Ring's offers home security products

Ring’s been pushing out great home security products and the Alarm Security Kit in particular is a robust system that lets you, in essence, complete a 360-degree solution to home security. For those looking for a system and they’re already Ring users, the kit works incredibly well. Besides the easy access and installation, the kit also works well with Amazon’s Alexa voice commands.

It’s one of the most versatile kits I’ve used and here’s more on why that is.

Design and Installation

The Home Security Kit comes in five parts, a base station, a motion sensor, a range extender, a door sensor and a keypad. For installation, you receive base screws and mounting tape. There are also helpful guides to get started. This is what you’ll need to read because it can be quite intimidating at first but the easy setup guides are there for that purpose and you can quickly put everything together.

Ring has made multiple base kits to go with the way you want to design it with and lets you upgrade as you change home layouts. However, they all work the same way. The base station is a clean white box and is the heart of the device. It supports Z-Wave, Zigbee, Bluetooth, dual band Wi-Fi and if you go on Ring’s paid subscription plan you also have LTE as well.

The security system has its own internal battery of 24 hours if the power does go out and in the event of an illegal entry, it packs a very loud alarm inside. The newer generation components are slimmer and sleeker than the previous iteration.

The keypad is used to arm and disarm the system -and it can also be used as a remote as it has a mounting pad.

The contact sensors are Z-wave connected and powered by simple CR type batteries and can be placed virtually anywhere, ideally for places that can be accessed. These can be mounted with double-sided tape or screws. Similarly, the motion sensor also runs on the same Z-wave connection. The extender helps in expanding the connection by 250 feet, this helps with a bigger house and you can place the contact sensors everywhere they need to be.

Performance

First off, the kit is very easy to setup. The Ring app, available on iOS and Android will do most of the heavy lifting. If you’re an existing Ring user, this will be familiar already, but for new users, this shouldn’t be a problem. The app will let you link all of your devices with little to no trouble at all. In addition, you can even program your other ring devices to work in tandem should the alarm get triggered.

That is to say the Alarm actually is compatible with a lot of other home security solutions but it works best in its own ecosystem. However, keep in mind it doesn’t support Apple or Google’s Home apps as it’s an Amazon product exclusive.

Ring’s mobile app is intuitively designed so that you can connect the Base Station via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, install the Contact Sensor(s) on the doors and/or windows of choice, and place the Motion Detector(s) to monitor for movement. You can utilise one-touch buttons on the Ring Alarm Keypad to sound the Alarm or to activate Assisted Monitoring (with Ring Protect Plus) and notify three preset contacts that there is a medical emergency or fire. Plus, the Keypad's Modes buttons make it easy for customers to set their Alarm to one of three modes–Disarmed, Home, or Away Mode, as needed. Ring Alarm has compact easy-to-mount sensors to fit into smaller spaces, for added convenience and flexibility where it's needed most.

Verdict: Safe to say, the kit performs perfectly. You can choose to do manual monitoring or you can pay a monthly subscription to Ring’s Protect Plus monitoring plan.

By subscribing to Ring Protect Plus, customers can enjoy Assisted Monitoring, cellular backup and 30 days of video storage, starting at Dh37 per month, to stay connected and protected at all times.

With Ring Protect Plus in place, benefit from assisted Monitoring to enable automated calls to three emergency contacts during an Alarm event, so a trusted contact can respond, even if you're unreachable. It also has cellular backup for Ring’s Alarm Base Station in case the internet goes down and 30 days of cloud video recording for all Ring devices in one location.

This also extends the warranty for all Ring devices in one location for as long as the Ring Protect Plus subscription is active.

The 2nd generation Ring Alarm Home Security Kit are available for purchase with effect from April 6, 2022 on Amazon.ae plus via select retailers, including Jumbo, Virgin Megastore and Ace Hardware across the UAE with pricing starting from Dh849 for the five-piece kit.