Ring Doorbell, any good?

The Whole RING system is exceptional. The Alarm system particularly is amazing.
 
Johnny1982 said:
The Whole RING system is exceptional. The Alarm system particularly is amazing.
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The Ring doorbell was a frustrating failure for me. I found it utterly useless no matter what I tried. The Tapo is working better but the battery life seems to be poor, it's only lasting two weeks. Knocking the sensitivity down increases battery life but there's a small negative in that when I reduce the sensitivity it misses just about everything.
 
Well I was adamant I wasn't going to have the battery doorbell. I can imagine it's a nightmare to keep charged. I opted for a pro wired and I cant complain really.

I have a Tapo system integrated with the whole smart home system

Ring, Tapo, Deco, Alexa.
 
Johnny1982 said:
Well I was adamant I wasn't going to have the battery doorbell. I can imagine it's a nightmare to keep charged. I opted for a pro wired and I cant complain really.

I have a Tapo system integrated with the whole smart home system

Ring, Tapo, Deco, Alexa.
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I think power and going to sleep and waking up might well be a part of the problem. Our battery Ring doorbell only raised alerts maybe 25% of the time and even then it might only raise an alert after several minutes which is just about useless as a security detection and alert device. When we were on holiday we only got one alert and even then no video was recorded because "Something went wrong." Utterly useless.

I'll see how this Tapo goes but so far I wouldn't recommend either the battery Ring or this battery Tapo for different reasons, the Ring was almost useless and the Tapo works much better but eats the battery. If there's a next time I think I'll go for a powered one.
 
gramps said:
I think you have just been very unfortunate, ours lasts for ages. Can you not return it for a replacement?
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I don't know if it's actually faulty or if it's the number of alerts. It's facing south west and when the sun is low in the sky (we're between Middlesbrough and Redcar, NE England) we get a lot of alerts due to people walking past and long shadows entering the detection zone which is waver thin as it is. Once the sun goes down the next issue is that there's a streetlight opposite and once that kicks in we get the long shadows again. We've had 27 alerts today and they're still going off and that's with the detection zone being very close to the front door. As above, it's on the default sensitivities at the moment but I did try turning things down and the result was that it detected next to nothing and there's just no point in that.

Actually the following is contradictory and confusing,

Googling tells me that 70-100 alerts per day or possibly 80 in three days depending on what I read will drain the battery in two weeks. We're at 30 odd so that could be why it's draining fast. Google advice is to reduce the sensitivity but I see no point in that because if I do that it pretty much stops alerting all together.

But Googling also tells me that the TD21 is rated for 180 days battery life with 300 seconds of activity a day, that should equate to 30-60 activations a day so we'll be at the lower end of that.

So, I have no idea why it's draining so quickly. I might log the results and contact customer service. If they have one.
 
woof woof said:
I don't know if it's actually faulty or if it's the number of alerts. It's facing south west and when the sun is low in the sky (we're between Middlesbrough and Redcar, NE England) we get a lot of alerts due to people walking past and long shadows entering the detection zone which is waver thin as it is. Once the sun goes down the next issue is that there's a streetlight opposite and once that kicks in we get the long shadows again. We've had 27 alerts today and they're still going off and that's with the detection zone being very close to the front door. As above, it's on the default sensitivities at the moment but I did try turning things down and the result was that it detected next to nothing and there's just no point in that.

Actually the following is contradictory and confusing,

Googling tells me that 70-100 alerts per day or possibly 80 in three days depending on what I read will drain the battery in two weeks. We're at 30 odd so that could be why it's draining fast. Google advice is to reduce the sensitivity but I see no point in that because if I do that it pretty much stops alerting all together.

But Googling also tells me that the TD21 is rated for 180 days battery life with 300 seconds of activity a day, that should equate to 30-60 activations a day so we'll be at the lower end of that.

So, I have no idea why it's draining so quickly. I might log the results and contact customer service. If they have one.
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Strange you mention shadows twice, shadow should not trigger it, especially at night.

You must have rouge zombies with a heat signature :)
 
Sangoma said:
Strange you mention shadows twice, shadow should not trigger it, especially at night.

You must have rouge zombies with a heat signature :)
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Of couse shadows trigger alerts. It's movement in the frame.

As above at night the street lamp opposite creates the shadows, it's not pitch black because the light is on so again it's movement within the frame.

I'm a bit surprised anyone would think shadows wouldn't trigger alerts. Try googling something like "why do shadows trigger a smart doorbell?"
 
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woof woof said:
Of couse shadows trigger alerts. It's movement in the frame
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Actually most, if not all, video doorbells are activated by passive infrared sensors that respond to the movement of a source of infrared energy, eg a human body, animal, vehicle engine/exhaust.
Shadows do not activate passive infrared sensors.
 
gramps said:
Actually most, if not all, video doorbells are activated by passive infrared sensors that respond to the movement of a source of infrared energy, eg a human body, animal, vehicle engine/exhaust.
Shadows do not activate passive infrared sensors.
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This is going on too long so this is my last post on the shadow issue.

Both Ring doorbells and Tapo doorbells, I've had both, are triggered by shadows. That's a fact. Google it or contact the makers for confirmation.
 
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woof woof said:
This is going on too long so this is my last post on the shadow issue.

Both Ring doorbells and Tapo doorbells, I've had both, are triggered by shadows. That's a fact. Google it or contact the makers for confirmation.
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Didn't mean to touch a nerve, just offering assistance with your problem as I have 3 of the Tapo units installed, working effectively and with no battery problems.
However as I have obviously upset you with my single reply about shadows I'll make this my last attempt to help. :)
 
gramps said:
Didn't mean to touch a nerve, just offering assistance with your problem as I have 3 of the Tapo units installed, working effectively and with no battery problems.
However as I have obviously upset you with my single reply about shadows I'll make this my last attempt to help. :)
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You haven't touched a nerve or upset me. Its just the denials by two posters that this is a problem when clearly it is don't help and are if I'm being honest baffling and a teeny tiny bit irritating to the point I wonder if people are trolling. It is a real issue, they are triggered by shadows.

Sorry if this irks anyone but replying takes time when this is clearly a real known issue. You can reduce the instances of shadows triggering a doorbell by reducing the sensitivity and I've tried that and the result was that alerts went from frequent to pretty much zero and that's worse than having multiple shadow triggers.

A partial answer until these things get cleverer might be to reduce the sensitivity at peak long shadow times but that could lead to an event which I want recording to be missed and for me missed alerts are the most annoying thing. I'm sick of walking up to the front door and going inside and no alert being triggered or only getting one 5 minutes later, that's why the Ring has been replaced. I'm not happy with the Tapo because although it is much better than the Ring the battery drain is very disappointing and I will contact Tapo about it. If I could get a months use that's do but 2 weeks really isn't enough.

A powered system may be the answer as power drain wouldn't be a problem but that means buying another one which can be powered, the TD21 can't. I'll try to contact Tapo and take it from there.

PS.
TD21 might be able to run powered via usb. I'll look into that.
 
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