Back to the Drawing Board, Amazon (UPDATED)
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2023 | Rating: 4/5 | Best Sellers in Amazon Devices & Accessories
ive been using this ring doorbell and camera system for a couple of years now  plenty of time to put the gear through its paces and form a conclusion  in short this stuff is basically little more than toys  ill begin with some positive comments howeverthe hardware of both the doorbell and the r2d2 cameras is quite impressive  its solid the fit and finish are excellent and the materials used are excellent quality  the 1080 camera is sharp and clear  even in the dead of night and the audio is as good as one could expect given that there isnt anything capturing the sound except a tiny condenser mic  that saidthe sensitivity sensor is highly erratic regardless of what level it is set to  on a few occasions the recorder wont even trip should someone come up to the door but thankfully this is rare  most of the problems are with the inconsistency of distance  for example people walking along the sidewalk in front of my house are basically never detected which is proper but should a postal delivery vehicle or a garbage truck go by then the system is triggered  keep in mind that a sidewalk is normally closer to a house than a street and my property is no exception  even a stray headlight will trip the system which is exasperating when it happens in the middle of the night  when the system does properly record there are too many instances of the recording starting too late or quitting too early which results in images of humans at our door getting chopped offinexplicably the unit contains a battery that cannot be swapped out  this means that you have to take the doorbell offline for hours at a time so that the battery inside it can be recharged  ill admit i didnt read the fine print when i purchased so my bad but cmon who would have thought that someone would have designed a security system that had to be taken offline by designas bad as all the above is the absolute showstopper is the horrific problem with wifi  a problem so consistent and acute that it renders this product useless  the doorbell and the cameras are constantly going offline and the only way that they can be brought back online is for the user to be onsite and physically reconnect the devices  talk about unclear on the concept  the whole idea of home security is that you want it working when youre away amazon not just when youre at homethe slightest network glitch causes the system to completely blow up  a slight power interruption the router temporarily losing network etc  however every single device in my household is smart enough to come back online once the connection has been restored exceptthe ring system  sometimes eventually the doorbell figures something out and comes back online but the cameras  never  they would be better off as paperweightssome of this is not amazons fault  its the nature of a motion detection system  the problem is that with the system metaphorically yelling fire all the time you become naturally insensitive to its warnings or if you simply turn it off so you arent disturbed then this defeats the whole purpose rightupdate 8132023  after speaking with a courteous and knowledgable customer service representative named melissa i was satisfied with the information she provided in re to the operation of the doorbell  for the most part she affirmed my observations about the proximity sensitivity issues i documented here as well as the necessity to deactivate and uninstall the device in order to charge it  her suggestion was to hardwire the doorbell but i explained that due to the trim around our door as well as other issues hardwiring would be cost prohibitive  i stated that i am very pleased with the performance of the battery itself  it only needs charging 34 times per year but that the real issue was that the battery requires 68 hours to charge no matter what type of charger that is used  i also stated that i was aware that fastcharging shortens the life of lithium batteries but that this decision should be left up to customers not the designers  for my part i would rather be able to fastcharge the battery and get my doorbell operating again even if this means purchasing a replacement a little sooner than i might have had toive added two additional stars to this review  one for the unusually strong battery performance and one for melissas patient assistance