Even though Ring does not offer its thermostat, and there is no official support for other thermostats inside the Ring app, smart thermostat integration might be advantageous for certain Ring users. The Alexa procedures, on the other hand, make it feasible to get some amount of assistance.
Demystifying Ring’s Thermostat Integration
Back in 2013, a little organization showed up on Shark Tank: an organization called DoorBot, which later rebranded as “Ring.” In their appearance, Ring illustrated their brilliant doorbell – one of the intelligent primary doorbells available. From that point forward, Ring has delivered smart cameras, a caution framework, a choice of smart lighting — together with support for many smart devices counting water spill sensors and carport entryway screens.
As a result, many people wonder if Ring sells a smart thermostat, or at the very least whether they provide support for thermostats manufactured by other companies.
What is a Ring?
As I showed toward the start of this piece, Ring began life as DoorBot, a company that sold a Wi-Fi-connected smart doorbell to consumers. They have progressed since then launched over a dozen new smart cameras and doorbells, and it has expanded into other smart home categories, such as the Ring Alarm system and the Ring Smart Lighting line, among others.
As part of their Works With Ring system, they also support a variety of other third-party devices, allowing you to control other companies’ Works With Ring systems. For example, you can control other companies’ smart devices to lock and unlock your door lock and even receive notifications when you have a water leak.
Because of the rapid increase of product ranges and support services, individuals often pose a pretty straightforward asking:
Does Ring sell an official Ring Smart Thermostat?
Ring does not currently offer a smart thermostat, and their announcement page has never indicated that they have any intentions to do one in the future. This is most likely because Ring primarily focuses on home security equipment, such as cameras, alarm systems, and smart lighting. Nonetheless, since smart thermostats are more of a comfort than a security technology, they deviate from Ring’s primary business objective of delivering smart security.
Fortunately, there are various alternatives to waiting for an official Ring Smart Thermostat (which may or may not materialize) – but before, let us consider why such a device would be beneficial in the first place.
Why smart thermostat support would be useful?
Initially, the concept of integrating Ring with a smart thermostat seems to be a strange combination of technologies. Why should a Ring camera (which collects video) be able to operate a smart thermostat (which regulates the temperature of your home)?!
Nonetheless, this is not the whole story — depending on which Ring devices you possess, support for a smart thermostat might prove to be quite beneficial:
- It is possible to support Z-Wave thermostats with the Z-Wave alarm system. The Ring Alarm base station and the different Ring Alarm sensors are all connected using Z-Wave technology. This begs an intriguing question: if you already have a Z-Wave-based smart thermostat, could you couple it with your base station and use it as a kind of smart home hub to control everything in your house?
- Unfortunately, it looks that the answer is not yes. The ring has said that they do not provide third-party thermostat support inside the Ring application or ecosystem in response to a support request. One client revealed that they had the option to interface their Vivint Element thermostat with the base station but that the pairing didn’t operate as intended and that the thermostat’s battery was being depleted “at an alarming rate.”
- This is most likely because such support is not officially available. So even if you were successful in pairing a Z-Wave thermostat with a Ring Base Station, there are no guarantees that any functional integration will be possible in the future. It’s probably not going to be worth the trouble right now, anyhow.
- Comfort – when your alarm system is activated, the heating automatically turns off. In addition to being easy to use, the Ring Alarm system also interacts with Ring cameras, which means that when you leave the house, Ring Indoor Cameras begin recording. When you go back home, they cease recording for you. This is referred to as Ring Modes, and it is a useful feature. Nevertheless, what might also utilize this same function to manage your heating system, enabling you to, for example, set the heating up while you’re at home and turn it down when you leave.
- It would be great if such a level of integration were feasible. While not feasible from inside the Ring app, it is possible from within the Alexa app, which is a kind of a catch-22 situation. More to come on this subject later. Thank you, Amazon, for purchasing Ring in 2018!
- When the doorbell is pushed or movement is identified, the temperature is raised or lowered accordingly. Following up on the previous remark, it would be convenient to regulate the heating when someone pushes your Ring Doorbell or when a Ring Camera detects motion. This may not always be helpful (for example, a Ring camera may detect motion 20 times a day). Still, if you live in an isolated place, the majority of motion may be caused by you returning home, and so cranking up your heater may be an advantageous feature.
Do Ring cameras & doorbells integrate with thermostats?
What cannot control a smart thermostat by pressing the Ring doorbell or when motion is detected by the camera in the Ring app since there is no special support for this in the Ring app?
Although Amazon owns Ring, this does not exclude you from using your Echo device as a type of ‘hub’ to improve your smart home experience if you already have one. To put it another way, you could create an Alexa routine inside the Alexa app that would operate your smart thermostat whenever your Ring camera or doorbell detected an incident, for example.
what may accomplish this by launching the Alexa app, going to the settings menu, and selecting “Routines.” To add a new routine, go to the Routines tab and click the “+” symbol.
After you’ve entered a distinctive name, the next step is to choose your trigger. When this event happens, it will serve as the trigger for the rest of your program. You will need to pick a “Shrewd Home” trigger and select your Ring camera, then say “When it detects motion” (you can also choose “When the doorbell is pressed” for your Ring Doorbell): After that, you can select the action that will take place. In this case, the action will be “When it detects motion.” which will perform another “Smart Home” action – in other words, you will wish to operate another smart home device once again.
So pick “Add action,” then “Smart Home,” and then select your smart thermostat — making sure that it is compatible with Alexa, of course! You will then be able to control the heating by turning it on and off as needed.
To put it another way, although you cannot directly operate smart thermostats via the Ring app, you can utilize Alexa routines if you have the Alexa app installed. Until a couple of years prior, this would have required the utilization of a different shrewd center, which was not possible with the Alexa platform. Now, all you have to do is ask Alexa.
Does Ring Alarm integrate with smart thermostats?
In a previous post, I noted that it would be convenient to integrate the Ring Alarm system with smart thermostats. Given that the Base Station is Z-Wave and Wi-Fi compatible, many smart thermostats could theoretically be connected to it. Then Ring Modes could be used to automatically turn the thermostat on and off when you leave and return home.
Shockingly, there is no help for this as of now. If you have a smart thermostat system, Ring does not enable you to properly add and manage any of your smart thermostats from inside the Ring app, which means that there is no native support for combining your Ring Alarm system with your smart thermostat system.
Fortunately, we may also use Alexa routines in this situation. Alexa routines can be triggered by the following Ring Alarm statuses, which may be used as smart home triggers:
- Armed home
- Armed away
- Disarmed
In other words, you may choose to automate certain sections of your smart home at the point when you arm your caution framework when you take off from the house, depending on your preferences. You might use this to turn off your heating system, turn off all of your smart lights, and do other things.
Because this feature was implemented back in December 2019, it should have been made available to all customers by now. Another advantage of employing a combination of Ring and Amazon Echo/Alexa devices is the reduced cost.
Link: https://www.smarthomepoint.com/ring-thermostat-support/
