Hi neighbors! We wanted to share an announcement with the Community that as of March 29th, 2023, neighbors in the United States and Canada will need a Ring Protect Plan subscription to access Alarm monitoring features and home and away Modes for Ring Doorbells and Cameras. Neighbors with an Alarm before this date will be placed in legacy status and will keep these monitoring features without a subscription. The below changes will apply to all new Alarm users and new and existing Ring Doorbell and Camera users.
For Ring Alarm, a Basic subscription will be required to access the following features:
Event History of 60 days. Without a Basic subscription, Event History will be 24 hours.
Arm and disarm via the Mode Schedule feature.
Automate behavior via the Linked Devices feature for Doorbells, Cameras, or smart locks, based on the Alarm state. For example, setting your Doorbell to begin recording when the Alarm siren is triggered.
Email and push notifications from Alarm.
Arm and disarm via Ring app or Alexa. Without a Basic subscription, the Alarm can be disarmed from the Keypad.
For Camera and Doorbells (with no Alarm), a Basic subscription is required to access the following features:
Arm and disarm Cameras and Doorbells via Modes settings. Without a Basic subscription, there will be no Modes settings available for neighbors without an Alarm.
Neighbors who already have an Alarm before March 29th, 2023 will be placed in a legacy status and keep the monitoring features listed above, even if they do not have a Ring Protect Plan subscription. This includes having access to Modes for Doorbells and Cameras. Doorbell and Camera users without an Alarm will not be placed in a legacy status, and will need to subscribe to a Ring Protect Plan to access Modes settings.
Please note that these changes do not impact Ring Protect Plan pricing, and there are no changes for neighbors outside of the United States and Canada. Any questions regarding whether or not you have legacy status should be directed to our support team. Current Help Center content regarding Ring Protect Plans will reflect these changes on March 29th, 2023. We remain committed to delivering value and peace of mind for our neighbors, and appreciate any feedback.
I’m sorry, but I have huge problems with this. It is unacceptable that notifications are put behind a pay wall. Sure, put remote control features there of you must. But the notifications? We’ve been loyal subscribers from the beginning. But this might be enough for us to unistall our Ring and switch to a competitor.
I agree. This is absolutely an unacceptable “bait and switch”. Rethink this, Ring-Amazon. Loyal customers are standing by, ready to jump ship. I will reinstall my Feit camera which has no subscription plan.
This is a bad idea. People are generally looking to reduce subscriptions and now you put more behind a pay wall? Why even bother buying into this ecosystem? I’m uninstalling and going with EUFY who has no subscriptions for more features.
Ring is a cloud-based system and they need to charge something to pay for the servers and employees to maintain the systems. If you don’t want to pay anything, buy a product that runs locally.
I have a Ring alarm system bought in 2020 so I believe I should be considered a legacy user, but as of today I am observing a message saying I don’t have a subscription, and am unable to change mode from the app. What’s going on?
Hi @RL11. The Ring Community is a public forum, so we cannot see any account information. Any questions regarding whether or not you have legacy status should be directed to our support team.
I am quite upset about this change. I had a ring system at my prior house and at a family members house. I moved and bought a 3rd ring security system and after the 30 day subscription trial I found out I must now pay for features that were previously free. I understand subscriptions for items that require constant update and monitoring but being able to arm and disarm my system from my phone is basic functionality. Unfortunately I am now stuck with a system that I cannot get a refund for since it is past the 30 day return policy from where I bought it. I called support and all they would offer is a 30 day extension of the trial. I will be discontinuing use of this system and purchasing a Eufy system. Needless to say I will no longer buy ring products and will be sure to spread the word to friends and family. This is a terrible way to treat a returning customer…
This is a terrible change. I think it is fine to have premium features or services. It is a stand way to make more money. Charging for basic functionality doesn’t feel right. Without the modes feature I can’t use this without getting many many notifications that I am in my house or no notifications at all. I think ring may gain some short term financial benefits from this change, but they have certainly lost my trust, which feels like an important feature in a security company.
It cost money for Ring to provide services without any compensation. Sending notifications does cost them some money as they have systems that take resources to provide these services.
This is my third alarm system. I don’t know of any other company who offers such feature rich services as Ring as a very reasonable price. Professional Monitoring is $200 a year if you pre-pay in advance, or $20 if you pay monthly. By making a one-time annual payment, that works out to $16.66 a month. Where else can you get Professional Monitoring and all the other services Ring provides for $16.66 a month?
I just left SimpliSafe where they raised prices for the second time in two years and their monitoring service is now almost $30 a month. SimpliSafe does not offer “Smash and Grab” protection so you have to hide the base station and hope that a criminal does not find your base station before the entry delay expires. Second, their sensors use 433.92Mhz signal that is so easily thwarted using a $40 handheld radio from Amazon and many other vendors. Ring uses a more difficult to jam technology which is Z-Wave.
SimpliSafe used to be cheap but not any more. If you want basic camera features with self-monitoring you still paying around $10 a month.
Personally, I think self monitoring is bad as you cannot always be watching your phone for alerts. Heck I miss text messages all the time. I would never consider self monitoring but maybe it works for others.
In my opinion, you get what you pay for and if you pay little or nothing, the service is worth little to nothing.
But by all means, check around with other vendors and let everyone know if you find a lower cost service. I would be interested because I have spent a lot of time looking at other vendors when I wanted to move from SimpliSafe and the lowest cost quality service I found was Ring.
