Ring Alarm 14-Piece Kit (newest model), Wireless smart home or business security system, expandable, easy setup, Mobile App Control, 24/7 Professional Monitoring, Alexa Compatible

Replacing an existing obsolete wired-in alarm system with a RING wireless alarm. Ring is very good, but it's Terms & conditions are terrible. The RING system itself does meet my needs, but there are lots of things you should know. AFTER I started to install, I was required to read Terms & Conditions to set up an account. Upon reading them, HOLY SMOKES, that is the MOST one-sided agreement I've ever read. It is so bad, by agreeing, you are at fault for anything you ultimately don't like about RING. [Not that much of an exaggeration]. Blame their lawyers. Why do I continue? After lots of research, it is otherwise a very good real world solution in this wireless age. All the sensors you will install ARE wireless. I am replacing a wired system, and it has wires everywhere. Not fun. Also my OLD system could have the phone line cut. Not with RING. If it generates an alert, it will sound at the house's base station alarm AND connect to your cellphone even if the house's internet/TV/Phone cable were cut, it would bypass the cable and go wirelessly through a cell phone tower. If it's a fire alarm and you sign up for the 24/7 monitoring, it will try to contact you, and/or dispatch the fire department. A false alarm might get you a bill for the nuisance of a false alarm. Not your biggest worry, I'm sure. [ JAN 2024: Just had a prolonged power outage with severe cold. So cold, we drained water and left for warmer circumstance. It reported for 20+ hours by connecting thru cell tower, since house's router was down, and told us when the power came back on! Not Bad! ] [update - you can get more battery backup for longer outages] Compared to my old system, if I forgot to set it before I left, I was out of luck. Now, with RING, I could quickly set it from my cellphone. You can even create a regular schedule for nitetime on and off and/or for working hours away. THIS IS VERY HANDY. This solves the problem of constantly having to remember. Great for peace of mind! Your power goes out? PHONES go out? Unless your cellphone is dead or unavailable, you will be notified. So would the fire dept if need be. Some say a RING doorbell might need a new transformer. All the big box stores stock the transformers. If so, some of you may want an electrician. Alternatively, bribe a friend or family member with a six pack. I'll do mine myself. Motion sensors work well. [update - there are several available ring-tones to use, and after 2 years, they have never bothered us, in fact, they help us locate each other, a real time saver.] Door/Window contacts also work well. On my sliding glass doors, they are well enough hidden. On Entry doors such as the Front door, they stick out big time. I will eventually have to carve out 'pockets' in both the door and the door sill for the contacts. Do-able, but not fun. Two ways to handle FIRE/CO [carbon monoxide]. FIRST, IF your existing alarms are new enuogh, RING sells a 'listener' sensor to stick up next to each fire alarm. That 'listener' will notify the base station of the type and location of any activated alarm in the house. SECOND option, replace the existing fire detectors with battery operated FIRST ALERT fire and CO sensors with Z-WAVE which will talk to the RING base station perfectly. update - these have worked very well] Before you choose, consider this: Most if not all fire sensors have to be replaced with new ones every 7 - 10 years. You might not think that's a big deal, but your insurance company might disagree especially if they are giving you an alarm rebate. Don't know for sure. Check with your insurance about a rebate on your premium. It should be worth it. [update - you might be surprised by the savings.] Kitchen, garages, unfinished basements normally need HEAT sensors. There are heat sensors by others, and hopefully the RING listeners will respond. In my case, [update - haven't bothered to try this yet] I will see if the RING 'listeners' can hear them, and if so, leave my old heat sensors in place. In any event, RING needs to come up with a wireless, battery operated HEAT sensor - my opinion. The basic setup of a new system is easy enough, but takes a few minutes for you to install/activate each device. As far as installing the new devices, it should go easy enough, but it isn't something you can do during the halftime of a football game without pre-planning. My system is the 14 piece system. I needed to use contact cement on several sensors because the self-adhesive strip wasn't where I needed it. Double sticky foam tape might work as well. Also, several door frames needed shims. My windows are crank-out [casement] window, so they aren't getting contact sensors. My motion sensors work well enough - the dogs set the alarm off 50+ times when we left the house and set the alarm for 'away'. We later found emails for each time the dogs moved through a sensor. My phone was off during a wedding, or I would have quickly reset the alarm to 'home' which would have been just fine. Ring central was annoyed with me, but I explained and they laughed even after having called the police. It ended well. My basement windows need sensors, but my guess is today's burglar is going to come in through the garage door anyways by hooking the manual release handle with coat hanger wire. I suggest cutting the cord right at the handle-end and leave it dangle but take the handle itself off. that way the cord can't be snagged from outside. Motion sensors will hopefully catch anyone who gets in anyways. [update - I updated my garage door opener, and it has a wireless notification system also, and it is now integrated into the RING system . Cool!] Congratulations if you have read this far. Their product seems very good to me. Their Lawyers? Not so much. Read their agreement. We use the PRO level protection plan [the highest]is $20/month or $200/year, and that will do the job for me for half the cost of the old professionally installed system. We get a rebate on our home insurance that almost pays the monitoring expense. There is a $3/mo and a $10/mo plan also, but they don't provide the professional monitoring or any possible insurance rate reduction. Ring has a comparison chart you should read. If you want to save video for 30 days from your doorbell the $3/mo plan does that. Other cameras as well? that's the 10/mo plan with RING. Check it out. I do want the automatic fire dept notification though. That's 20/month. The RING system has worked well out of the box so far without needing fancy adjustments. However, you CAN tailor each device separately to work how you want. alarm/no alarm set a different ring tone, LOTS of possibilities and VERY useful. It is much MUCH more flexible than my old wired system. You can set a delay just before you leave the house. We use it and it gives us time to re-enter and find what we forgot. Also Cool! While the RING system comes with very useful good keypad[s], you WILL NEED your cellphone for the install process, and daily use plus any system changes you'd want. Use the keypad while at home for setting/unsetting the system, or use your cellphone if you have already left but forgot to set it. I LOVE that feature. For your safety, make sure you have strong passwords on RING [and also on AMAZON if you use an ALEXA service such as an echo camera]. I did have to upgrade my cellphone to a current model because I had an old version of GOOGLE ANDROID that couldn't be upgraded. If Android, the phone needs AT LEAST Version 10. I recommend a 5G phone but it will work on 4G phones as well. Also, you will need SMS messaging which also means you'll need a low usage data plan. Yes, I know, 99% of the cellphone world already does that, but in my profession, I can't have my customers messaging me all the time. Again, that's MY problem. Most likely you will be fine. Update - This might be the world's longest review, but the Ring system is that important. It is becoming more and more useful every day. We never used the old wired system, and that could have landed us in trouble with our insurance people, but now, we ALWAYSuse the Ring system. It is about the best thing I've added to our house. My Wife absolutely LOVES it.

Love this system, I've had it for over 4 years and awesome. The best part is the routines - I have it arm and disarm on a regular schedule which means I don't have to remember to do that manually unless I'm leaving the house in the middle of the night. Setup is incredibly easy - All the devices come pre-synced (amazing). I love that it does not require you to purchase monitoring, but if you want it, it's there for a VERY reasonable price. My only complaint is that it would be nice to adjust the volume for certain situations and not others. I have it arm and disarm on a schedule and it's startling to hear it say "Armed/disarmed" when you're at home alone at night. So I turned the volume down. BUT, when I happen to come in very late after it's armed, the "entry delay" sound/voice is that same volume, which can sometimes be hard to hear. I've had the alarm trigger this way because I didn't realize it was armed and didn't hear it.

This alarm system is easy to install and operate, and provides tremendous peace of mind. I love the app, customization options, and ability to monitor everything from anywhere. Professional monitoring is also pretty cheap when compared to traditional alarm services and modern competitors. All together, I would give this Ring system more than 5 stars and have recommended it to friends, family, and neighbors. A few weeks after I installed the system, a guy tried to come into my house when I was home. He tried multiple doors in the span of about 30 seconds while I happened to be working from home upstairs. While my doors were locked and he didn’t force entry after finding the door locked, it was still highly reassuring and helpful to have Ring provide instant camera alerts of his presence, be able to download and share videos of his attempted entry with the police, and be able to monitor my house real-time afterward with the app. Every day I tell myself how much I love this alarm system and feel better having it. Wish I had gotten it sooner!

About 2 years ago we got a Ring doorbell for Christmas. It’s worked out great! 2 months ago we got the 3 outdoor Ring camera set from Costco, and we’re really pleased with them also. We’ve had an ADT security system for over 18 years. The monitoring cost keeps group, and now it’s $74 a month! We saw the Ring alarm system, and with our good experience with Ring previously, and seeing it’s only $20/month for professional monitoring, with much more high tech controls, customization, and integration with other Ring devices it was a no-brained to consider it. The 14 piece kit was a perfect fit to replace the ADT system. After reading many reviews we ordered it, and received it in just 2 or 3 days without Prime ordering. We installed it that weekend. It was really simple to install! Just make sure not to install the big part of the window sensor right against the window sill, or you won’t be able to slide off the battery cover. During install 2 window sensors showed up on the smart phone app as “tampered”. We still used the ADT System for the past month, since we had just paid the monthly $74 fee. A couple days ago I noticed the Ring camera history no longer worked, because the trial period ended. It was time to switch from ADT to Ring. We’ve been paying $30 a year for Ring doorbell monitoring. The Ring camera subscription was bugging us to start a subscription. Ring said it’s $20/month to monitor all Ring equipment. I wasn’t sure if that $20 would cover the 3 different types of Ring system, but to me it would have been worth it even if I had more than 1 subscription. I signed up for Ring alarm professional monitoring, and immediately found out from the website that my doorbell and cameras were included!!! I called Ring customer support to find out how to transfer my ADT initiated local alarm monitoring permit to Ring and to resolve the “tampered” window sensor issue. They spent a good half hour or more on the phone fixing the tampered issue. Then they showed me how to find the monitoring permit entry screen (Sandwich menu -> Settings-> Monitoring-> Permits). Amazon can’t ship the Ring Smoke and CO “Listener” here to California, but in the reviews I saw several mentions of the First Alert Z-Wave smoke detector and CO detector being Ring alarm compatible. I ordered that 2 days ago, and it’s arriving Thursday! That will pretty much complete the full system, unless I get another for the first floor. It’s been a bit of an investment overall, but it’s going to be so much better at much less maintenance costs! Oh, by the way, I changed one low Ring camera battery a couple weeks ago and the other 2 today, so they last close to 2 months disconnected from power and alerting and recording video several times a day from us getting into the view of the cameras. That pretty much sums up my experience with Ring. I’m happy to answer questions, and I may add more later after any actual monitoring notifications.

Wanted this for a while works great

I really wish they would allow me to integrate this with my smart home. I wish all of these companies would stop trying to BE the entire smart home and just open up and let us use their hardware with other smart home solutions. It's the biggest thing holding back smart homes. Everyone is confused about what works with what and the first time they get home with a RGB bulb that doesn't work with their system they tend to throw their hands up and quit. Working with Alexa and Google Home isn't enough. All that said, this system is great as advertised. Everything works exactly as it is supposed to. Installing is very easy. Support was a little touch-n-go. I had to call because I didn't use all of the sensors and wanted to clear the warnings about some sensors not being detected. The first person I talked to had a really hard time understanding me, but it only took a couple of minutes to get her to transfer me to someone who did, and they helped me do exactly what I wanted. The system has been rock solid. We had one false alarm with a motion sensor early on. I still don't know why because I moved it slightly and it hasn't happened again. Other than that, it triggers every time we test it, and doesn't trigger when it shouldn't. Having battery and cellular backup is nice. It looks like it would function for a few days without power, and you get an alert when the power goes down, so you'll know if someone flipped your main.

Installation was fairly simple and it seems like a pretty solid system. In addition to the 14pc kit and 6 additional door sensors I ordered a water/ freeze sensor for our crawl space. Less than a week after installing the system it alerted me to water in the crawl space from heavy rain during the night. This warning allowed me to set up a utility pump early during the rain and enabled me to avoid water damage! Everything worked out from the beginning with the exception of one of the motion sensors. It indicated it was tampered with when the system was activated. I followed the instructions and tried the system again and it worked like it should when I excluded the motion sensor. Jeff from Ring contacted me and sent me a new motion sensor. I installed it and it now works fine. This sensor is mounted in my crawl space using screws. When using screws to mount the sensor’s cover you need to make sure the screw heads are not protruding above the surface of the cover. If the screws protrude on the inside of the sensor that contains the tamper switch the switch can be damaged by the screw head while sliding the sensor into to place. I am pleased with the alarm system and plan to upgrade to a monitoring plan.

UPDATE 06/30/2026 Giving ring ONE Star - a huge downgrade from my original review because of absolutely shady practices by ring. They removed the Alexa doorbell greeting feature saying it’s going to only be available for their newer doorbell devices. So, the expectation is that they will be able to force customers to upgrade to a new device despite the fact that the device I bought was a newer model just a year ago. That is not the way to treat customers IMO; it’s dishonest & unethical business practice on ring’s part. After switching from ADT to Ring, I can confidently say this 14-piece alarm kit exceeded my expectations in terms of performance, ease of installation, and overall integration with the Ring ecosystem. The components are thoughtfully designed, the Ring app is intuitive, and the monitoring service has been reliable and responsive. Setup was seamless, and the sensors and base station paired quickly. The system's flexibility, particularly in how it integrates with other Ring and Alexa-enabled devices, has added tremendous value to both security and convenience for my home and business. The only constructive feedback I have is regarding the inclusion of two keypads in this kit. While that may be ideal for larger multi-entry properties, in my case, a single keypad would have sufficed. I would have appreciated an option to swap the second keypad for a glass-break sensor or additional door/window contact sensors, especially since Ring already offers modular components. Amazon Business customer service did encounter a few hiccups with this order and related security products, but they ultimately resolved every issue professionally. For context, I have consistently received exceptional service through my personal Amazon account, and that positive experience remains unchanged. In conclusion, this kit delivers excellent protection, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking to make a confident shift to a modern, reliable security solution. Pros: -Easy to set up, no professional installation needed -Seamless app experience and smart integrations with other Ring devices & Alexa routines -Extremely reliable 24/7 monitoring service -Expandable and future-proof system -Battery backup & cellular options provide peace of mind -Compact, modern design with excellent signal range Cons: -Kit should offer customization (e.g., swap extra keypad for other components) Would I recommend it? Without hesitation, Yes. A solid investment in home or small business security. Practical Insight: If you are looking to take control of your home security without relying on expensive legacy providers, this kit delivers everything you need, plus flexibility.