Why You Can Trust CNET Ring Video Doorbell gets new life for the same low $100 price
The Amazon company's entry-level doorbell has improved specs, but it still costs just $100.
Ring's new-old doorbell is still just 100 bucks.
Ring has introduced a lot of hardware lately -- and isn't showing signs of stopping anytime soon. The Amazon-owned company today introduced an updated version of its original Ring Video Doorbell. The new Ring Video Doorbell will continue to be sold for $100, but features some updated specs.
Mainly, Ring says this revamped buzzer has better night vision and motion zones and a resolution boost up to 1080p from the original-original model's 720p. It can be hardwired or battery-powered, but like the first Ring Video Doorbell, this one has a built-in battery (rather than the removable ones in later Ring models).
That means, for the time that you're charging the battery, the doorbell is inactive. You can't simply buy a backup battery to swap in and out as needed. The first-gen Ring Video Doorbell took between 5 and 10 hours to fully charge, so that's definitely something to think about if you don't want your doorbell to be offline that long. That said, the battery is designed to last for months on a single charge (this varies based on usage).
The inconvenience of having to remove your whole doorbell accounts for the lower price, but this buzzer has many of the same features as more "advanced" Ring models like the Video Doorbell 3 Plus, such as Privacy zones so you can designate sections of your yard/driveway/neighbor's house that you'd like to exclude from the camera -- and home, away and disarmed security modes. Subscribe to the Ring Protect cloud storage service for additional features.
To negate some of the annoyance of removing the whole doorbell to charge it, Ring is also introducing a $50 Solar Charger that would theoretically provide continuous (or near-continuous) power.
I've had a complicated relationship with Ring products as a reviewer, due to some of its privacy and security policies, its relationship with police stations across the US and other issues, such as thousands of users' information being exposed back in December. These things combined led CNET to rescind our recommendations of Ring products.
Since then, Ring has worked to improve its policies, requiring two-factor authentication and offering a Control Center dashboard where users can more easily access their Ring device privacy and security settings. Because of that, we've reopened consideration of Ring devices.
Ring's new Video Doorbell is available for preorder on Amazon and Ring's online store now; it goes on sale on June 3. The Solar Charger goes on sale in July.
