Ring Alarm Review

[Pete]

Purchased a Ring Alarm system from Amazon last June, 2020.

Hub, Repeater (Z-Wave), 4 contact sensors Keypad and 1 PIR. All Generation 2.

The Hub is POE powered and wired to the network. The Keypad is powered 24/7.

Last week; week of May 2, 2021 got alerts that one contact sensor died and 3 contact sensors and PIR needed a battery replacement.

The Ring web site indicates that I should be getting 3 years of battery lifespan on the contact sensors and PIR sensor.


Battery life

Each device’s battery life is dependent on actual usage. Ring has tested all security devices, and the estimated life span is as follows:

• Ring Alarm Base Station - Internal rechargeable battery, which lasts up to 24 hours.
• Ring Alarm Contact Sensor - Uses a 3V Lithium battery, included with the device, which may last up to 3 years depending on usage. Cold temperatures may drain battery life faster.
• Ring Alarm Keypad - Internal rechargeable battery which lasts up to 7 months, depending on usage and power save settings.
• Ring Alarm Range Extender - Internal rechargeable battery which lasts up to 22 hours.
• Ring Alarm Motion Detector - Uses a 3V Lithium battery, included with the device, which may last up to 3 years, depending on usage.

I am monitoring the system via a Ring to MQTT plugin. The MQTT details are much nicer than the graphics on the Ring website.

Called Ring CS this morning. CS was very pleasant. I asked why I had to replace all of the batteries on all of the contact sensors and PIR sensors in less than a year.

She told me more than once that the lifespan of the batteries was 6 months to a year after I read to her what the web site states.

I also posted on the Ring Forum website relating to my issues.

I asked about replacing the contact sensors and PIR and she said that there was nothing wrong with them and that the PIR was used to much???

Today ordered extended life Lithium batteries for the PIR sensor to see if lifespan changes.

I was impressed with the 24/7 monitoring and backup to the monitoring.

I am not impressed with battery lifespan and because of this would not recommend the Ring Alarm system.

[chewie]

Pete, I have had a Ring alarm for a while and have been looking at ways to integrate it with Homeseer. Thanks for the Ring to MQTT link, I am going to look into that. Quick question, are you using that to trigger anything within HS or simply monitoring the alarm within HS?

[Pete]

I am using the Ring sensors to trigger TTS events in Homeseer similarly to the hard wired sensors on the OmniPro 2 panel. IE: garage door open or close.

I have the sensors defined on the RIng web site. Using the MQTT plugin you get a long account number and device name which I rename to make it easier to manage.

This is my first "wireless" alarm endeavor. What is the battery replacement times on your sensors?

[Kevb]

Pete, I have had a Ring alarm for a while and have been looking at ways to integrate it with Homeseer. Thanks for the Ring to MQTT link, I am going to look into that. Quick question, are you using that to trigger anything within HS or simply monitoring the alarm within HS?

I don't have the Ring alarm, but when my Ring cameras detect motion, I have Alexa flip a virtual switch I've set up for each camera. I run events in HS based on the switches changing, i.e. motion detected, Alexa turn on Camera Motion switch, HS runs event and turns off switch. It's worked well for me and may work for your Ring Sensors as well. Someone on the forum posted this tip, but I don't remember who. (I don't know / use MQTT, yet anyway)

Pete, thanks for the review, I've been considering a wireless alarm system (not staying in the house long enough to justify wired)

[chewie]

I have done that Kevb, I actually setup a routine in Alexa so that when my Ring cameras go off at night then, for example the garage camera sees motion then Alexa kicks off an event that turns on the garage lights about 15 seconds later and then plays a clip of me talking for 30 or 45 seconds thorugh my Sonos. This way if someone is meandering around my Garage at night they may not be scared off by the light and camera, but seeing lights come on inside and hearing me talking could be the thing that pushes them into leaving. :-)

[chewie]

I am using the Ring sensors to trigger TTS events in Homeseer similarly to the hard wired sensors on the OmniPro 2 panel. IE: garage door open or close.

I have the sensors defined on the RIng web site. Using the MQTT plugin you get a long account number and device name which I rename to make it easier to manage.

This is my first "wireless" alarm endeavor. What is the battery replacement times on your sensors?

Pete, I have had my Ring alarm for about 9 months and have not had to replace any batteries.

[windracer]

I'm a new(er) Ring customer as well (Feb 2021). I will say I have one keypad that is not plugged in and haven't had to recharge it yet (and it's not in battery-saver mode, so it lights up whenever it detects motion). Still too early to tell on the contact sensor batteries.

Since I have Alexa, I added virtual devices in HS for all the Ring contact sensors I wanted to monitor in Homeseer, and then set up Alexa routines to toggle the virtual devices based on the status of the actual sensors, including the state of the alarm (I just wish Ring would add a status of "alarming"). This has been working pretty well for me.

So far, I'm a lot happier with Ring and HS than I was with ADT and Pulse.

[Pete]

In general I have been a happy camper. Thinking maybe I put an old battery in the PIR that I use. I do the same and use Alexa for status. You can get some granular details of your devices using the RingtoMQTT application. I have turned down the volume on the TTS on the keyboards and hub as it is too low and prefer to use Alexa for this stuff.

Here for the Ring Hub wall mounted it next to the doorbell chime using a POE connection. For the keyboards used mini 5VDC flat phone chargers such that the keyboards are always powered.

This last year added a garage door contact switch. I went with an earth style magnet.

The contract price / monitoring is good along with the built in cellular failover.