So we are coming from a previous house with a hardwired alarm system. In the new house we passed on having it hardwired and instead started with Abode (which was terrible) and then switched to Ring Alarm Gen2 to go along with our selection of Ring cameras. After living with this for 3 months, I think this is my set of wishes:
- Allow chirps for both open/close events on the base station/keypad. The event already is registered, why can’t we have both make audible sounds?
- Allow us to load our own sound(s) in for audible alerts for door/windows open/close
- It would be nice if somehow the keypad could tell you what sensors need to be bypassed. Could it read the names you programmed? Sometimes I don’t want to go get my phone or computer to login and see what it says is still open when it’s late at night and I’m setting the alarm (we have sensors on all doors/windows in the house, so we’re at 25+)
- Bypass - it seems setting bypass via the keypad is not really a bypass until disarm. If that bypassed window is then closed, it appears to then be part of the alarm group for the remainder of the arming time. This is different than previous alarms I’ve had where the bypass is for the entire duration of the armed session, regardless if the sensor closes and opens. This is needed as our kids like to have their windows open on warm evenings, but might wake up and adjust it through the night. These sensors seem very touchy if you hover the window around that closed area, so even sometimes just closing it slowly will trigger a close/open/close sequence which will trip the alarm
- Lock integration - we have a Kwikset 914 which is nice to have integrated, but the options with it are greatly lacking. Today Ring only allows the user code to be the same for the door lock as the alarm keypad. Isn’t that kind of dumb as someone figures out your keypad code, now they also know the alarm code? Let me make unique codes for each user/item! This seems like a decrease in security.
- Lock integration - this Kwikset 914 allows 8 digit codes, but once integrated with Ring, I’m limited to 4 digit codes. This again seems like a decrease in security.
- Lock integration - let me manage lock codes as a separate item from users, or let me add more than 1 lock code per user. I know the idea is to make it so everyone has the app and a Ring account, but sometimes I don’t want that.
- Lock integration - automatic disabling of lock keypad entry when the house alarm is armed in home mode. We use home mode every night (this is mostly the only time we actually arm the system regularly as lately we’re never really all out of the house at the same time to use away mode), during this time, it would be great if it automatically disabled the ability to unlock the front door with any of the programmed codes, then in the morning when we disarm the alarm, reenable the ability to unlock the door.
- Keypads - at the cost of battery life, let me leave the status light illuminated all the time! Previous alarms we’ve had always had a status light (solid green - all sensors are closed, off - at least 1 sensor is open, solid red - armed in away mode, blinking red - armed in home mode with no entry delay). It’s nice to have that visual indicator from across the room. I’ve tried coming up with some other way to indicate some of this stuff, but I’m tired of tinkering with it when the alarm should just give me this option!
- Camera zones - I would love to have the ability to setup zones for cameras to only record larger areas during times where the alarm is armed. For instance, we have cameras on the front of our house. Right now, the motion area is only set to the edge of our sidewalk. However, at night, when the alarm is set, I’d love it to switch to also include the street in front of our house as we have had a few cases of cars being vandalized in the neighborhood. However, I don’t want to constantly have these setting off my motion settings through the entire day. So allowing this mode switching from the alarm state would be great.
Thoughts? Discussion?