Today I’ll show you guys the Ring Spotlight camera – the battery powered version. I went and bought the bundle that includes the solar panel so that the battery will be continously charged. I will show the unboxing, the features, setup, installation, settings and some video footage at the end.
Now, I also have the wired version of this Spotlight Camera which I liked and it is permanently monitoring my back patio. I want another camera that will monitor my backyard but there is no power outlet nearby so I waited for the battery version to come out and see if it stacks up to it’s continuously powered brother.
Now, let’s talk about features. So this camera is battery powered which supposedly will last 6-12 months before it needs recharging.
It has 1080p HD video and has 2 way communication.
It has a wide angle lens with 140 degree field of view.
It has a PIR sensor for motion detection and is adjustable
It has a manually activated 110 decibel alarm
It has a LED motion activated Spotlights – now, this is somewhat misleading though because this is far from being a spotlight..this has more of a diffused light which is not really bright – 700 lumens according to Ring.
It is weather resistant -20 to 120 degrees
It is a WiFi camera and only connects to a 2.4 GHz WiFi.
So, we also have the solar panel which has an adjustable mounting bracket
Quick and easy installation.
Weather resistant design.
This Solar panel is different from what they sell for their stickup cam. This is specifically made for the Spotlight Camera.
It is 7.5 x 6 inches and has a 1 and a quarter inch thickness.
It provides 2 watts and 5 volts.
It will only need a few hours of direct sunlight to keep the battery fully charged.
So, let’s open the box.
We have here the camera itself. It is pretty light and I’m assuming the battery is not inside yet. It is made of hard plastic. It has the camera lens in the front and the LED light bar on the edges. On the bottom is the light and the PIR motion sensor.
I guess this is the mic and the reset/setup button on top. Below the camera lens is the speakers.
It looks exactly the same as their wired Spotlight camera except that the wired one has some weight on it.
On the back here is the button release to open up and put in the batteries.
Inside you can put in 2 batteries. It only needs one battery pack and the other one can be a back up..so if one is used up, then you can pull it out to be recharged while the other one will be powering the camera. You will always have power to the cameras. Ring states that the battery can last 6-12 months depending on use. Push the bottom part up to lock it back in place.
What else is inside the box.
We got some type of stickers.
We have some paperwork..
We have the setup guide — start up manual,
which is pretty thorough as usual
We have a USB charging cable
We have a drill bit
The phillips head/torx drive combo
We have the mounting plate
We have the mounting screws with plastic anchors
We have machine screws
And the battery pack itself.
We have the release tab here.
It is a 3.65 volt lithium ion rechargeable battery
This is the same battery pack that powers the Ring doorbell 2, which I also reviewed a few months ago.
It is recommended to charge the battery first before installation. So, with the included USB cable, I used an Iphone charger brick to charge the battery. All lights will turn green when charging is complete.
While we are waiting for the battery to fully charged, let’s go ahead and open the Solar Panel box.
We have here the solar panel..
comes with the cable to hook up with the camera. The cable is around 13 feet in length. It is pretty long and gives you flexibility on where you can mount this.
We have the installation instructions which is pretty self explanatory.
Then we have the combo driver again and the drill bit. I’m telling you guys, I’m pretty sure I have at least 5 of these..
Installation screws and anchors.
Machine screws which I think is needed to secure the power cord to the back of the camera.
We have the mounting bracket which hooks up to the back of the solar panel.
You just need to slide the panel in to the bracket where you can tilt the panel up or down.
The battery spotlight camera has 2 options in mounting. You can install this in a vertical wall or you can install it in a ceiling or soffit. The wired Spotlight camera on the other hand can only be installed in a vertical wall.
You can remove and switch the position of the ball socket and in my case if I want to install it in a wall, I can lower the ball socket.
First, I have to open the battery compartment, then take off the rubber plug for the solar panel connector.
I have to push down on this round tab so that I can slide the ball socket plate off. I have to use the back of the drill bit to help push the tab down while I try to slide off just like so.
Then you can turn it around and slide it back in and the tab will lock it in place. Now, the ball socket is pointing down and it is the ideal position for a wall installation.
The ball socket makes it flexible in properly positioning the camera..side to side and up or down.
We will now insert the battery on either side of the compartment. The camera will automatically detect the battery. Push it until it locks in place. Then push back in the bottom cover until the round tab pops back out.
The blue LED lights up and the camera is ready for setup.
Go to your Ring app…download it if you haven’t done it yet and sign up.
I already have several cameras so for me, I’ll swipe to the left so I can see the plus/setup device sign.
Choose Ring Spotlight Cam Battery..
Name the camera…I already used backyard so I’ll do a custom name.
Backyard 2 click continue.
Confirm your address…
Click continue…Press the button on the top of the camera,
then the bottom light will start flashing..
Click continue..
Leave the app and go to your phone’s Wifi settings.
Click on the camera’s Wifi which is the network that has Ring Setup name on it.
Then go back to the app and you will choose which WiFi network you will connect the camera to.
Type in your Wifi password…and click continue.
I’ll skip the family sharing for now then skip the install..
It will make you setup the motion zones which I’ll put it halfway for now. Then click continue.
Let’s try out the Live view…which intially we have to set it up.. there is normal, faster and fastest connection. The fastest connection will also drain your battery faster. CLick save and click it again.
That works pretty good.
Now, let’s check out the camera’s interface.
We have the gear icon on top right where you can change the camera’s name or if you want to delete the device.
Then we have the event history this is where you can view the recorded footage that was uploaded to the cloud.
We have device health which shows the battery or batteries level, we have the signal strength and the Wifi network it is connected to.
We have the linked chimes..which I have the Ring chime. I’m not turning it on yet until I’m done with the install.
We have the motion settings.. which we alread set up earlier.
The motion zones where you can adjust the distance of the motion sensor.
We have the motion scheduling which I usually don’t use. You can schedule to motion sensing to turn on or off on certain times and on certain days.
We have the smart alerts which is basically the retrigger time of the motion sensor and how fast it will detect motion again. I’ll keep mine to standard.
The motion settings interface is different from the wired spotlight camera.
Then we have the live view settings which we also have already setup.
Now, time to install the camera..
I’m going to install it in the soffit in between the 2 reolink cameras that I have. I just have to screw in the mounting bracket with 4 screws.
We just need to push the camera in to the socket and tighten the sleeve with the philips screw driver to lock the camera’s position.
There you have it. The Ring Spotlight camera battery powered…installed. and as you can see…no wires.
Now, let’s check out some footage.
Daytime..suns out..this is when pushing the live view button on the app…notice the 1-2 second startup from the camera..
Second one is motion activated…when I was going from left to right. As I have tested with PIR sensors before when I was comparing the Blink camera with the Reolink Argus. PIR sensors worked best if the subject is moving across the sensor than going towards the sensor as you will see in the next footage.
I’m about 10 feet from the camera when it started recording.
Now, this one is testing the audio..
Sound is pretty good but as you can see it doesn’t sync up with the video. The video has at least a half a second delay.
This footage is at night Live view so the infrared is on…then with the LED lights are on which should happen 99 percent of the time at night when it detects motion.
This is when it detects motion and the lights turned on..and I’m going across left to right. It detects pretty good…not as good as the wired version though.
The night video quality could be better though especially the lights are on.
Now, will check out the lights..turning it on..pushing the button again doesn’t turn it off…hmm..
ok how about the siren…works pretty good.
there you go the lights turned off…then will turn it on again. it seems like the button turns orange to say it is on but turns back to white..then you cannot turn it off…might be a software bug. Also the app interface on this camera doesn’t have the light settings like the Wired Spotlight cam..
The lights does turn on though when it senses motion at night.
It does turn off when the motion stops but the settings cannot be changed on how long the lights turn on. I guess to save battery.
Installing the solar panel is straight forward. Install the mounting bracket first. Make sure that you have the orientation right because the panel only goes one way and it needs to slide in from the top.
We have to remove the rubber seal on the socket on the back of the camera then push in the adapter jack.
To secure it and make it weather proof, screw in the machine screws.
Reinstall the camera to it’s mounting bracket.
We have this 13 foot cable that we need to roll up and try to hide and secure to the wall…
It makes it look sloppy and kinda defeats the wireless feature of the camera.
Eventually, I removed the solar panel and went to Ring.com and ordered me another battery pack which is only 20 bucks. This is going to be the backup battery and I don’t mind taking off the battery to be recharged once every 6 months and with a second battery, there will be no downtime…
Overall, the Ring Spotlight Camera Battery is a pretty good true wireless camera. It is more on the expensive side but it has other features like the siren, two way communication, and the motion activated LED lights. I’ll be doing a comparison video between this and the wired version but I can already tell that the wired version will win hands down on the motion detecting recording. I also noticed more choppiness on the footage with this camera. The video quality between the 2 are the same.
If you want a clean install, don’t go with solar panel and just buy an extra battery pack.