Staying with Ring Doorbell?

[dapprman]

With the increase in annual subscription from £35 to £50 next month (making it double in just over 2 years) I'm wondering whether to renew in July. My only option, aside from going with a normal bell (giving up on the remote answering and viewing) is the Eufy with Homebase, but that's now over £200 or about £175 in the sale (I think Costco may reduce it more occasionally). Added to this, none of my three batteries seem to hold charge particularly well (bought a spare then on my third replacement noticed the return text said to keep the battery), dropping from full (or what ever is full after a couple of months) to 20% in about 3-4 weeks.
My pros are:

• Response to the door bell is quick and I can often remotely respond before the visitor goes.
• Audio and video is decent quality on my present and previous devices (was terrible on the first).
• When I have had problems the support has been great resulting in my first Ring being replaced, being given a Chime Pro to test/improve wifi, my second being replaced, my third being replaced and upgraded for free to a 3, and my Chime pro being replaced and upgraded to the newer version for free when that also failed).
• Stored video can be useful and I did once send some to the police.

However...:

• Motion detection has never worked for me across all four door bells.
• I'm on my fourth unit in just under 4 years (had the present one for a couple for year now).
• When will the subscription increase again .....

As I know there are a few other users on here, have any of you decided what you are going to do ?

[craig1912]

I’m ditching my Ring and going for this Eufy, at just over a couple of years Ring subs it seems a decent alternative

https://www.costco.co.uk/Home-Improvement/Home-Saf...

[Monsterlime]

Not sure I'd be that trusting of the 'only stored locally' claim by Eufy.

[craig1912]

Monsterlime said:

Not sure I'd be that trusting of the 'only stored locally' claim by Eufy.

Care to explain?

[thebraketester]

Monsterlime said:

Not sure I'd be that trusting of the 'only stored locally' claim by Eufy.

Agreed.

[BoRED S2upid]

Go old skool. What are you really going to miss?

[craig1912]

craig1912 said:

Care to explain?

Googled it and doesn’t seem to be an issue now, and I’m not too bothered if someone can see the footage anyway.

[Semmelweiss]

Cancel your subscription today, and obtain a refund for the remainder of your subscription.

Take another annual subscription out the next day, but before the price increase. That way you lock yourself in at the old price for another 12 months.

[Monsterlime]

craig1912 said:

Googled it and doesn’t seem to be an issue now, and I’m not too bothered if someone can see the footage anyway.

As long as you are aware and accepting of the risks, it is fine. But always best to know what they might be doing going in.

There are options that are fully local and integrate into Home Assistant (which is local), but that does require an investment in time and hardware and is not for everybody.

[Kev_Mk3]

Semmelweiss said:

Cancel your subscription today, and obtain a refund for the remainder of your subscription.

Take another annual subscription out the next day, but before the price increase. That way you lock yourself in at the old price for another 12 months.

This is what I did. I was going to move to Blink as I bought 2 of their cameras for our old house due to the riff raff around but moved house not long after they arrived. Was going to fit them but spotted like Ring no subscription its kinda pointless. There's is £2.50 a month, Ironically both Ring and Blink are owned by Amazon.

Will decide over the next 12 months what we are to do but if ring bang it up again they can jog on as its doubled in a few years now.

[Phil.]

Kev_Mk3 said:

This is what I did. I was going to move to Blink as I bought 2 of their cameras for our old house due to the riff raff around but moved house not long after they arrived. Was going to fit them but spotted like Ring no subscription its kinda pointless. There's is £2.50 a month, Ironically both Ring and Blink are owned by Amazon.

Will decide over the next 12 months what we are to do but if ring bang it up again they can jog on as its doubled in a few years now.

You don’t need a subscription with Blink if you put a memory stick in the Module 2 controller. I’ve did this a couple of years ago and it works fine.

[Kev_Mk3]

Phil. said:

Kev_Mk3 said:

This is what I did. I was going to move to Blink as I bought 2 of their cameras for our old house due to the riff raff around but moved house not long after they arrived. Was going to fit them but spotted like Ring no subscription its kinda pointless. There's is £2.50 a month, Ironically both Ring and Blink are owned by Amazon.

Will decide over the next 12 months what we are to do but if ring bang it up again they can jog on as its doubled in a few years now.

You don’t need a subscription with Blink if you put a memory stick in the Module 2 controller. I’ve did this a couple of years ago and it works fine.

Handy I will look into that thanks

[Tycho]

Kev_Mk3 said:

Phil. said:

Kev_Mk3 said:

This is what I did. I was going to move to Blink as I bought 2 of their cameras for our old house due to the riff raff around but moved house not long after they arrived. Was going to fit them but spotted like Ring no subscription its kinda pointless. There's is £2.50 a month, Ironically both Ring and Blink are owned by Amazon.

Will decide over the next 12 months what we are to do but if ring bang it up again they can jog on as its doubled in a few years now.

You don’t need a subscription with Blink if you put a memory stick in the Module 2 controller. I’ve did this a couple of years ago and it works fine.

Handy I will look into that thanks

I've recently got a Blink with the sync module and it works fine. The only issues I have are:

Slow connecting to live view. By the time you get the live view up on your phone the person has gone.

You can't bulk delete videos for some bizarre reason (You can with a subscription) so you have to pull the USB stick and do it on a computer.

You cannot disarm the system via voice it even if you have set a pin. I leave the house at 06:15 on weekdays and I disarm the system in the app when I walk out to the car. I would have liked to set an Echo routine to disarm the system, wait 5 mins and then rearm it so I don't wake the whole house up but I have to do it via the app when I'm driving down the road.

[Phil.]

Tycho said:

I've recently got a Blink with the sync module and it works fine. The only issues I have are:

Slow connecting to live view. By the time you get the live view up on your phone the person has gone.

You can't bulk delete videos for some bizarre reason (You can with a subscription) so you have to pull the USB stick and do it on a computer.

You cannot disarm the system via voice it even if you have set a pin. I leave the house at 06:15 on weekdays and I disarm the system in the app when I walk out to the car. I would have liked to set an Echo routine to disarm the system, wait 5 mins and then rearm it so I don't wake the whole house up but I have to do it via the app when I'm driving down the road.

When receiving an alert I find it quicker to go straight to the recorded video clip and then view live if required. In my experience selecting view live from within the App works much quicker than clicking on an alert.

You can also delete the video clips in the app but as you say, only individually.

[Mont Blanc]

I have a Ring Pro 2 doorbell (so can't comment on Ring battery, as it is hardwired) and whilst I have not had any experience of Eufy, my comments on my doorbell would be:

The image quality is outstanding, even at night.
The field of view from the camera is huge.
The motion detection, and especially person detection, is excellent. After spending a few mins here and there when I first got it setting the motion detection correctly, I almost never get false alerts, and don't seem to miss anything of importance.
I have never had a single glitch or any other issue with the doorbell or app in 2 years.

Yes, the price hike is a bit annoying but it's still only £4.16 a month for something that personally, I find very useful and effective. Personally, I wouldn't risk a move to another brand but I can see why others might.

My final comment would be: Hardwire everything for power. There is no way I could be bothered changing batteries in things, or worrying about failing battery life etc. Hardwired is just fit and forget.

[KobayashiMaru86]

I'm 50-50 on it. It works fine, it's now hard wired in so works well. Gave it a fixed IP which sorted the dropouts.

[dapprman]

On the motion detection I have it set to detect but not alert me. It occasionally triggers when a car or a person walks past along the road/pavement but never when someone walks up to the door .....

[tribbles]

Since most of my home automation is Tapo, I've just ordered the Tapo D230 doorbell with a spare battery to replace my Ring doorbell.

I would've preferred the D130 as my Ring is hard-wired, but I can't seem to find it anywhere that has it in UK stock - yet alone can get it to me in a reasonable time.

In the short term, it'll cost me more, but I'm doing it out of principle (and to keep the same ecosystem - although Tapo are beginning to support Matter).

[CharlesElliott]

I use a Unifi doorbell and everything is stored / controlled locally - but if you don't already have a Unifi environment, it's an expensive first step to take.

[Badda]

£50 for a doorbell. Genius business model, creating demand for a problem that doesn’t exist.