charge mine every 90 days in the summer and about every 45 days in the winter. You can hard wire them, as well, if you don't want to mess with charging them.
No cords. If you can run a drill, cordless obviously better, you can install.
Heck a screwdriver would probably get the job done.
I installed the Nest Hello (wired) version this summer by myself and it was very easy to do. I really like it! I prefer Google stuff so I am biased but I would recommend the Nest Hello for sure. And as posted earlier...they now have a wireless version that gets good reviews as well.
Just make sure you use the screws that come with it, right?!
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54903754#:~:text=The issue is that if,to send the devices back.
It's a pretty silly mistake, honestly. As I understand it, it's because people tried to use a wood screw or something else instead of those little screws that come with it. Or, rather, they drove the mounting screws into the spot for base screws.
I am getting one soon. Google or Amazon products aren’t allowed in my house, so might go with Logitech.
I'll throw a plug in for Eufy. You can get wired or wireless depending on preference and home situation, and they don't charge a subscription fee. Had mine for about a year and it's worked fine, only problem is the battery dies quickly if there is heavy traffic, but that's probably true of most and adjustments can be made to mitigate that to an extent.
I have 4 Arlo Pro 3 cameras around the house - I don't have the doorbell, but one at the front door. They have been great - easy to install, good video quality day/night and only have to charge them every 3 months or so. I chose them also because there is no subscription fee...the recordings are saved for 7 days, and you can download to a USB drive if you want to save something.
When I researching which ones to get. These two seemed to be the ones that stood out. But I'm open to suggestions too. It looked like Arlo & Ring both would require about a $10/month subscription to allow all devices with the plan to be able to viewback. I was curious about what everyone thought about the quality of either, issues with the apps or service. I want a quality product so I don't have to buy something new in a short time.
We went from Arlo for 3 years to Blink for 1 to Ring for the past year.
Arlo was good but overly expensive and quality of video and alerts was poor at the time. Didn't seem to be moving forward at the speed of other options. Upgrades required their new base-stations and existing cameras didn't get a lot of the upgrades.
Blink was good for a budget option but the alerts were always missing and the live feed can't be watched without constantly pushing continue every few seconds. I hate their App and the whole system just didn't integrate well enough for me.
Ring has been really good overall. Price is competitive, new models come out frequently for new use cases (though not planning on the new drone any time soon) and the alerts are highly customizable - both the free-form zones and the sensitivity of them.
If I had to do it all over again, would have gone right to Ring.
Mind you this is all the opinion of one person and each will have different experiences.
Arlo was good but overly expensive and quality of video and alerts was poor at the time. Didn't seem to be moving forward at the speed of other options. Upgrades required their new base-stations and existing cameras didn't get a lot of the upgrades.
Blink was good for a budget option but the alerts were always missing and the live feed can't be watched without constantly pushing continue every few seconds. I hate their App and the whole system just didn't integrate well enough for me.
Ring has been really good overall. Price is competitive, new models come out frequently for new use cases (though not planning on the new drone any time soon) and the alerts are highly customizable - both the free-form zones and the sensitivity of them.
If I had to do it all over again, would have gone right to Ring.
Mind you this is all the opinion of one person and each will have different experiences.
Blink allows you to store footage locally...that's about it. By the time I pull up the app to see any movement outside, whatever it was is already gone or the app just doesn't load the camera because "live view in progress". They were really cheap and we grabbed them mostly for when the kids or animals run around outside.
