Frankly obscene Ring 42.8% subscription increase

[Mekrel]

I have no doubt it'll increase in the future, I'm surprised they've not increased the Pro one first considering that will generate more income, and other companies usually milk their premium products e.g. Netflix tend to increase their top tier over lower ones.

 

[UberTiger]

Some people on Reddit recommending the TP Link Tapo doorbell, which actually looks okay and has a higher res than most. Seems to be battery only though,

Tapo D230S1 Smart Battery Video Doorbell(available in late April)

uk.store.tapo.com

 

[tamzzy]

The Protect Pro subscription isn't increasing then? We have the Pro subscription because we have multiple devices, 2 x flood pro cameras and the doorbell.

Same and I would like to know the answer to this too. I bet it will increase too.

nothing announced yet from what i can see so far

I have no doubt it'll increase in the future, I'm surprised they've not increased the Pro one first considering that will generate more income, and other companies usually milk their premium products e.g. Netflix tend to increase their top tier over lower ones.

amazon probably pricing the basic plan as a decoy price

What's Decoy Pricing & Why Businesses Need It?

The blog post looks at how to boosts sales of expensive items by creating alternatives solely to make the pricier versions seem economical by comparison.

blog.blackcurve.com

 

[jaybee]

Some people on Reddit recommending the TP Link Tapo doorbell, which actually looks okay and has a higher res than most. Seems to be battery only though,

Tapo D230S1 Smart Battery Video Doorbell(available in late April)

uk.store.tapo.com

I like how it has a pairing unit/hub inside the house where the SD storage is plugged in and that it can utilize ethernet and wifi. I take it this doubles up as a chime as well? Incredibly, in all the videos I can see on it, I cannot verify that it does chime as nobody shows it doing that. Only the external one seems to ring in the vids I see.
I dislike again that it can be taken off the mount and stolen in under 1 second as opposed to the screwed down/fixed ring.
It's about the same cost as being an all new Ring and spare battery but just doesn't have a sub. Not sure on features and quality. Not as much about this one?

 

[Mekrel]

It's a shame Tapo (tp-link) don't do a powered by wire (not PoE) camera with floodlight cameras. I'll be keeping my eye out and doing research on Ring replacements if they try significantly increasing the Protect Pro subscription.

 

[Scam]

I haven’t read the whole thread but just chipping in my recommendation for Reolink which I’m sure has been mentioned already. I’ve got the WiFi doorbell with an SD card and it’s absolutely solid. I’m super happy with it.

If you’re worried about the doorbell getting stolen, you could upgrade by buying one of their NVRs, or use a NAS, or just do what I plan to do and get a cheap home server and use FTP to backup the videos.

They’re also about to release an update which you’ll be able to set it up so the doorbell rings your phone which sounds cool.

Oh, and it doesn’t look like it was designed in the nineties. God those Ring doorbells look gash!

 

[Mysterae_]

Are there products out there that do everything the ring does including the alerts via an app where you can answer and speak to people when out, send auto replies, get 15 minute snap shots constantly, people detection for motion, configure motion zone, integrate with Alexa home stuff so you can trigger events from doorbell push etc?
I feel like if I get something else, it will have some feature missing or won't work as well and I will regret just not paying an extra £15 a year.

This is a good post to highlight the functionality that the Ring provides. We have a few Echo Show's around the house and they let us know when motion is detected or someone has pressed the doorbell. We ask Alexa to "show the front door" and it just works and quite well. Even the Fire TV lets us see the front of the house on the big telly with just a voice command. I'd have missed a number of deliveries if I didn't have the ability to talk to the delivery driver to tell them where to put the parcel while I was away from home.

However!

Is this all worth the ongoing and ever increasing cost of such convenience? I'm starting to really doubt it. Here's my Ring subscription for the past 4 years in all it's overpriced glory.

So £109.96 for the last four years and £159.95 if I pony up for another year. Include in the original price of the door bell (£110) and I'm in for a total system life cost of £269.95 for a ******* doorbell.

 

[UberTiger]

You do realise that £25 in 2020 is worth £32 today? Which means the price increase over the last 4 years has been only 9% prior to this increase? Or the equivalent of 1-2% per year?

Sorry, I hate to defend a multi billion dollar corp. But I experience this with local small businesses all the time who are afraid to put their prices up over the last 5 years by just a few quid while the megacorps don't give a ****. The small businesses think it's okay to keep charging the same while all their costs go up and it drives me insane.

Blame whoever is in control of inflation for most of these cost increases. Vote your government out if they're ******* you over. I agree it ******* sucks the prices are going up but doorbell subscriptions are not an isolated use case.

 

[alphaomega16]

For an all in one network, AP, and CCTV system I've found it excellent. They've made some massive improvements over the past few years.

can they be run app account free?

 

[jaybee]

You do realise that £25 in 2020 is worth £32 today? Which means the price increase over the last 4 years has been only 9% prior to this increase? Or the equivalent of 1-2% per year?

Sorry, I hate to defend a multi billion dollar corp. But I experience this with local small businesses all the time who are afraid to put their prices up over the last 5 years by just a few quid while the megacorps don't give a ****. The small businesses think it's okay to keep charging the same while all their costs go up and it drives me insane.

Blame whoever is in control of inflation for most of these cost increases. Vote your government out if they're ******* you over. I agree it ******* sucks the prices are going up but doorbell subscriptions are not an isolated use case.

Do you think Amazon "need" to put the prices up? The storage will be their own cloud. This is multi billion Amazon.

 

[a1ex2001]

Do you think Amazon "need" to put the prices up? The storage will be their own cloud. This is multi billion Amazon.

Who have duty to make money for the shareholders, they might not need to put the price up to keep the wolves from the door but that doesn’t mean the shouldn’t or won’t. (Yes I am a ring customer!)

 

[ChrisD.]

can they be run app account free?

App or account? You don’t need either although they make it more difficult run as a local account during setup.

 

[cuke2u]

Do you think Amazon "need" to put the prices up? The storage will be their own cloud. This is multi billion Amazon.

They probably don't own the property or the servers their cloud is based on though.
Companies tend to pay someone else to host cloud storage because it more cost effective than setting up your own..

 

[Azza]

Download any required videos / images.
Cancel annual plan.
Get prorated refund.
Start new annual plan at existing price for 1 year before price increase.
???
Sort of profit.

 

[Feek]

Do you think Amazon "need" to put the prices up? The storage will be their own cloud. This is multi billion Amazon.

The crazy thing was that they justified the price rise in 2022 by increasing the storage time from 30 days to 180 days. There's been no attempt to justify it with any changes to the services this time.

Who needs 180 days? I doubt anyone even cares that it was increased from 30 days. Put it back to 30 and give us a cheaper option.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

THIS IS IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ.

Two things if you are leaving

1) Unlink your Amazon account or else it will just take money like mine did back in Dec 2022

2) Unlink your card because in December 2023 Ring still took £35 off my old card which was actually my Banks fault. Ring did refund me.

 

[Scam]

They probably don't own the property or the servers their cloud is based on though.
Companies tend to pay someone else to host cloud storage because it more cost effective than setting up your own..

Uhh, I’m not sure if I’ve misunderstood your post but you know AWS is by far the biggest cloud provider on the planet right…

 

[alexakasloth]

Blink doorbell and sync module do ok for me. The access speed to files isn't quite as fast as I'd like but at £55 for the pair it does the job. You can also run it with mains power.

 

[BUDFORCE]

I'm in for a total system life cost of £269.95 for a ******* doorbell.

It really rings true how much you have spent when you list it out like that.

I don't think anyone can chime in and say otherwise.

I have eufy version, it's a dead ringer without the subscription.

 

[BigBoy]

Reolink POE doorbell is flawless for me. Just about to install another for my mother-in-law.