I ended up returning my Ring Doorbell because it had way too many false alerts and too many missed alerts. I think I know the reason why.
My front door faces south-west. The stucco walls and the concrete walkway are all in the Ring Doorbell's field of view. During the day, all of it is being baked by the sun. If someone came up to the door during the day, Ring's IR sensor would completely miss it because the person's IR is masked by the background IR. And at night, all of the remaining IR heat given off by the walls and walkway made Ring think someone's at the door when no one is actually there. I couldn't deal with the phone alerting me 10 times a day when no one is actually at the door.
The fact remains that Ring uses a passive IR sensor. While passive IR sensors are great for low power devices because they don't require any power to activate, they all have one huge flaw. They can't tell the difference between background IR heat and foreground IR. If Ring had an active IR sensor, where it monitors what is actually moving (like a camera that analyses movement in the frame), it would be suitable for my particular situation. Ring could have done this because you do have the option to connect low voltage power to the doorbell. But they wanted to make it wireless and run on batteries too. You can't have it run on batteries and have an active IR sensor at the same time, or you'll be charging the batteries every single day. It's too bad though, because it would be have a great device.
25 Replies
53307 Views