Ring - Video Doorbell 3 Plus

It's unfair to compare, but before Reolink, I had the Ring Doorbell Plus 3 Wifi right beside a dedicated AP. I spent dozens of hours over four years bikeshedding configurations to make it work, at best, less than reliably. That taught me a hard lesson: Wifi + cloud-based is hell for reliability. Now I'm aiming for wired + local wherever possible in my setup, and if not, at least local. Devices that required internet connection to work are banned here. Not because my connection is unreliable (it's not), but because I don't want to depend on these companies' servers.

All I can say is, I tried the Ring Plus and the Aqara G4 and both were unuseable as a way to interact with anyone at your door, by the time it connects, they are long gone.

I switched from Ring to Reolink. I have all video saved locally and I can pass it through Frigate for really good AI detection. It also integrates perfectly with Home Assistant. You can get their NVR to make this simple. My switch started because I had a package stolen and the Ring camera didn’t show it for some reason.

Powered wifi cams for doorbells plus POE. This is Reolink. For Ring my doorbells were battery powered plus a bunch of wifi cams.

If you use a Ring be aware that you need the model that runs on power. I had a battery model that was connected to power to charge the battery. The battery often was drained and I needed to remove it and recharge outside the doorbell. Use the powered model without the battery to feed from the old 24vac feed.

I've a bettery powered ring door bell, it's dead handy

Ring has battery powered doorbells. So, you could mount to the brick without wiring. And if you want a chime inside your house in addition to the app notifications, they have that too. Chime plugs into a wall outlet inside and chimes when doorbell rings.

Ring do battery powered ones. No wiring needed. Just charge it occasionally while you're at home. I think they even do little solar panel accessory so you really shouldn't need to charge it often

We are a Ring family as well. We have had our video doorbell (which wasn’t the most up to date version when we bough it) for 5+ years and we have not had my issues with it. The in house key pad has never worked correctly but we always just use our phones to turn on and off the alarm. The flood light was an easy install too so that was nice.

Thoroughly Ringed up - great for finding out where our free range cats are, for dealing with deliveries when off site and keeping an eye on what our very questionable neighbour is up to. Having his last threats on camera made the entire investment worthwhile.

I currently own both in different houses. I prefer the Ring. Ring video is better, the app is better, and I don’t think outdoor video integration with the alarm system is important. I mean, someone ringing your doorbell is not the same thing as someone smashing a slider door and walking into your house. In my experience, SimpliSafe cameras are not competitive. They’re overpriced, and functionally weak. Their only benefit is that the call center can access them to help discern whether you have a true incident or a false alarm. That’s not nothing and for me that justifies having 3 or 4 cameras in key locations in each house. But the monitoring feature does not apply to doorbells or outside cameras. There are many better options. If SimpliSafe wants to be in the camera and doorbell business, they have a lot of work to do.