The Good: Setup is relatively simple. Professional monitoring is only $10/month or $100/year if you pre-pay. Eligible for homeowners insurance discounts. Portable, in that you can take the whole system with you if you move. Arm/disarm by voice with Alexa. Inexpensive when compared to other solutions. Ability to connect the system to some smart locks.
The Bad: Few integrations with other systems including some of Ring’s own products. No smoke detectors (yet, though they do offer a smoke detector listener). Key fobs to arm/disarm the system would be a welcome addition. Door/Window sensors are a bit large.
Overall: The Ring Alarm kit is a fast and easy way to secure your home. Although the kit comes with everything you need to get started, most people will need additional sensors to monitor their whole home. The professional monitoring may be the cheapest available, but doesn’t appear to sacrifice anything in quality. The current lack of integration with many other smart products, including Ring’s own external cameras, is a bit concerning, but Ring has indicated there are plans to remedy this issue. For the price, the Ring Alarm is tough to beat.
You don’t need an alarm system. Until the day you do. I’ve never been concerned with home security. If people outside my home want to get in, they’re going to find a way. But I am concerned with what happens in my home. And I’m very concerned with what happens with my kids in my home.
The main catalyst for my purchase of the Ring Alarm system was the day my eighteen month old daughter opened our sliding door on her own and walked out on to our deck. We watched her do it. We knew she was safe. The gates to the pool were closed and locked and I was right behind her. But what about the day that happens and I’m not there. Or the gates are open. I’m not going to take that risk.
The Ring Alarm system is one of the most affordable and feature rich (for the price) on the market right now. The kit that I bought (pictured) came from Costco, where for $249 you get six door/window sensors instead of a single sensor with the $199 kit sold at retailers like Amazon (you can get similar kits on Amazon, generally for $50-100 more). This gave me the ability to monitor all of my first floor doors and the two windows that lead to the pool area without having to buy additional parts. Ultimately I plan to buy seven more Contact Sensors to cover the remaining first floor windows, and one more Motion Sensor for the second floor hallway.
The Devices
Most Ring alarm kits come with a Base Station, a keypad, a range extender, a number of contact sensors, and at least one motion sensor. You can buy kits that come with more contact/motion sensors based on your needs.
The Base Station
This is the brains of your Ring Alarm. It keeps your Ring Alarm online by connecting to WiFi or cellular (more on this later) and it links all of your Ring Alarm components. It’s also the main speaker for the system which will alarm if there is a break in (or out in my kids case), announce system status, or play a soft chime when a door or window is opened. Since you’ll want to install this somewhere that you can hear it throughout the house, it conveniently does not require a wired network connection. The base station comes with a pre-installed battery backup, and can run up to 24 hours using a cellular connection on the battery. The base station also has a ring of light inside the speaker grill that lights up blue when the system is disarmed and red when it is armed.
I set my base station up in my entry way under a table, so it can be heard but not seen. The status light is a bit bright, so I felt it would be best to hide it. I set it up to use WiFi to connect, so all I needed was a nearby outlet.
The Keypad
The keypad is one of the main ways you will interact with your Ring Alarm. Like most traditional alarms, you will input your security code to arm and disarm the system, so you’ll want to mount this next to the door you use most often to enter and exit your home. The keypad can be plugged in for constant power, or it can run on the included rechargeable battery, although you’ll have to take it down from time to time to charge it, which isn’t ideal. The keypad comes with a mounting cradle and a detachable power cable with a micro USB connector. We found the cradle to be a little too loose for our liking because the keypad would rock back when we were pushing the buttons. I wound up stuffing some padding behind the keypad and that solved the issue. The keypad has a small speaker of its own, and it will alert when system status is changed, or alarm if a sensor is tripped. Update: It looks like Ring has added a third screw to the keypad mount in newer models. This should cut down on the rocking.
The Contact Sensors
The two piece contact sensors can be mounted with the included adhesive or screwed in with the the mounting brackets, which are also included. Each sensor pair comes with a pre-installed battery that can last up to two years. The sensors are meant to be mounted indoors on windows and doors to alert you when they are opened. If a sensor is tripped when you attempt to arm your alarm system, you will either have to close the window/door or bypass the sensor.
The Range Extender
The range extender is meant to boost the signal of your Ring Alarm system to devices far from the base station. The range extender works only for Ring Alarm devices, and will not extend your WiFi or help you connect other Z-Wave devices to the system. It is fairly large, so it’s best to install in an out of the way place where you may need additional coverage. It can run for up to 24 hours on the included battery backup.
The Motion Sensors
The motion sensors are battery powered (included) and can be mounted either flush on a wall or in a corner. They come with adhesive mounts and screws with brackets to mount them to the wall. The motion sensitivity can be configured in the app to allow for pets to wander the house without setting off the alarm. On its highest sensitivity, my 45 pound dog doesn’t trip the alarm. I can only hope I don’t get robbed by small children or anorexic dwarves or this wont see them.
Setup
If you buy a Ring Alarm Starter Kit, all of the devices in the kit come pre-pared to one another. This means getting started is a breeze since all you have to do is pull the battery tabs and mount virtually everything. The Ring app walks you through setup, with videos and animations to explain almost every aspect of the setup. The only place I had a hiccup was when I had to get creative mounting a contact sensor on an exterior door that opens out. Once I saw how easy that obstacle was to overcome I was almost embarrassed.
The base station is literally plug and play. The app will automatically discover it and then ask you to start pairing devices. You then walk through each device, mounting, testing the connection and moving on. The best advice I can give here is to only pull the battery tab on one contact sensor at a time. They are pre-pared using serial numbers, and the app then asks you to re-name them as you go. If you activate all of them at once, they’ll all turn green (connected) in the app, and you’ll be left squinting at the little label on the back of the device to see which sensor you are about to mount.
Because of the loose fit of the keypad in the mounting bracket, I recommend mounting the bracket with some really good molly’s or making sure you hit a stud. Otherwise the keypad will eventually rock the screws right out of the wall.
Monitoring
You can choose from professional monitoring, for $10/month or $100/year paid in full, or self monitoring. If you choose the latter, you can’t get an insurance discount and no authorities will be alerted automatically. You are presented with this choice during setup and it is waaaaay too easy to choose professional monitoring. During my setup it was just one screen that didn’t make it very apparent that I was agreeing to a $100 charge.
A major upside to choosing the professional monitoring plan (Ring Protect Plus) is that it also covers cloud recording for ALL Ring cameras you may already own. This could potentially save you a fair amount of money if you’re already invested in Ring’s ecosystem. One thing to note is that I assumed signing up for the plan would automatically cancel my existing $30/year camera subscriptions, which it didn’t, and I had to work with support to get a refund.
Another benefit of professional monitoring is the insurance rebate. Most insurance companies will give you a yearly rebate for having a professionally monitored alarm system. In my case, it was $350/year! So with monitoring, my Ring Alarm was basically free this year, and for every year from now on it actually earns me $250.
One important note about professional monitoring is that many towns, counties or cities require all private residence alarm systems to be registered. There may also be a fee structure in place in the event of false alarms. Ring is very good at automating this process and will email you your town code and any instructions you may have to follow. It’s best to be familiar with your own municipality’s town code, though. In my case Ring was incorrect in thinking I needed a permit because of the way the code was written. Thankfully it was simple to contact support with the proper documentation and resolve the issue.
If you choose professional monitoring, you will have to set up a verbal security code that you will have to provide in the event of an alarm situation, a primary and secondary phone number where you can be reached, and they even ask to automatically add their contact information to your phone book so you don’t block or ignore the call.
Conclusion
It’s hard to find any major flaws with the Ring Alarm. My only gripe is that the keypad occasionally loses connection with the base station (this is a kind of big gripe) and I have to use a paperclip to hit the reset button when this happens. In the months I’ve been using the alarm, this disconnect has happened twice. Otherwise the system functionality has been flawless. The setup was well thought out, super simple, and included videos to help explain each step. Having Ring handle most of the work in setting up any required permits for professional monitoring was also a big plus.
Although there is still a lack of integrations with devices, in the months I’ve been testing this, Ring has released the ability to arm/disarm via Alexa, integrations with some smart locks, and announced there are more integrations coming. Since Ring uses Z-wave to communicate, I would like to see them open up the door/window and motion sensors to communicate with other devices in the home. I could see a ton of use cases for sensor based routines triggered in the Alexa app, or even direct communication with other Z-wave devices.
(UPDATE 4/23/19: This week Amazon opened up Ring contact and motion sensors to be used as triggers for Alexa routines. Read more about it here.)
Given the relatively cheap cost of the system, the very cheap cost of monitoring, it’s eligibility for insurance rebates, its portability, and the ease of setup, it’s tough to beat the Ring alarm. Now that they’re owned by Amazon I expect we’ll only see more features rolling out, like tying in to Alexa’s Guard Mode. Whether you’re already using Ring/Amazon products, or looking to get started, this is a fantastic entry in the DIY home security market.