Happy to add my $0.02 here, I'm one of the co-founders of Yogi (https://meetyogi.com/), so we play in this space a lot :).

On one end, based on our analysis, Ring is definitely not a high performer when compared with the rest of the smart doorbell market (e.g. Arlo, Nest, eufy, et cetera). While the product does rank highly from a sentiment perspective when it comes to Setup/Installation (amongst the highest in the category), the two biggest negative areas for Ring revolve around the subscription (alluded to in other comments) and connectivity to other devices.

Now that being said, the fact that the product has a lot of 5 star reviews can be attributed to a few different points..

1) Amazon actually has differentiation between "ratings only reviews" and "reviews with text". So if you go to this link (https://www.amazon.ca/Ring-Video-Doorbell-Bronze-2020/produc...) and scroll down a little bit, you'll actually see ~2,700 total ratings but only ~800 with text. For a while now (but especially since the release of Alexa), Amazon has been making it easy for shoppers to quickly leave a "ratings only review". While this does lead to more ratings overall, our data shows that these "ratings only reviews" do tend to raise the average rating of a product quite significantly (its very easy for a user to click 5 stars and not justify their answer). Timing also plays a role, since Amazon often requests a review a few weeks after purchase which may not be enough time for someone to fully experience the product.

2) When Amazon shows a top line rating number on a home page, it's actually a total for all variations of the product on that page. If you navigate to the Amazon link I referenced above, go to the "All formats" filter and select the other option, you'll see that the specific product you're referencing only has a few hundred total ratings and a quick scroll through the most recent reviews will show a pretty poor performance overall (like you were alluding to).

3) Relevant in this case with Amazon as well, they'll also combine international reviews in their top line number. In this case this URL comes from Amazon Canada, but if you navigate through the reviews enough (or scroll far enough down on the main Amazon page for the product), you'll see reviews for other countries mixed in. While our data hasn't shown variation in country playing a huge difference in influencing average star rating (outside of fulfillment issues in a specific country, or bad versions in certain locations), it is still a noteworthy point.

4) This doesn't play as large of a role in this case, but promotional reviews can sometimes influence data as well. Amazon has a program called Amazon Vine where brands can send free products to shoppers in return for an "honest review". While these reviews do tend to have varying star ratings, our data does show that they tend to be more positive than normal reviews (which is to be expected since they come as a fair product).

While some folks have (justifiably) talked about getting inundated from a nefarious seller when they leave a bad review, more "legit" brands like Ring don't usually go with these methods. So that doesn't play as much of a role in this case, versus your Amazon only brands or foreign manufacturers.