Ring Battery Doorbell Plus Review

Video doorbells are in their prime, with many competing products for your front door safety.

Whether you want to know who's at your door, receive notifications for package deliveries, or have another window into the world via your screen, the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus provides a wide field of view and easy installation.

It's bundled with great software that lets you customize your notifications, save videos, speak to visitors with pre-selected seasonal messages, and connect to the surrounding areas with Ring Network's Neighbors social media system.

While the hardware seems commonplace, the software and ease of use of the Neighbors system make this a recommended video doorbell, especially if you're already in the Amazon smart home ecosystem.

Installation is Easy

If you've ever installed a wired doorbell, the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus will be a cinch.

All I had to do was charge the battery up (it came with more than half a charge, so I could set it up before fully charging), use the included cardboard template to mark where the four screws would hold it in place, and drill into the wood on the left side of my doorframe.

Once that was all set, screwing in the Doorbell Plus without its cover on was super easy, even with the tiny Phillips-head screws. After it was installed into the wall, I slid in the battery, replaced the cover, and placed the small "security screw" on the bottom so the cover was more challenging to take off.

This screw has a special head on it that should only work with the specially-provided screwdriver that comes with the doorbell.

Full Sound and Vision

Launching the Ring app, I got an immediate live view of my front porch, complete with the Ring-style circular view. You can expand the view into a more phone-friendly rectangle, and it even provides a video overlay if you switch away from the app.

You get a full 150-degree view horizontally and vertically; it's comprehensive. I can see from the top of my porch to the bottom corner of my door. Packages that are placed on my doormat are visible. Since my porch is semi-enclosed, I can see all of it, plus quite a bit of the street in front of my house.

The picture is clear, and the motion is smooth, even when accessing the video over an LTE connection while away from home.

The Ring App, Motion Settings, and Notifications

The free Ring app provides a view of the camera, the Neighbors app, a History button, and ads for other Amazon and Ring smart security hardware. I'm using it on iOS; it works well to keep me informed.

Motion settings let you set the sensitivity of your Ring Battery Doorbell Plus so that it doesn't constantly send you a ding when a plant moves in your yard. You can customize zones for people, packages, and more and schedule when these alerts happen (like if you don't want alerts during the day when you're home).

You can even set the frequency of motion checking to high, medium, or low to customize how often they go off.

The main settings page for the Doorbell Plus has four easy toggle switches to turn Ring Alerts, Motion Detection, and Motion Warning alerts off and on. There's also easy access to the Live View.

You can also access your Event History, buy accessories that work with the Doorbell Plus, set various modes, and see Linked Devices and Snooze Alerts.

Buttons show you your Device Health (battery level and Wi-Fi signal strength are found here), Motion Settings, Power Settings, and Smart Responses (which can automatically trigger when people appear at the door and even let folks leave messages for you).

Device Settings, Help Content, and Shared Access buttons round out the main Device page.

Ring's Neighbors Social Media Network

The Neighbors app is like a full-on network of other Ring camera users, which includes dash cams and in-home security camera users. My feed regularly shows images of loose dogs, stray cats, and the occasional porch pirate. There are even reports of power or internet going down in the 'hood.

While it could eventually devolve into something like my least-favorite social media site, Next Door (so many angry, racist people there), so far, it's been entertaining to see what's happening in my neighborhood.

I can quickly see how far away that loose dog is, so I know whether I should go outside and help look. You can give thumbs-up, react to posts, share posts with others, and even comment on them.

Better yet, there's a curated section called Best of Ring that shows all the fun viral stuff that we love on TikTok and Reels, like dogs ringing the doorbell to be let in, kitties climbing up the trellis, and pets goofing around while their owners are on vacation.

It's silly fun but shows the best side of the Ring Network.