In comparison to not having a Ring membership, the basic Ring Protect plan only costs $30 per year (per device). Whether you’ve spent hundreds of dollars on Ring devices, you may ask if the Protect costs are really necessary. Is there anything that will function if the subscription is removed? Also, and maybe most importantly, what doesn’t work? This is exactly why I wanted to write this piece: to address these concerns.
You won’t be able to watch any recordings – including those triggered by doorbell presses or your Ring alarm system – without a Ring Protect membership. It’s important to view the feed live if you get a motion notification in the middle of the night since recording isn’t available afterward.
What Ring Protect offers?
When asked about the specifics of their Ring Protect program, Ring is quick to respond, stating that:
Ring Protect Plus will provide you with 24-hour monitoring for your Ring Alarm system and let you preserve up to 60 days’ worth of Ring videos for a fair charge. Ring Protect Plus is a great option from the Website of the company Ring.com
To be honest, this sums up the immense value that Ring Protect provides:
- Because of this, if your alarm goes off, Ring’s employees will check in on things to make sure nothing has gone wrong. You’ll also receive 24/7 expert monitoring, in case your internet connection fails.
- If your camera or doorbell detects motion or is pushed, all of the events are recorded to the cloud for 60 days, giving you nearly 2 months to check on any questionable behavior. Some nations, such as the UK and the rest of Europe, only keep videos for 30 days.
To save money, you can get a 10 percent discount on Ring.com by purchasing the more costly ‘Plus’ edition of Ring Protect. Given that Amazon often has the same deals and discounts as Ring, having an additional 10% on top is a welcome perk.
However, even though prices vary from country to country and video clip storage time varies throughout Europe, they all come out to be around the same on a monthly/yearly basis.
Despite this, the features on offer are the same all around the globe. In addition to not having a subscription, you receive the following with the Ring Protect Basic plan:
- Whether triggered by motion, live view, or a doorbell push, video recordings are kept for 30-60 days (60 days in the United States).
- Video sharing and storage capabilities.
- To provide you an overview of what each Ring camera/doorbell is picking up, Snapshot capture (also known as “camera preview”) takes still photographs every 30 seconds – 3 minutes.
In addition to everything described above for the Basic plan, you receive the following with the Ring Protect Plus plan:
- All presently warranted Ring devices will get one additional year of service. That is to say, a 4-year-old Ring camera will not be covered by a newer warranty. In the United States, the standard Ring warranty lasts one year, but in other countries, it lasts two years (including the UK).
- The additional warranty lasts until you quit your Ring Protect Plus membership, so if you keep the subscription for the whole three years, you’ll get three years of extra coverage.
- Your alarm system will be more like the professional at-home alarm systems that used to cost $30+ a month with Ring Alarm’s monitoring and cellular backup (available in the United States and Canada).
- Ring.com is offering 10 percent off a variety of Ring products.
Ring devices that (might) benefit from Ring Protect
A general classification of the products that Ring sells is as follows:
- Smart video doorbells – such as the Ring Doorbell Pro, the Doorbell 1-3, and the PoE Doorbell Elite – are becoming more commonplace.
- A selection of indoor and outdoor cameras, including the stick-up cam line, the floodlight camera, and the more affordable Indoor Cam.
- Alarm system from Ring that includes window and door sensors as well as motion detectors as well as an in-home base station with a keypad.
- A variety of attachments and additional sensors are available, including flood/freeze sensors, a solar panel charger for the stickup cameras, chimes, and other options.
Items in categories 1 and 2 – such as Ring’s smart doorbells and indoor/outdoor cameras – will benefit from the “Basic” and “Plus” versions of the Ring Protect plans.
As a result, you will start receiving video clips that are valid for 60 days (30 days in certain areas of the globe), as well as the helpful snapshot capture option, which will be available immediately.
A motion detection system can be purchased for as low as $30 per camera (per year), and it is well worth the investment since otherwise, you would get a motion notice in the middle of the night, but you will have no way of knowing what caused the alert. Unless you have a paid-for package, you must constantly be on high alert and ready to go into Live View as soon as a signal is received.
If you have the Ring Alarm system, or if you have more than three Ring doorbells or cameras, the Ring Protect Plus plan can be extremely beneficial (otherwise, you’ll start paying 4 x $30 = $120 per year for four doorbells/cameras, instead of just paying $100 per year for the Ring Protect Plus plan, which protects all of your devices),
However, while you are not required to have a Plus plan with your alarm system (as I will discuss later), having one does provide professional monitoring, which is a fairly standard – and useful – benefit of alarm systems, and one that can often cost more than $10 per month with traditional alarm system providers.
As part of your Ring alarm system, you’ll also receive a cellular backup in case your WiFi goes down (or worse, gets jammed). If an incursion attempt is detected, your Ring alarm system will still be able to alert you (and/or Ring) of the situation.
There are differences across countries in terms of these characteristics. Neither a cell backup nor professional monitoring is provided in every country, though. The United Kingdom, for example, only receives ‘aided monitoring,’ which is when your emergency contacts are notified when the alarm goes off. Ring-managed monitoring is not available 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
When purchasing the Plus plan, double-check that you will get expert alarm monitoring and/or mobile backup before shelling out $10 a month for the service.
Skipping Ring protect for Ring cameras/doorbells
Assume you’ve invested in a Ring doorbell or camera, but you weren’t aware that you’d be required to pay a monthly subscription cost as well. Yes, it is a pain. So you decide to “screw it” and continue running without the membership. Consequently, what occurs is as follows :
In the case of those who spend a lot of time on their phones – and maybe have a few Amazon Echo Shows throughout the home – there may not be many drawbacks to this. Because when motion is detected – or when your doorbell is pushed – you’ll get a notice on your phone, and the output may also be shown on your Echo Show devices.
Simply click the notification to access ‘Live View,’ where you will be able to see what your doorbell/camera is viewing in real-time – including what caused the motion alert to be triggered.
Simple.
At least until you engage in that irritating activity that some people engage in: sleep, which is rare.
When the sun goes down, there are a lot of opportunistic robbers out and about. In order to determine if residents had forgotten to lock their doors, they approach residences close enough to observe whether any ground floor windows are open. If this is the case, they take advantage of the situation and break into the residence. As many as 41% of burglaries are unplanned and not directed at any particular residence; in other words, they are not targeted.
Your Ring devices will thus give you motion-sensed notifications in the middle of the night if there is movement detected in the vicinity. The options available to you are:
Ensure that your phone is constantly on loud so that you can always wake up and check the “Live View” stream (even if it’s a false alarm: cats and other creatures may still activate motion detection at times, even when “humans only” mode is enabled! ).
Keep your phone on mute and don’t pay attention to any alerts that may come in during the nighttime. In the end, because you won’t be able to verify your recordings until the next day, you might just ignore them.
To be honest, none of these alternatives is great for me. In order to avoid being awakened at night (perhaps due to false alarms), you must either continue to use Ring’s doorbells and cameras or forfeit one of its most important features: the capacity to recognize opportunistic robbers.
I myself would never pay less than $30 a year if it meant getting a more comprehensive Ring Protect plan. As previously said, if you use your phone often and it is always on loud, you may not need the premium plan if you reside in a quiet region with few motion-detected occurrences.
Skipping Ring protect for the Ring alarm system
Here’s when deciding whether or not to “subscribe” becomes more difficult. With its smart functionality, Ring’s alarm system aims to put an end to the cumbersome and costly monitoring solutions that have historically accompanied home alarm systems.
Some customers, on the other hand, demanded more, which led to the creation of the Protect Plus plan, which costs $10 per month (or $100 per year) and includes the expert monitoring and cellular backup services I previously described.
Unless my WiFi connection slips and fails on a frequent basis (in which case, I’d probably just purchase a new router), I don’t think the cellular backup is worth the extra $100 each year.
Ring can monitor your system and inform local law enforcement if anything unusual is detected during alarm occurrences, which is an excellent feature. While Verified Response techniques may wind up costing more than the $100/year price, this may also be used in conjunction with a Ring panic button.
Even if you’re lazy and just check your Ring cameras when you receive an alarm alert, paying the $100/year price would be worth it if only for the mobile backup in case your WiFi goes down.
Additionally, the cost of the Plus plan decreases with each extra Ring doorbell or camera you purchase. Instead of paying $30 per year for these devices, you get free 60-day recordings as part of the $100 per year Plus plan. You’ll only pay an extra $10 per year for the Plus plan if you already have three Ring cameras (which would have cost $30 each) and want to cover your Ring alarm system. That’s a lot less expensive than standard alarm company monthly rates!
