Hi neighbors, we are excited to announce our first neighbor of the month!
Neighbor of the month is a way for us to showcase a neighbor who has actively participated in the community in a positive way and thank them for all their efforts. Whether they’re helping with an install question or sharing their findings, these neighbors give helpful tips and tricks whenever they can.
@abqnm has been selected as our Community neighbor of the month for August 2019. Thank you for all your hard work! As a way for us all to get to know each other better we have a special set of questions that every neighbor of the month will answer. See what abqnm had to say below.
How did you first hear about Ring?
— Remember seeing the early crowdfunding campaign, and when it was launched in store, I set my elderly grandparents up with the original RVD, and they’ve been using it for what, 5 years now?
How many Ring devices do you have?
— Personally I just have a Ring Pro and the Ring Alarm system at the moment, but I also help install Ring products locally for people via referral usually.
Which Ring device is your favorite and why?
— The Alarm, hands down. Even though it hasn’t reached its full potential yet and there’s still a ways to go with interconnection, it is a fantastic product, and you can’t beat the monitoring price or the monitoring station response and service. If we’re talking just cameras, I love everything about the Pro except its lack of PoE power option.
I also wish the Alarm base supported PoE, but again, that’s another issue that doesn’t make the system any less useful or me any less happy. I really like the Ring products, and the first half of this year has shown that integration is rapidly improving. I understand it takes time combine multiple companies and their people and platforms to make things a cohesive experience, and while there was a slow period of updates, new features have been coming fairly regularly this year, which makes me happy for the potential future integration possibilities.
On a scale of 1-10, how “smart” is your home?
— 6, only because I take care of an elderly family member who can’t handle tech or change well, so it’s intentionally not as “smart” as I’d make it, unfortunately.
What type of smart phone and router do you use with your Ring devices?
— Router is an Asus RT-AC68U with both the alarm and pro using 5GHz perfectly, and we’ve got a mix of Android devices, but I personally use a Moto Z2 Force, and have an iPad mini mounted near the door as a dedicated, always-on Ring app display.
By leaving the Ring app always in the foreground with the “alerts open full-screen video” option enabled, the video is automatically loaded by the time I get to the door if I’m home. One note with that is if anyone is considering this and you have an Alarm, you want to create a shared user with no Alarm access, and log in with that on the iPad. Otherwise, anyone could just disarm with the tablet without needing a pin.
Have you had any success stories? If so, what happened?
— Really, I have been very lucky and have not had any incidents. I use my Ring primarily to see who is at the door, rather than as a security device. I have the motion zones only covering my porch. This is so I only get motion alerts when I actually have a visitor (aside from the stray moth on occasion at night that is attracted to the IR lights and triggers the motion alerts regardless when it lands right on the lens).
So no, I fortunately have no security stories to go along with the products. Mostly just tons of installing, transformer upgrades, and troubleshooting existing installs. I install more Ring Pro devices than any other (it’s a great product, as long as you upgrade your transformer, because 99.9% of the time, the one in the house will not be powerful enough).
I do want to praise the monitoring center response though, as we had a false smoke alarm event from a First Alert Z-wave combo detector integrated into the alarm, and the monitoring center was already calling before I could even get to the button on the smoke alarm or the app to clear it.
What is your favorite feature about your Ring device?
— That would have to be Alexa integration (as limited as it may still be). Having my contact sensors as triggers for routines is amazing, and the Echo devices for alerts. However, I really wish I could use the act of arming or disarming it as a trigger so I can have it turn on or off lights when it’s armed.
And for a fun question: What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
— Lime! It’s so hard to find anyone that sells lime ice cream, though.
Thanks again for being a great neighbor abqnm! Let us and the Community know how you like your Ring swag when it shows up on your door in a couple days 