Ring Doorbell : Great Idea, Poor execution.

Ever since Loxone did something that stopped the Foscam camera we have from working with the mini-server, we’ve found ourselves thinking there was something missing from the system.

There doesn’t seem to much in the way of alternatives, I guess that Loxone want you to buy their own Intercom system, well at over £750 thats never going to happen for us, so when we saw the Ring doorbell we thought we’d struck gold (We should have read the 1 star reviews on Amazon).

It really did look like it could do everything for £16o, the kit is boxed beautifully, unpacking was a joy, everything appears to be in the box including a small screwdriver with a security bit included and even a small spirit level to ensure the thing is level.

The unit even came with a 50% charge in the battery, so I was able to get it configured from my desk. Everything looked to be going great, picture was good, but not quite the quality the website would have you believe, and that fisheye lens really appears to cover all angles. At this point its worth noting that my wireless point was no more than 10ft from the doorbell.

After a good 15 minutes of testing the doorbell, looking like a fool, shouting at a small box in my hand while the wife did her bit with her iPhone in the kitchen, it looked like it was going to do the job perfectly.

How wrong was I? the moment we got the unit outside the whole thing went pear shaped. The picture went from most definitely 720p to a pixelated mess, the audio was almost audible, but the biggest problem the 3-5 second delay on everything! making the product unusable, when the unit has line of sight to the the wifi access point its great, when it doesn’t, well it just doesn’t work.

I can only ascertain that the product was designed to be used in the US, where (from my experience) the primary material buildings are made our of is wood, not steel and brick like they are in the UK.

Sadly its going back to Amazon as soon as we can get the return processed with them, i’ll chalk this one up to experience for now, and the search continues…..