Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 review: radar provides a bird’s eye view

Who would have thought that radar would become an increasingly important technology in the smart home? The second-generation Google Nest Hub uses technology to track your sleep, and now the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 uses it for 3D motion detection. Ring’s premium doorbell camera offers other advanced features as well, but is that enough to justify the $ 250 price tag and the subscription you’ll need to access it?

If you’re unfamiliar with Ring’s video doorbells and other home security cameras, you’ll receive motion and visitor alerts, but you’ll only be able to see a live feed of what’s going on in front of the house. camera, unless you sign up for a Ring Protect subscription. You can talk to people in front of the camera, using your smartphone, or an Echo Show smart screen, but you won’t be able to see events that have happened in the past.

This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best video doorbells, where you will find reviews of the competitor’s offerings, as well as a buyer’s guide to the features to consider when purchasing this type of doorbell. product.

Ring subscriptions aren’t very expensive, starting at $ 3 per camera per month, but they’re the only way to get motion-activated recordings that are stored in the cloud, so you can watch them more. late (you get up to 60 days of history). You’ll need a subscription to unlock some of the more advanced features of Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2. More on that in a moment.

Jason D’Aprile / IDG

The Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 delivers the highest resolution of any Ring camera – 1536p HD – with a 150 x 150 degree viewing angle that provides a head-to-toe view of your visitor. But you’ll find other cameras that offer even higher resolution and wider viewing angles. The $ 249 Vivint Doorbell Camera Pro, for example, offers a resolution of 1,664 pixels and 180-degree viewing angles both vertically and horizontally. That said, Vivint’s optional subscription costs $ 4.99 per month (and you’ll want as much as Ring’s), and Ring’s doorbell offers several advanced features that Vivint doesn’t.

The Video Doorbell Pro 2’s 1536p resolution, along with HDR support, gives good video quality in a variety of lighting conditions, but I encountered an issue with the night vision performance of the doorbell. During a troubleshooting session, a Ring representative noted a network issue that was limiting bit rate and negatively affecting picture quality. Oddly, this was an issue that wasn’t happening with Ring’s entry-level wired video doorbell ($ 60) that I’m also reviewing.

3D motion detection

Jason D’Aprile / IDG

The main one of these advanced features is the radar powered motion detection that I mentioned above. Once you have connected the doorbell to your home’s existing low voltage wiring, you provide your home address to the Ring app. The app will then present a satellite image (not real-time, of course) of your property and ask you to mark on that map where you’ve placed the doorbell and how far away you want it to detect motion. Ring’s other cameras take rough estimates of distance, but radar does give the Video Doorbell Pro 2 a certain degree of accuracy.

This 3D motion detection feature works in concert with something Ring calls Bird’s Eye View, in which a picture-in-picture window is overlaid on the main screen of the app. When you receive a motion alert and start streaming live video, the app will use this satellite image to present an aerial view of the area you have marked for motion detection. On this aerial view will be superimposed a series of points marking the path along which the movement was detected. You can see when a motion event started and the path a potential intruder has followed – or is moving, if you’re watching a live stream – in camera view.

It’s a killer feature we’ve never seen before, and it’s useful both when you’re watching a live stream and watching a recorded clip, but it has an Achilles heel: the ring. depends on third-party satellite imagery, so it has no control over the quality of those images. In my case, as you can see from these screenshots, the satellite images are extremely blurry. You won’t know how good your satellite imagery will be until you purchase and install a Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2. That said, I do know exactly where my doorbell is, and see the m-dot tracking movement. was very helpful.

Jason D’Aprile / IDG

Greetings Alexa

We’ve seen doorbell cameras with preset voice responses before, and they’re perfect for times when you can’t answer the door or just prefer not to. Ring calls out their quick responses and there are six of them, including “Please leave the package outside.” If you want to leave a message, you can do so now. Ring goes one step further with Alexa Greetings. You can ask Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant to answer the door for you, and they can also take messages that will appear in your event history. Doorbell for Alexa to respond immediately or up to 20 seconds later, but Alexa integration is another feature that requires a Ring Protect subscription plan.

Jason D’Aprile / IDG

A Ring Protect subscription also unlocks several other features: Advanced Pre-Roll displays a six-second video preview showing what triggered motion detection. Rich notifications show a real-time preview of what’s happening in front of the camera before you even open the Ring app. And people only mode is Assumed to generate motion alerts only when humans are in front of the camera, but I found it to be incredibly unreliable. He couldn’t distinguish between humans, cats and other furry animals moving within his field of vision. My editor tells me that he encountered the same problem with Vivint’s video doorbell.

The bottom line

The Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 has some unique and sophisticated features, but we’ve seen competing doorbell cameras with even higher resolution and wider viewing angles sell for the same price or less. And Ring’s People Only mode just doesn’t live up to its billing. On the other main, if you’re already immersed in the entire Ring and Amazon Alexa smart home ecosystem, and want the best video doorbell in this ecosystem, the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 is it.