Ring Doorbell Owners (Car Security Cam Suitability)

[Medved_77]

Is anyone using a ring door bell to monitor their car in the drive successfully?

I'm leaving Sentry on at home currently which at some point is going to tip the balance of cost between additional electricity consumption vs payment for an outdoor security camera.

My car is parked 1 metre from the front door in a short driveway. Hoping that the ring doorbell (as well as being a doorbell) would do a decent job of detecting motion around the car and recording and alerting me to it.

Had a quick look at the versions and will probably go for the Ring Doorbell 3 unless anyone recommends otherwise.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

 

[M3noob]

Is anyone using a ring door bell to monitor their car in the drive successfully?

I'm leaving Sentry on at home currently which at some point is going to tip the balance of cost between additional electricity consumption vs payment for an outdoor security camera.

My car is parked 1 metre from the front door in a short driveway. Hoping that the ring doorbell (as well as being a doorbell) would do a decent job of detecting motion around the car and recording and alerting me to it.

Had a quick look at the versions and will probably go for the Ring Doorbell 3 unless anyone recommends otherwise.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I use Blink cams at home, in the garage and our place in Catalunya. Ez Pz to set up and use. No problems. Amazon.

No mains wiring required. LiPo AA batteries with 2 year life time (YMMV). 100 foot range.

 

[Jason71]

I have a ring doorbell but the car blocks one side from view so it's not ideal. A ring outdoor camera might be a better bet mounted above. I am thinking of getting one.
Doorbell does work well though. A bit of a faff to fit if you don't already have a mains wired doorbell

 

[Roy W.]

Is anyone using a ring door bell to monitor their car in the drive successfully?

I'm leaving Sentry on at home currently which at some point is going to tip the balance of cost between additional electricity consumption vs payment for an outdoor security camera.

My car is parked 1 metre from the front door in a short driveway. Hoping that the ring doorbell (as well as being a doorbell) would do a decent job of detecting motion around the car and recording and alerting me to it.

Had a quick look at the versions and will probably go for the Ring Doorbell 3 unless anyone recommends otherwise.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

The only drawback with Ring products is that the storage is a cloud service, costing, I think, £2.99 a month. If you don’t pay that nothing gets recorded, although you can live view your camera, and you do get alerts if the camera detects anything.

I’ve had the Ring doorbell 1 for about five years, but recently upgraded to the Eufy wireless doorbell. The Eufy has the advantage of better image quality (2k) and local secure storage, so the clips are saved on the internal memory in the base station.

Another advantage with the Eufy is that you can use the same base unit to add more Eufy security cameras if you wish. The standard price of the wireless Eufy doorbell is £200, but it’s been down as low as £160 when I bought it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Security-W...95844041&sprefix=Eufy+doorbell,aps,162&sr=8-5

 

[Medved_77]

The only drawback with Ring products is that the storage is a cloud service, costing, I think, £2.99 a month. If you don’t pay that nothing gets recorded, although you can live view your camera, and you do get alerts if the camera detects anything.

I’ve had the Ring doorbell 1 for about five years, but recently upgraded to the Eufy wireless doorbell. The Eufy has the advantage of better image quality (2k) and local secure storage, so the clips are saved on the internal memory in the base station.

Another advantage with the Eufy is that you can use the same base unit to add more Eufy security cameras if you wish. The standard price of the wireless Eufy doorbell is £200, but it’s been down as low as £160 when I bought it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Security-Wireless-Battery-Powered-Detection-Self-Installation/dp/B081VD7VVZ/ref=sr_1_5?crid=Z84YFFBE97EU&dchild=1&keywords=eufy+doorbell+camera+2k&qid=1595844041&sprefix=Eufy+doorbell,aps,162&sr=8-5

Thanks for that. How often do you find you need to remove the battery to charge?

Also, have you found it suitable for recording movement around the car?

 

[DanAndTheBeard]

I have an outdoor Ring! camera that is perfectly placed to watch my current car, soon to be overlooking my M3P. I actually thoroughly recommend paying the subscription for the Cloud storage. It gives peace of mind knowing you have it saved, just in case.

The battery lasts ages, although, it will depend on how sensitive you have the motion control on for and how often it detects things. However, you have set this to suit your needs, its location and how long you want the battery to last. Right now, my battery will last at least a month on a single charge. The battery operated ones also comes with an additional slot for another battery, at an extra cost.

Alternatively, you can get it hard wired and won't have the issue of running out of battery.

 

[Roy W.]

Thanks for that. How often do you find you need to remove the battery to charge?

Also, have you found it suitable for recording movement around the car?

Although I’ve got the wireless version of the Eufy doorbell, you can use it wired, which is what I do, because that’s how the Ring was set up.

They quote 180 day battery life, which I can’t personally verify, but my sister has been using three of the Eufy security cameras for almost a year now, and the battery life in those is excellent, certainly as good as advertised.

My doorbell doesn’t actually monitor the car, it just looks across the drive to the house facing us. It does reliably pick up any movement and record. You could also add a second security camera to the base, they start at about £90 RRP. My car is in the garage.

 

[HenryT]

We have the Ring Pro doorbell which I would recommend over the battery powered versions.

At the time we got it it came with Amazon Echo free too.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-Doorb...9&sr=1-1-99b08bab-4e12-4b46-a656-c375985ac043

We were slightly concerned about the faff of getting a mains supply to it as our existing mains circuit board didn't support that, but saw that plug in power supplies are also available. Got one from Amazon for about £15 which has been perfect.

See here - Amazon.co.uk : ring pro doorbell power supply

Image quality is better on the Pro version and additionally it records a still pic every minute, 24/7. In the event, this has proved very useful to us as a lorry hit our brick gate pillar and we were able to establish exactly when it happened and who the lorry belonged to.

The web based recording facility is £24 pa if you are prepared to pay up front.

 

[GoTLSAGo]

The only drawback with Ring products is that the storage is a cloud service, costing, I think, £2.99 a month. If you don’t pay that nothing gets recorded, although you can live view your camera, and you do get alerts if the camera detects anything.

I’ve had the Ring doorbell 1 for about five years, but recently upgraded to the Eufy wireless doorbell. The Eufy has the advantage of better image quality (2k) and local secure storage, so the clips are saved on the internal memory in the base station.

Another advantage with the Eufy is that you can use the same base unit to add more Eufy security cameras if you wish. The standard price of the wireless Eufy doorbell is £200, but it’s been down as low as £160 when I bought it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Security-Wireless-Battery-Powered-Detection-Self-Installation/dp/B081VD7VVZ/ref=sr_1_5?crid=Z84YFFBE97EU&dchild=1&keywords=eufy+doorbell+camera+2k&qid=1595844041&sprefix=Eufy+doorbell,aps,162&sr=8-5

+1 for Eufy!

 

[M3noob]

+1 for Eufy!

No charge for the Blink cloud storage unless you keep silly amounts of pix.

 

[SSedan]

I am happy with the battery life in the Ring, haven't tracked but seems like a couple months which I feel is great given two children and a dog tripping motion detection approximately every 3 minutes during daylight hours.

 

[freekie]

Happy with Ring2 doorbell (wires not needed). While we can’t see all sides of the car, it picks up anyone entering our garden (which they would need to do to get to the car). It has quite a wide range of view. Our car is further away than your car would be.

 

[spon88]

We have Hikvision wired gear at low and high level and a Blink for good measure looking over the cars. The Blink is primarily as early warning as the night vision is not really going to help you i.e. it's not very good at all. The PIR picks up nicely though and is set to alarm on my 'phone at night. We have a Nest doorbell which outperforms Ring - it's excellent at high resolution and the night vision is pretty good, although nowhere near as good as the Hikvision "Dark Fighter" gear we have at low level. The Blink stuff is on free cloud storage (we have several in the house), the Hikvision records to a web accessible DVR and the Nest doorcam goes to a subscription cloud service.

If I had to choose, I'd go for the Nest doorbell.

 

[SSedan]

I think the reviews from those of you who have a variety of products are great.

I am happy with my single Ring doorbell, but I also have zero experience with anything else so I am comparing to nothing.

 

[bungle_78]

I have a Ring doorbell pro which covers the driveway pretty well and then have a Ring Floodlight which also covers the drive way and covers the side of the car that isn't picked up by the doorbell cam. Picture quality is good.

 

[AnthonyLR]

I have a Nest doorbell and a Nest security camera. Happy to pay £100 a year subscription total for the storage and facial recognition

 

[UrbanSplash]

I’ve a Ring doorbell. It’s a couple of years old, but battery is fine. Charge every few months. Picture at night isn’t great though. I’ve just fitted a Ring spotlight cam to replace the light on the porch (wired).

Ring floodlight cam at the rear which is fantastic. Great products but pricey fees. Although worth in in my view.

 

[JAR897]

Nest doorbell and outdoor camera, works perfectly. One cloud subscription c. £50 for 10 days history I think. Highly recommend (second car is visitor).

 

[Medved_77]

Thanks all.

From feedback so far I think I'm leaning towards the Nest version. I don't want a separate camera unit as I don't yet have a video doorbell and the car's parked straight in front of the front door, so 1 dual purpose device is attractive.

Image quality during day and night is important too and speculatively it seems that nest are slightly ahead here.

Not so keen on what seems to be a £5 p/m fee to be able to view recordings older than 3 hours, especially as I'll only have a single nest device.

I need to work out if I have the correct transformer fitted, if so I'll go ahead with the purchase as quite fancy the convenience of not charging batteries, even if this is only a few times per year.

 

[hctip]

I installed the battery/wi-fi Arlo system 5 years ago and it has been fantastic. Seven day library is free and works well with my four camera system and a further mains operated Q camera.

h