I upgraded to Ring’s premium Battery Doorbell Pro – and these features impressed me most

Entrepreneur Jamie Siminoff came up with the idea for Ring after he Googled for doorbells that could connect to a smartphone, found there were none, and decided to build his own.

After Amazon bought Ring for a billion dollars in 2018, Ring has become the most recognisable smart video doorbell brand in the world, with more than 50 products on sale today.

The Ring Battery Doorbell Pro sits near the top of the range: it’s the company’s second most advanced wireless doorbell, with a lot of attention paid to ensuring it’s extremely easy to install (many of these devices require an electrician), including a separate no-drill mount and a lot of hi-tech features. With an RRP of £179.99, (currently reduced to £75.99 as an early Prime Day Deal on Amazon) it’s not cheap, but the head-to-toe view from the crisp camera is about as good as these gizmos get.

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Features of the Ring Battery Doorbell Pro

The Ring Battery Video Doorbell Pro offers top-end features such as enhanced HD video and Colour Night Vision, all delivered with typical Ring ease-of-use and customisability.

It’s not the cheapest out there, but if you’re looking for great performance, reliability and an addition to your home security, it’s a good choice, with a great head-to-toe camera offering a view so crystal clear you can see what the postman has delivered.

It delivers alerts to your phone instantly with two-way talk letting you get in touch with couriers before they turn on their heel and take your package back to the depot.

Everything works through Amazon’s simple, clear Ring app, and the barrier to use is very low here, so it’s no issue for less technical people. There’s an HD camera (1536p resolution, to be precise) and a new radar scanner which makes for more accurate alerts, including package-drop alerts (subscription only) even when the courier does not press the alarm bell.

You get real-time notifications every time someone either presses your doorbell or motion is detected. Live View puts you ‘into’ the doorbell in real time, and phone-style buttons let you use Two-Way talk to communicate with whoever’s at the door. There’s also easy-to-use privacy controls (for instance, you can set areas your camera does not monitor, so that you’re not spying on neighbours). There’s also Alexa integration so you can say, ‘Alexa, answer the front door’, or use Alexa to send recorded messages.

The camera is bright and precise, with new low-light settings offering colour images even in the evening, along with adjustments for glare and when the camera is used through glass. The app is no-nonsense and easy to navigate, and responding to an alert takes you directly to a live view where you can interact with couriers, postmen and family members.

Setting up the Ring Battery Doorbell Pro

This is where the Ring really comes into its own. I was replacing an old Nest doorbell that had been installed by an electrician, then a builder had accidentally severed the cable, leaving it useless, so I was very much in the market for something simpler to deal with, and requiring no wiring or expensive tradesmen to get going. This fits the bill.

There’s an online guide to setting up both the Ring itself, accessible via QR code, and the New Ring No-Drill Mount (which comes separately, priced £17.99 on Amazon). I'm no DIY expert (so much so that my wife has very strong feelings on this matter), but I managed to have the Ring doorbell installed and working within 30 minutes (and most of that was removing the previous model).

Pairing it with the app is simple and near-instant, and if you have other Amazon devices (I tested it with a doorbell ringer), it rapidly detects and connects to those, too. You require a separate Ring account, not just your Amazon one, but once that’s set up, it’s plain sailing.

How I tested the Ring Battery Doorbell Pro

I’ve used the Ring for several months in my London terraced home – it is a fairly busy area, so there are lots of people walking past, particularly in the morning and the evening. I also have a fair number of deliveries as a freelancer, so being able to act rapidly to prevent couriers disappearing is extremely useful.

I’ve tested it over the course of multiple months, recharging when necessary and noting the amount of time that has passed, and used it with visitors arriving at my house day and night (as well as keeping an eye on people who pass during the night).

I’ve also tested it both with and without the subscription, to see whether it’s something which really is optional, or if the device is next to useless without paying the monthly fee.

Is the subscription worth it?

The most basic Ring Solo Home subscription (covering one device and purchased from Ring) is £4.99 a month or £49.99 per year, which provides video recording (you can save, review and share from the app) and stored history (up to 180 days). If you have more than one device (such as multiple cameras) you’ll need the Multi subscription which is £7.99 a month. The Ring Battery Pro comes with a 30-day free trial if you’re a new Ring customer.

The subscription is worth it if you’re nervous about security, offering rewindable video of every door interaction through the night. But you can easily live without it, with the camera showing who’s been at your door via the notifications, just minus the capacity to really inspect the people.

The subscription-only ‘Package’ alerts (which detect posted packages even without a ring) are likewise a nice-to-have, rather than an essential.

How I've found using the Ring Battery Doorbell Pro

Positive things first: in audio and video terms, this is a fantastic product. Pictures are clear, the video feed doesn’t stutter, and even at night you can clearly see who’s at your door, in colour. Amazon’s vaunted ‘head to toe’ view is great: you can clearly see not just who’s there, but what they have put through your letterbox (you can’t read the words, but you can see if it’s a letter, package or HMRC brown envelope, for example).

Even with the most skittish couriers, it’s always offered me enough time to communicate that I’d prefer if they left the package in the recycle bin rather than vanishing with it: the speaker’s loud and clear and the app never ‘hangs’ at inopportune moments. If there’s ever a Wi-Fi issue, it reconnects quietly by itself.

One of the selling points of the subscription is getting Package Alerts, which look for packages arriving in a zone you set up, and keep track of deliveries. Quick Replies let you send a message (including in the voices of Ant and Dec, for some reason), but I found the canned responses less useful than the traditional approach of actually speaking to people.

The battery life is pretty decent – but has dropped a little over the eight months I’ve used it, to the point where it now requires charging roughly every three weeks (it comes with an older USB-B cable to charge, and takes around eight hours to do so each time).

I personally found the ‘motion detected’ alerts a little over the top, but I realise not everybody has as many people walking past their door as I do. It’s clever enough that I rarely get alerts for passing cars, for example, and nor does it pick up the children’s playground next to my house. You can curb this by muting motion alerts. When someone actually does press your doorbell, it also looks different, so you never miss a visitor.

For a device you have to take apart and recharge fairly regularly, one downside is that the casing is held in place by a single, tiny screw – inevitably, this went missing, and now the outer plastic casing falls off regularly every time my children slam the door (which is, if you know teenagers, every single time they use it).

Do I rate it? Yes, it's done exactly what it said it would and suits the needs of our home well.