So, my Ring floodlight camera turned 1 year this week and today, we will see how this camera is doing after a year. I got this camera a week or so after it has been released. I like the idea of a floodlight with a camera which gives you an alert when it senses motion and also has a manually activated alarm aside from the 2 way audio. It has a retail price of 250 dollars and is on higher end range for WiFi cameras but it does have the floodlight and siren alarm feature.
As you can see, just a little bit of wiping, it still looks new…no fading of the components and no rust that I can see. This camera is definitely weatherproof and has survived the South Texas weather.
I also did a 2 months and a 6 month video review which I’ll link in the description below together with my original review of this camera a year ago. There were issues initially when I installed it and it was hardly connecting to my main router inside the house. So, I have to use my old netgear extender just to make it to work reliably and even to this day, my extender has no issues and has survived the Texas summer heat inside the garage and the same thing with my Ring Floodlight which is installed high up above my garage door and usually gets direct sunlight starting around 1 o clock until 4 in the afternoon which is also the hottest part of the day…
One thing I learned about Ring cameras. They are Wifi sensitive and needs to have a stable signal for it to work reliably. Adding an extender usually helps with connection issues. Early on though Ring had an issue where when you click on the alert, the app will open the live view feed but you just get a black screen. It will record the footage to the cloud though and you can review it later on but not in real time. Ring eventually fixed this issue and I haven’t had any more experience like this ever since.
Fast forward 7 months later, I complained about Ring’s night vision which was around the end of November. Ring noticed my video and planned to do an update which at this time, I don’t think has been officially released yet. I also did a hack on my floodlight a couple of weeks later for the camera to record in full color at night when the lights are on and it was way better than Ring’s blurry night vision. I’ll include the links to these videos also in the description down below. They contacted me and eventually became a beta tester for their enhanced night vision update. I did release a video about it last February but Ring seems to be still tweaking it and hasn’t release the full update to their customers..if you notice a hint of color during live view at night when the lights are off, then you have the update. You will all love this update whenever it is officially released.
Testing the floodlight’s features are still working without any issues. So here.. manually turning on the floodlights… then lights off..
Now, let’s activate the alarm…
Still works pretty good…
The only thing I noticed and I think it has been an issue with Ring is their 2 way audio which has a lot of static and it is not as clear…during testing it cuts off but it is pretty loud. You will also observe in the following footage the almost instant notification of the Ring and how fast you can open up the app when you get an alert…
tried this a couple of times…
The recorded footage though will record both sides of the conversation which is a plus because I’m learning that some cameras will only record the camera’s side. I usually don’t use this feature so it is not a biggie for me and I’ll mostly use the alarm instead of talking if the need arises.
Another thing I have noticed and want to show you guys. As you all know you can also review, download and share your recorded footage via Ring’s website through a computer. Just log in to your account. You cannot change the camera’s settings or use live view though.
I’m a protect plus subscriber which is $100 dollar a year for unlimited cameras, it has an extended warranty and 10% discount to purchases on their website and I know that their basic or per camera plan will only store the recorded footage for up to 60 days…but with the protect plus, they didn’t specify for how many days but when I was checking my footages..check it out…
If I scroll down on the recorded footage and see how long they kept my recordings, I can scroll back down up to the first week of October last year which is around 6 months ago…I don’t know if that is how they intended it to be. I really don’t want or need 6 months of footage but Ring might need to check on this and this might help them with their server issues… Probably their programmer heard 6 months instead of 60 days.
Now, I’ll show you sample footage from the old night vision recording and also comparing it now with the enhanced night vision and color recording at night.
I’ve also noticed that night vision motion detection is more sensitive at night. My motion zone is the blue area in this picture but you will notice that the camera records way earlier than daytime, so I’m thinking it is triggered by our cars headlights when turning in to the garage. Please note that regular cars passing through doesn’t trigger the camera… it is just when they turn towards my garage and I think their headlights trigger it. So, if you live in front of an intersection, you will probably get a lot of alerts when car’s headlights beams in to the area you are monitoring.
Now, in my setup I am not bothered by it. I want it to record and alert us anyways for any movement in my garage driveway and the Ring floodlight cam does the job. Also, because it is a wired camera and not battery, it starts to record early on and you will get the whole footage and sometimes before the subject gets into the frame of the camera. Overall, from all the WiFi cameras I have, the Ring Floodlight cam is my favorite and it does it’s job well. I really don’t have any complaints after a year and I know Ring is actively making their cameras and software up to date getting input from their customers. Ring is now owned by Amazon so I’m positive that it will just get better..hopefully…