Pros
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Excellent AI performance
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Good video quality
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Strong Alexa integration
Cons
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No chime
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No colour night vision
Key Features
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Review Price:
£60
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A wired smart doorbell
This is a wired smart doorbell with no battery backup. The second generation’s new square-format sensor captures everything from the top to bottom of your door, helping reveal who’s there, and what they’ve brought with them.
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Many features require subscription
You only get the basics free with the Ring Wired Video Doorbell. Advanced features – and even some everyday ones – are locked behind subscriptions, some of which are expensive.
Introduction
Ring has almost become the shorthand for a smart doorbell, such has been the success of Amazon’s home security brand. It’s recently refreshed its doorbell lineup, and this Ring Wired Video Doorbell (2nd Gen) now sits at the bottom of the wired range. You wouldn’t necessarily know it – it still offers all the features that the typical home is likely to need.
There are big changes in the Ring Wired Video Doorbell compared to the first generation. Chief among these is a switch from 1,080p landscape video with a 155° field of view, to a new square format sensor offering ‘Retinal 2K’ – Ring speak for 1,920×1,920 resolution. Unlike the previous version, this doorbell includes HDR video at launch to help gather detail from the brightest and darkest parts of the view. Its sensor captures 140° both horizontally and vertically, which means in practice that it can see the feet of anyone standing more than half a metre or so back – much more useful for monitoring the front door.
This version of the Ring Wired Video Doorbell – confusingly referred to as the ‘2nd Gen’ by Ring, and the ‘newest gen’ or ‘newest model’ by Amazon – is larger than the old one. Existing users looking to upgrade might be annoyed to discover that it uses a new design of mounting. It’s not an especially slick design – the Nest Doorbell (wired) is a little less tall and wide, even if the two have a similar depth. It’s also worth noting this doorbell doesn’t come with a chime, and it won’t sound your existing chime when the button is pressed.
Design and features
- Surprisingly big
- Wired power only
- Strong app
The size of the Ring Wired Video Doorbell (2nd Gen) comes as a bit of a surprise, given there’s no onboard battery. It’s only a little smaller than the battery-powered TP-Link Tapo Video Doorbell Camera D235, although its design is quite a bit less chunky and square.
This is quite an involved doorbell to install, or at least it is if you follow every step of Ring’s in-app installation guide.
Unlike some smart doorbells there’s no adhesive pad in the box, so you’ll need to fix the mount with the supplied screws – there’s an angled shim if you need to turn the camera a few degrees to either side, but none to adjust vertical alignment. You’ll also need suitable bell wiring – this doorbell should be compatible with most existing low-power AC systems. My review sample came bundled with a rail-mounted transformer suitable for a modern consumer unit (fuse box), but this is an optional extra you’re unlikely to need if you already have working wires.
The Ring Wired Video Doorbell connects directly to your home’s Wi-Fi network, so it’s worth a quick signal check outside your front door before buying. Unlike the Plus and Pro versions, this model only supports 2.4GHz networks – no bad thing, given they’re generally better at penetrating walls than the 5GHz band. I made a password typo when joining the doorbell to my router and lived to regret it. With no option to simply try again I had to pop off the device’s front cover, reset it and restart the app setup procedure from the beginning.
This frustration aside, the Ring app is excellent. It offers an at-a-glance snapshot of the doorbell’s view – tapping this takes you to a page that neatly combines a live view and timeline, making it easy to scroll back to events that happened earlier in the day. There’s a calendar view for when you need to go back further.
I spent quite a while in the doorbell settings, exploring the various options and features available. At first I was gently baffled why I wasn’t receiving alerts to my phone when someone rang the bell – an essential feature if, like me, you don’t have a Ring chime or compatible smart speaker. The key is to switch on Motion Alerts which, oddly, were disabled by default on the Android app.
You can use the Ring app to customise the doorbell’s video, audio and general settings. Here you’ll find a few options including AI Video Search which rely on you allowing Ring to analyse your videos – for privacy, these are off by default. You won’t find a choice of resolution, or the ability to configure night mode: this version of the Ring Wired Video Doorbell only supports infrared (IR) illuminated black and white video, enabled automatically once there’s no longer the natural light to shoot in colour.
As you might expect, this doorbell integrates well with Amazon Alexa. You can link it to an Echo device for alerts, and audio or video conversations with callers. You can also use triggers such as movement or a caller to start an Alexa routine, for example turning on a porch or internal smart light to help welcome people at the door. One slight frustration here is that you can’t trigger based on caller identity – for example, letting you trigger a routine only when a household member is approaching.
It’s important to be clear that much of this functionality is dependent on a Ring subscription, with tiers costing from £5 a month or £50 per year for a single device. Without it you get live view on demand, and real-time motion and caller alerts with two-way talk – and not much else.
The most basic Ring Solo package gets you 180 days of video event history, video alerts, and person, package and vehicle detection. You can add ‘Pro Intelligence’ to a single device for an extra £3 per month, which unlocks AI Video Descriptions, Video Search and Familiar Faces. Alternatively, a £16 per month Ring Pro subscription enables this for all Ring devices at your home.
Performance
- Very good AI performance
- Good image quality by day
- Fast notifications
I normally test battery-powered doorbells facing directly out towards the street, but my doorbell wiring is on a sideways facing wall. This gave the Ring Wired Video Doorbell (2nd Gen) a bit of a let-off, as it didn’t have to contend with the busy pavement and road outside my home when processing and filtering alerts. If your doorbell will face a busy area a Ring doorbell with the Radar-based 3D Motion Detection would be better, as you can ignore motion beyond a set distance.
All the same its performance was impressive; with subscription features including Familiar Faces and Video Descriptions working well to identify family members, and summarise the content of videos the doorbell captured.
Ring’s AI processing seems quick, as my phone received notifications within moments of callers turning up or pressing the bell. I had a handful of false alarms during testing, mostly when passersby crossed the pavement past our home when the car wasn’t on the drive to block the doorbell’s view. Adjusting the motion detection zone almost stopped these, but not quite.
I was generally pleased with video quality from the Ring Wired Video Doorbell. Footage was comfortably clear enough to make out callers during daylight, dim evenings, and under IR illumination at night. Videos were generally sharp and well exposed when shot in natural light.
This doorbell struggled to preserve highlights during bright days, but it captured everything else perfectly well. At night, it tended to expose callers well at the cost of underexposing their surroundings – you can see this when comparing the background of the middle and right-hand images below.
Should you buy it?
You want strong AI features and a low purchase price
This doorbell offers a lot of features and quality for the money. It shoots strong video in all conditions, and is quick to give you informative, AI-enhanced notifications and summaries.
You won’t subscribe
The Ring Wired Video Doorbell (2nd Gen) is far less appealing if you don’t have a subscription, essentially offering only a live intercom system. There are excellent subscription-free alternatives.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’ll get on with the Ring Wired Video Doorbell (2nd Gen) comes down to how you feel about a subscription. At £5 per month, the basic Ring Solo package is really the minimum you’ll need for a decent smart doorbell, given it enables Video Event History – essential if something happens to your home and you need to find the footage. If you don’t mind paying another £3 per month, Pro Intelligence adds plenty of rich features that really can help you filter out the noise and quickly find important clips.
Using the free one month all-bells-and-whistles subscription, I loved the way Ring’s app offered rich, video-described notifications, and blended live, recent and timeline videos on a single screen. I also enjoyed the ease with which I could search and find activity. This is better still if you’re happy to let Ring analyse your videos – remember that’s off by default.
Ring works out better value if you have multiple cameras and the alarm system, at which point that monthly subscription is good value compared to the alternatives.
However, if you’d rather not be tied to a subscription, alternatives including Tapo’s D235 offer comparable image quality and capable – if not quite as rich – AI features, without the need for a subscription. And if you like the sound of either, but want to see more options, read our Best Doorbells Guide for more.
Trusted Score
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- Used as our main security camera for the review period
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FAQs
The main difference between the two generations is a switch from landscape video to a square format sensor – a far better choice for capturing the area in front of a door. The newer model is also a little larger.
Hardwiring prevents you having to periodically recharge your doorbell, so it can be a hassle saver. That said, most battery doorbells – including Ring’s – will charge from existing wiring if you have it, providing constant operation with a handy battery backup.
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Author: Simon Handby
This article comes from Trusted Reviews and can be read on the original site.
