Which outdoor cameras?

[Bernadine]

It seems as though my Rothy's were indeed stolen off of my front porch.  I'm looking at Ring, Nest, or Arlo, I guess.  We are not exactly smart home people.

[mrsd2006]

We have Arlos. They are battery operated. They work fine for what we need.

I also want to get a Ring so we can talk to people. We just had two people trying to get into our cabin (there are a lot of rentals in my area), I would have liked to be able to tell them right away they have the wrong cabin. They were on my porch for twenty minutes trying to figure it out.

[ssmjlm]

Dude that blows. I'm sorry.

We have a ring doorbell camera and a ring floodlight camera. They were easy to install for DH (he's pretty handy) and the interface is easy enough for me and I'm not a technology person.

[mrsjuleshs]

My mom gave me a ring but I am waiting on my lazy brother to hook it up.

[pearls]

We had several items stolen, and ended up with ring. We also got my parents the doorbell. Both the doorbell and cameras have been easy to install, set parameters for motion and to view alerts.

[sparty04]

We have Arlo Pro and can talk through them. Costco usually has good deals on sets

[verycontrary247]

Mar 21, 2019 15:37:53 GMT -5 mrsd2006 said:

We have Arlos. They are battery operated. They work fine for what we need.

I also want to get a Ring so we can talk to people. We just had two people trying to get into our cabin (there are a lot of rentals in my area), I would have liked to be able to tell them right away they have the wrong cabin. They were on my porch for twenty minutes trying to figure it out.

How long do the batteries normally last?

[VillainV]

We have a Ring and love it. It’s very easy to install.

[nextbigthing]

I have rings and they work great. Spotlight cam and doorbell are powered then two battery stick up cams. Batteries last 3-4 months

[Bernadine]

Do you pay a monthly fee for the Ring?

[pearls]

We pay 10 dollars a month for alarm monitoring and unlimited cameras with Ring.

[VillainV]

Mar 21, 2019 17:16:27 GMT -5 Bernadine said:

Do you pay a monthly fee for the Ring?

Its like $36/year

[Deleted]

We have a Ring and I love it. They can be battery operated, but my H hardwired ours because he’s pretty handy. I do need to get the chimes for the house though. Right now it only rings on mine of H’s phone which isn’t much help when the kids are home after school and their friends stop by.

ETA: we pay $30-something a year and it’s totally worth it.

[Bernadine]

Thank you- decided to go with the Ring.

[lilafowler]

This is what happens when you buy those Roth 401k shoes.

[bc1206]

We tried the Ring but didn’t like it. We are on a busy street in the city so it was picking up motion from cars, foot traffic, etc. We sent it back and are looking for an alternative.

[wildrice]

Dumb question, but what does a Ring camera really do to deter theft? Is it very obvious that you are on camera?

I'm just thinking how hard it would be to track down a random petty thief based just on video footage. Do people in reality get caught and punished from this or is it more just to make the homeowner feel safer?

OP I'm sorry about your Rothys. If you bought them with a credit card, I'd check to see if they have any sort of purchase protection that might cover this.

[winecat]

Mar 21, 2019 21:06:02 GMT -5 wildrice said:

Dumb question, but what does a Ring camera really do to deter theft? Is it very obvious that you are on camera?

I'm just thinking how hard it would be to track down a random petty thief based just on video footage. Do people in reality get caught and punished from this or is it more just to make the homeowner feel safer?

OP I'm sorry about your Rothys. If you bought them with a credit card, I'd check to see if they have any sort of purchase protection that might cover this.

I've wondered the same thing.  I used to be on the HOA for a condo building and we had people on video stealing bicycles but the PD told us that the videos were unusable because the video wasn't close enough, crystal clear, their faces were somewhat obscured (glasses/hats,) and some other reason I'm forgetting.  Unless you catch someone with a name tag (being TIC) that says their name and provides a direct, crystal clear, unobscured picture of their face I'm not sure it'll help.  The video might help the PD if there's a theft ring going on but for one off thefts, I'm not sure how it'll help.  

[lilac05]

Mar 21, 2019 21:06:02 GMT -5 wildrice said:

Dumb question, but what does a Ring camera really do to deter theft? Is it very obvious that you are on camera?

We have a ring doorbell.  It’s pretty distinct looking, and I would assume most people who are looking to take things from porches know what they look like.  I think it’s the presence of it that deters some things from occurring in the first place.  

Not theft, but we used to get ding dong ditchers pretty regularly in the summer.  After installation, we haven’t had a single one!  (We had no plans to take action had we caught anyone, but hoped just the sight of it would be a deterrent.)

[Bernadine]

Mar 21, 2019 21:06:02 GMT -5 wildrice said:

Dumb question, but what does a Ring camera really do to deter theft? Is it very obvious that you are on camera?

I'm just thinking how hard it would be to track down a random petty thief based just on video footage. Do people in reality get caught and punished from this or is it more just to make the homeowner feel safer?

OP I'm sorry about your Rothys. If you bought them with a credit card, I'd check to see if they have any sort of purchase protection that might cover this.

I reported the theft to the police and they did ask if I had any video, so I assume it helps them somewhat.

[TBM]

Mar 21, 2019 20:31:32 GMT -5 bc1206 said:

We tried the Ring but didn’t like it. We are on a busy street in the city so it was picking up motion from cars, foot traffic, etc. We sent it back and are looking for an alternative.

It took us awhile to find the right distance to set the adjustment on ours, but we finally got it to stop going off every time someone uses our driveway to turn around when they realize that it is a dead end street.



On our ring neighborhood app recently, a bunch of people helped identify a pizza delivery guy who stole a package when delivering to a neighbor. I have no idea why the person didn't ask the neighbor where they ordered from, but someone recognized the guy. The people called the pizza place and sent the manager the video. I don't know who called the police, but later that day or the next day, the police returned the missing package.

People post a lot of videos from their ring doorbells, of "suspicious " people who come to their house, but I always wonder why they didnt answer the doorbell, since you can do that remotely. I have used that feature a few times when I just didn't feel like going to the door, since I could see on the live view who was there. I was actually home, but they had no way of knowing whether I was home or not.

If my motion detector picks up motion, I look to see who is there, because most of the time people don't ring our doorbell, and we can't hear if they knock, since the door is to the courtyard, not the house. If I didn't think someone belonged there, I would say something through the doorbell to try to deter them, like the lady on the ring commercial who is getting hair/nails/ whatever done.

[pearls]

I would also say we found the neighborhood function to be helpful in the app, we posted images from our ring doorbell on there and someone helped us to identity an individual on camera that tried to enter our home though our (locked) front doors, and the police were then able to question them. The police were told it a misunderstanding, but still alarming for us to watch and we're glad it helped the police to speak with the individual.

[kadams767]

Mar 22, 2019 5:48:12 GMT -5 Bernadine said:

Mar 21, 2019 21:06:02 GMT -5 wildrice said:

Dumb question, but what does a Ring camera really do to deter theft? Is it very obvious that you are on camera?

I'm just thinking how hard it would be to track down a random petty thief based just on video footage. Do people in reality get caught and punished from this or is it more just to make the homeowner feel safer?

OP I'm sorry about your Rothys. If you bought them with a credit card, I'd check to see if they have any sort of purchase protection that might cover this.

I reported the theft to the police and they did ask if I had any video, so I assume it helps them somewhat.

I guess I assume that, unless it is some big theft ring like a PP mentioned, the police aren't really investigating this particularly vigorously.  Maybe it depends on where you live, but I don't think police in my city are spending much time looking at Ring cameras to find a delivery thief.  I think it's more the hope that a camera is a deterrent.