While its name indicates otherwise, the Ring Video Doorbell 4 is the company’s eleventh such device. It demonstrates the company’s ongoing development of the form. Color Pre-Roll is a new function for this model that provides you a clearer view of who’s approaching the door.
The Ring Video Doorbell 4 boasts a Full HD camera featuring a 160-degree field of vision. It can be battery-powered or attached to an existing doorbell cable. The doorbell’s Full HD color video was crisp and clear. Moreover, the night vision feature means footage shot after dark is similarly simple to see but in black and white instead of color.
What will you see here?
Price and Availability
The Ring Video Doorbell is available for $219.99 / £179.99 / AU$329 direct from Ring or through online retailers such as
If you want to use Ring Protect – a premium service that allows you to record, see, and share video – you’ll have to pay an extra $3 / £2.50 / AU$4 per month for the Basic plan or $10 / £8 / AU$15 for the Plus plan.
Design
The design of Ring’s video doorbell is uniform to the extent of being monotonous. Ring Video Video Doorbell 4 is identical to Ring’s previous video doorbells. But, well, if it works, who cares?
The doorbell’s upper third is glossy black, whereas the bottom third is silver. If you like, you may replace this portion with a bronze-colored faceplate.
The Ring Doorbell 4 is around 2.4 inches wide. Thus, it’ll fit in a regular door frame, but it’s not as slim as the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2. However, the Ring Video Doorbell 4 must be large enough to accommodate a battery.
What does it basically do?
It gives you a notification on detecting motion or when anyone touches and presses the button. All these activities can be monitored by you and you can talk to your visitors and see them with 1080p HD video.
It also have a good quality night vision .
Audio and Video
The Ring Video Doorbell 4 features a more standard horizontal aspect ratio than the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2. It boasts a 1536 × 1536 picture with a 150-degree field of vision both horizontally and vertically. This will allows you to see a lot of your front porch.
Aside from that, the 1080p video quality was excellent. Features in visitors’ faces were clearly visible. While details on items further away, such as automobiles on the street, were less so. One could plainly hear guests because of the clean audio.
The Ring Video Doorbell 4’s most notable new feature is the color Pre-Roll. Pre-roll is a technology that was first introduced with the presently discontinued Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus and involves the camera continually recording a 4-sec video loop. This four-second clip will be at the front of the incident video as soon as an event is recorded. Such as someone approaching your front door — giving you a clearer view of who is approaching your door.
The Ring’s Video Doorbell 3 Plus was the very first Ring doorbell to provide this function. Also, it’s the first battery-powered Ring doorbell to do so. It was, though, in low-res black-and-white to preserve energy. This restricted its utility because it was difficult to tell who was on camera. Pre-Roll is now in color and at a little better quality on the Ring Video Doorbell 4. This makes the transition between it & the remainder of the video smoother.
Application
In addition to the typical feature of showing you who’s at the door when it rings, the Ring Video Doorbell 4 features a feature-rich app. This app will allow you to see and alter all sorts of settings. You may also select to see the live feed at any time and set up motion detection alerts.
It’s worth mentioning that if you want to save the footage for later viewing, you’ll need to sign up for Ring Protect. Ring Protect costs $3 / £2.50 / AU$4 per month. While it isn’t especially expensive, it is one to consider if you don’t want to add another monthly expense to your budget.
The Video Doorbell 4 won’t be able to use its maximum potential without the ability to record footage. As it’ll be nothing but a doorbell that allows you to see who’s there when it rings, but nothing beyond that.
Ring Protect also has several useful functions, such as people detection. This prevents you from getting notified every time a tree limb gets a bit too enthusiastic in the wind. You may also create your own Motion Zones. You won’t be notified of any movement outside of these blue zones. This is a terrific method to reduce the number of alerts you receive.
Alexa users will have little trouble getting along with other gadgets, with the Ring skill consistently telling you when someone is at the door. Users of the
Privacy and Security
Ring has implemented a number of security and privacy-related changes in response to a number of unfavorable headlines. Ring just added end-to-end video encryption to most of its video doorbells as well as home security cameras. Moreover, the Ring app now offers two-factor verification. Battery-operated video doorbells, like the Ring Video Doorbell 4, are not compatible with this new functionality.
Ring updated its policy on how videos are shared with authorities to address concerns about its collaboration with law enforcement organizations. Agencies must now issue a public video request on Ring’s Neighbors app; whereas individual owners’ reply is up to them. However, many people are worried about the company’s continued cooperation with police enforcement organizations.
You can also adjust how long films are saved in the cloud via the Ring app; by default, if you’re subscribing to Ring Protect, it’s set to 60 days, but you can cut it to as low as one day. Regardless matter how long films are saved in the cloud, they are always encrypted.
Battery Life
The battery must last six months to one year between charges, according to Ring. The number of times the doorbell is pressed, the number of times motion is detected, and the number of times live view is engaged will determine how rapidly the battery drains.
Charging the battery with the included USB cable takes about eight hours, and also the batteries are replaceable, so the doorbell won’t be out of service when it has to be recharged.
Smart home connectivity
Because Ring is owned by
Ring’s video doorbells may be linked to its other products. Such as smart lighting, motion sensors, plus home security systems. If you use Ring Solar Path lights, for example, you may enable the Ring Video Doorbell to start recording automatically when the Pathlights detect movement.
Ring Video Doorbell 3 vs Ring Video Doorbell 4
The inclusion of color pre-roll is the key change between the Ring Video Doorbell 3 & Ring Video Doorbell 4.
As previously stated, this function saves the four seconds of the film prior to motion detection to assist you in determining the reason for the activity alert. Pre-roll isn’t accessible on the Ring Video Doorbell 3, and it was only available in black and white on the Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus.
Despite the film being collected at ‘less than 1080p’ and without specifying the resolution, Ring claims that the pre-roll video on the Ring Video Doorbell 4 is of greater quality than that on the Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus.
A Ring Protect membership, which costs £2.50 / $3 / AU$4 monthly, is essential to use the pre-roll function on the Ring Video Doorbell 4. However, both doorbells require this membership if you want to check videos captured by the doorbell for 30 days once they were saved, so this isn’t a big deal when deciding between the two.
Do Ring require internet connectivity?
Yes, it will require a good w-fi and internet setup. A Smart device and the Ring app will allow you to control all the activities.
Is Ring Video Doorbell wired or wireless?
It is a wireless dual-band device.
Conclusion
Between the Ring Video Doorbell 3 Pro and the Ring Video Doorbell, the Ring Video Doorbell 4 costs $219. If your front door has a partially blocked view, the $20 upgrade to the Ring Video Doorbell 3 with the much-improved Pre-Roll function is well worth it. The Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 costs $50 more and has a sleeker look, as well as a better aspect ratio that displays more of your front stoop – however it requires a cable connection.
The Ring Video Doorbell 4 is another great addition to the top video doorbells. However, because of its narrow field of vision, you won’t be able to see as much of your entrance door as you would with a Nest Hello or an Arlo Video Doorbell. Furthermore, the Video Doorbell 4 is less beneficial due to the lack of package recognition.
