Am I correct in thinking the Ring Alarm Base unit is the weak link in the system? e.g. If someone breaks into my house and - being the experienced Bad Guy that they are - recognizes the Ring Alarm Base which is now chirping and displaying a big blue lighted “ring” on it… Don’t they just need to unplug the Base (or drop it in the toilet) to prevent the system from “phoning home” to the monitoring center?
If that is indeed the case, does everyone attempt to locate their Base unit in a more obscure area some distance from their doors? Seems like it could still be found in less than a minute though.
The base unit if monitoring is on will transmit if set off. The only time it will not is if you set a timer on your door to enter a code.
The base station has a battery backup and a cell connection. So if it’s ripped off the wall it will still work. I haven’t seen on here anyone saying the base station didn’t work if set off or in any news reports. So, I’d say there is a low chance of anyone stopping it fast enough. I did place mine up high on my wall and underneath furniture so it’s not easy to get to but also so it gets better coverage to all the sensors.
Hey @Falcon. Great questions! For the Ring Alarm Base Station, since the device is always plugged in, the Base Station has a battery inside that is constantly keeping itself charged. If the power is unplugged from the Base Station, it will go into it’s 24-hour battery backup. This will help ensure that power is connected and it’s sending out any signals to the device or our Central Monitoring Station as needed.
Additionally, when it comes to response times, once your Ring Alarm Base Station is sirening, it will send out the notification to our Central Monitoring Station. If the system is not disarmed within 30 seconds, our monitoring station will then start calling out to the emergency contacts. The only way to stop the Base Station from alarming would be to disarm from the keypad or the app. Although, if your Base Station somehow is completely turned off or broken, and it was never disarmed, it stays in the “Alarming” state. This alarming state cannot be cleared until the Base Station has life brought back to it, and then still is disarmed from the app or the keypad.
Therefore, if you were ever to have a situation like your’s happen, as long as you are not disarming your system, you will still get the call from our Central Monitoring Station in order for you to request police dispatch accordingly. Please ensure you have Professional Monitoring set up in the app under Settings and have an active Ring Protect Plus Plan Subscription as well so that our Central Monitoring Station will call out to you.
For placement, I recommend to have the Ring Alarm Base Station put in an area that best suits you. For example, if you’re home and need to hear the siren for yourself, make sure it’s near where you sleep or generally are in the home a lot. Additionally, you may want to place it close to break in points in the home to scare away any intruders. Hope this helps clear it up for you!
Good point @CrazyCat, I was wondering the same thing last night.
Further to my original post - it sounds like, In theory, if an intruder could locate the Ring base unit (e.g. a contractor that recently did work in the home, a cleaning person, etc.) and somehow destroy it withing 30 seconds (or a minute?), it doesn’t sound like the monitoring service would ever receive the alert. As such, I would not be alerted, nor would local authroties.
I understand this a very specific and somewhat unlikely scenario, but it nonetheless sounds like it introduces a single point of failure.
Hey neighbors! To your point, @CrazyCat, that is indeed true. This is why some neighbors will tend to lower their entry delay. Please note that most contact sensors and motion detectors are set to be secondary doors, windows, or rooms, which means that those sensors, when tripped, will set off the alarm automatically with no delay. In addition, you can have Confirmation Calls set up through the app under the main menu > Settings > Monitoring Professional > and then toggling on Confirmation Call. This is more of a peace of mind feature to ensure that in the events of false alarms that you are still getting a call from our Central Monitoring Station no matter the event, especially if you still feel the need to have authorities dispatched.
Please note that regardless of the entry delay, the alarm still has to be disarmed at some point. So, even if a neighbor has a 30 seconds or 2 minute entry delay, after that set time, the Ring Alarm Base Station is sent a signal to “alarm.” If the unit is destroyed, it will not actually siren, but the system in the back-end will state that it is “alarming.” Then entails the string of events of 30 seconds of the Base Station “alarming” before getting the call from our Central Monitoring Station. The system will not be stuck in the entry delay if it’s destroyed, so you can rest easy knowing that, @Falcon! Hope this helps clear it up and give you that added peace of mind.
So from my understanding, if the alarm is on and your door is opened it sends a signal to Rings “computer system” imediately. So if the unit is detroyed before the actual delay time is over or the pin is entered, monitoring would still recieve a break in alert.
So you would need to enter the pin to let their computer system know all is clear. Or monitoring would activate their protocall.
Great explanation @Chelsea_Ring, what if the alarm goes off and the person at home is unable to take the call from the monitoring center but is in real trouble…
The “brains” or main panel of old systems is the weakest link. I’ve seen installations where the main panel is installed in the garage and the area is not protected whatsoever.
This is also a drawback of all-in-one systems as they are a single point of failure.
The best approach, even with Ring is for example to have the base station in a secure location out of sight, and install a separate siren. The entry delay notifications will sound in the keypad and if the alarm is triggered, the remote siren will go off.
One problem with the new Alarm base station is that by including an internet WiFi router, it now needs to be installed in a central location in order to provide WiFi to the house. This should be an option and a non-router version should still be available.
Hope this helps clear it up and give you that added peace of mind.