#Family Safety

The doorbell is one of those items I never really thought about before this recent surge in video doorbells.  It is probably the simplest of tech in the home and one of the most needed.  Press a button and two connectors touch send an electrical current to a chime placed somewhere in your home.  Let go of the button and the connectors separate stopping the current.  They cost less than $10 to replace which is why I always find myself being slightly annoyed when I visit a home of means and find that their doorbell is broken and has been so for awhile.

I began to research video doorbells while looking for a discreet place to house a camera by my front door.  We moved into a townhouse earlier in the year and I found it to be a real hassle to come down two flight of stairs while I’m trying to put my kids to sleep to tell a solicitor I’m not interested.  I was beginning to think I was going to have to run a cable to the front of the house which would become a bit destructive when I fell upon a YouTube review of a video doorbell.  My stand alone IP camera ideas was immediately eliminated for this option.

Video doorbells allow you to be notified by smart phone or tablet when your doorbell is rang.  You can then pull up the doorbell’s camera on your device and speak to whomever is at the door through the built in intercom.

Before I began to research my options in the world of video doorbells, I again asked myself the questions I always ask before I make a tech purchase.

1) Will this add convenience and security to my life.

Yes, it will prevent me from opening the doors to people I don’t know while still being able to communicate with them.  It will also prevent me from panicking when I am changing diapers or bathing the kids and doorbell rings.

2) Can this be integrated with other tech I own.

This one was tricky but ultimately it passed the test.  Most of the popular brands of video doorbells can be integrated with a home automation platform.

As you can tell from my front door picture, I ended up choosing the Ring Pro video doorbell as my choice for a number of reason.

The doorbell wire that the builder ran for my townhouse is in the middle of my door molding.  This means I had limited space to place a doorbell without having an overhang. No only is it not aesthetically pleasing but it could easily be broken off that way.  This left my option limited to a slim doorbell which the Ring Pro offers.

I also wanted different color options for the video doorbell so that it matched my door accessories and I liked that the Ring Pro comes with 4 different color skins.

The Ring company also had the brilliant ideas of inventing a ring chime pro which helps in two ways.  If you have a large home or a home with many levels like mine, there are parts of the house where you can’t hear the doorbell.  The Ring Chime pro simply plugs to an outlet in that part of the house and uses its built in speaker to chime when the doorbell button is pressed.  It also extends the wi-fi  broadcast range of the video doorbell which can make or break you experience with the product.  If the signal is too weak you won’t be able to pull up the video.

The Ring Pro also comes with motion sensors which can break up the area in front of your home into zones and notify you if someone enters the zone.  I made my driveway my zone so I get notified whenever someone pulls up to my driveway or walks within 10 ft of my front doorbell.  This allows me to watch my daughter steps off the school bus in the afternoon while I am at work and depending on she acts as she walks in I know if she had a good day at school or a bad one.  It’s a small thing but it makes me feel good to know I am not missing these moments.

I love my Ring Pro video doorbell so much that I ended up purchasing a Ring for my parents and my in-laws.  The Regular Ring model differs from the pro in that it does 720p video as oppose 1080p.  It also has the option to be wireless unlike the pro which has to be hard wired.  This makes the Ring much large in size.  My mom had even less space than me to mount a Ring in front of her house so we ended up mounting it to the brick.  Since it’s not wired, her Ring has to be charged periodically and from what she tells me one charge can last about six months. When the battery becomes too low se gets a notification and charges it for about an hour.  What has impressed me most is that she lives in Canada where the temperature regularly drops to below 20 in the winter and she has never had a functionality issue.

Please leave me a comment if you have any questions, comments, prefer another video doorbell or just want to say hi. I  always love hearing from you.