Ring doorbell solar panel charger

Feek · 10 Feb 2023 at 13:34

A year ago, I bought a Ring doorbell 4, a couple of chimes and because I had no idea what the battery life would be like, I also bought a spare battery.

The battery actually lasts about seven weeks, plus or minus a few days. The cold winter weather doesn't seem to make a lot of difference.

A month ago, I decided to buy the official Ring solar panel. Not the solar mount, the actual panel itself and I nailed it on my house. My house faces due east so it's only going to get direct sunlight for half the day and in the winter, just a handful of hours. We have a large bush (hur her) in our front garden and so I fitted the panel up quite high so it would get maximum exposure to the sun. It's about twelve feet high.

I deliberately didn't look at the battery health for a week. When I did check it, exactly a week after it was put up, the battery was at 99%. That's good.

I then checked it again after two weeks and the battery was at 90%. Hmm, not so good. I then checked it the next day and it was back to 99%.

I looked at it yesterday and it was at 90%. This morning, it's up to 98%. Tomorrow will have been three weeks since I put the panel up.

From this, I deduce that if the battery is 90% or above, it doesn't charge the battery but once it drops below 90%, it then tops it back up to full.

Bear in mind that we're in winter, it's been cold and overcast with only a few days of sunshine.

So I'm really pleased with this. I have the motion frequency set to 'regularly', I have HDR enabled and I have snapshots set to every 14 minutes.

This is the panel I bought although I got it from Amazon because of the ease of returning stuff if there's a problem.

If you have a battery powered Ring doorbell, I can thoroughly recommend the solar panel. If it can keep it charged like this in the winter, in the summer, it'll be a doddle.

Semple · 10 Feb 2023 at 13:44

Sounds like you should easily get a year out of a battery without requiring a charge. It's one thing that put me off a battery version was potentially having to recharge it every so many number of weeks.

Feek · 10 Feb 2023 at 16:45

Very possibly. I think I'd still swap them around every six months or so but it certainly beats having to remember to swap batteries every seven weeks or so.

Feek · 21 Feb 2023 at 09:28

Over a month since I nailed the solar panel on the wall and the doorbell battery is showing 99%. This was definitely a good purchase.

Feek · 9 Jan 2024 at 13:18

It's been almost exactly a year since I put the solar panel up, I noticed yesterday evening that the battery was at 87% which I think is the lowest I've ever seen it. Although it had dropped below the 89-90% mark, it didn't charge yesterday because it was very overcast here.

I had another look this morning and it was at 86%.

A few hours later, we've had a bit of sunshine. Not a lot because the days are still very short and the sun is a long way south.

Semple said:
Sounds like you should easily get a year out of a battery without requiring a charge. It's one thing that put me off a battery version was potentially having to recharge it every so many number of weeks.

Easily! I haven't had to take the battery out and charge it at all, the little solar panel has kept it going all year.

I think it was a very worthwhile purchase.

radderfire · 9 Jan 2024 at 13:22

Definitely better than faffing around with batteries.

Mason- · 9 Jan 2024 at 13:49

Might have to get one. Thanks Feek.

bainbridge · 9 Jan 2024 at 20:33

Feek said:
Very possibly. I think I'd still swap them around every six months or so but it certainly beats having to remember to swap batteries every seven weeks or so.

I get an email reminder to change it when the battery reaches 30% or thereabouts.

Ours last about 7 weeks. I don't mind doing it, I give the unit a quick clean while I'm there.

Soul.Survivor · 9 Jan 2024 at 21:00

May have to get one for myself too. I've got a spare battery aswell, my roads not too busy so I have to change every 2 months.

Feek · 2025-01-07T13:46:20+0000

A year later and I'm in the habit of just checking the battery level before I go to bed "Hey Siri, what's the battery on the front door" and I noticed last month that it had dropped down to 41% because of the amount of overcast weather we had. I made sure my spare battery was fully charged in case I got a sudden alert that the battery had dropped right down.

Since then, we've had a few sunny days (but not many) and the battery has been slowly increasing, a few percentage here and a few there, followed by more cloudy days where it's dropped back again. The last couple of days have been quite sunny for the full three hours or so that the panel is exposed to the sun and I'm back up to nearly 90% again.

If anyone is considering one of these panels, I still highly recommend it, two years later.