Doorbell Video Ring Security Camera by RCA New and Improved - with Mobile Doorbell Ring, 3MP HD Video, Live Stream, No Recording Storage Fees, Night Vision and Motion Detection

Hello,Like you all, I spent days looking at reviews of these video doorbells. I settled on this RCA one, and it is The Best! First, no signing up and paying a ridiculous cloud fee. I simply got a 128 GB mini card.As for the bad reviews, I think I can help...1. No thumb print: most times a screen comes up with thumb print acceptance. The few other times, a screen with a image of the thumb print. These times, you just touch the screen and your thumb print screen comes up.2. Dropping wi-fi: mine has never dropped in over a week so far, and the router I am connected to is in another room. I found that if I didn’t have the chime box power kit installed to my chimes. Not only would the video door bell go offline, but if power failed, it wouldn’t even boot up. So if you have a chime box, install the power kit 1st. I have no experience with mechanical “ding-Dongs” but I already have a second RCA to install at my church.3. And the only minor negative. I haven’t found a way to delete the videos it takes. Not sure if they will overwrite yet or not, as I have only been up and running for a week. But the video and pics are very hi-quality! In fact you can choose hi definition or ultra hi definition. I usually review yesterday’s pics from my phone and easily delete unwanted ones.4. The hardest part may be locating your doorbell transformer if you need more power to ring your chimes. Mine was very hard to find in the attic as we had blown much more insulation years past.You can use this without a doorbell and the adjustable motion detector will alert your phone. I was happy without the chime ringing, but it was the “challenge” that made me spend 3 trips in the attic to search out and replace the 11vac xformer with a 24vac one. Now all works as advertised5. The well thought out packaging! WOW! It came with every conceivable item needed down to a wood and masonry drill bit!With just the motion, this is the first time I have ever seen the faces of Amazon deliverers!!No need for tech support unless you don’t believe the excellent instructions.

This is an update to my original review. When I first installed the camera it connected to my network and produced very good video. After 2 days the camera died. Power off/on would get it to come on for about 8 hours, and then it would die. RCA offered several tips, all of which were implemented to no success. BTW, the WiFi signal was very strong at the camera, measuring -30dbm, which RCA agreed was more than sufficient. The camera was uninstalled, and a 2nd one was delivered. Again, the installation was very easy, and the 2nd camera connected to my wifi without any problem. This one lasted less than a day. Power off/on, master resets, nothing would make it come back to life. More calls to Amazon and RCA resulted in a return authorization. I really had hoped this camera would work as it produces great videos and offers good functionality. However, I cannot recommend it based on my experience. Let's hope RCA gets its act together as this could be a Ring killer.

I’m very hopeful for this product and hopeful that in the future it will have compatibility with Alexa. I had a well-known competitor bell which will be my point of comparison here but that bell requires a subscription service. Which is why I chose this bell.Installation seemed not to hard but note the Indoor time did not work until installing the app and upgrading the app.Now it appears that the indoor time works intermittently as if the indoor chime needs time to reset, perhaps. Note that we had a special diode installed previously as we have the long Westminster chime, but the app does have a spot to estimate how long your bell rings which we assume is to compensate for that. But I have a phone and a technical support to see what they have to say. My complaint about technical support is they are only open Monday through Friday 9 AM to 5:30 PM I believe and I’m not sure how many people will be home around their bell during those hours. Update: tech support did call me by the afternoon the next day however I did not call them back is it seems as I suspected the bell needs a few minutes to reset ... it seems to chime inside as long as about 5 minutes have passed so guests would not be able to ring the bell twice in a row but I don’t foresee that as a huge problem.The app is clunky. For the most part it seems OK and easy-ish to use But my chief complaint is that it’s very clunky to get in to the app and perhaps people will be walking away before you get to answer the door. I took a screen caps of all the steps you have to take to open the app once you see a ring notification. It’s just way too many steps your thumbprint should take you straight to the video.We just received the bell on Friday and installed it today on Sunday I will try to update later.Update: we had our first real test run - amazon rang the bell last night to deliver a package - I ran to get my phone but by that time the RCA notification was gone from the top of my screen so I did not have a “quick” way to open the app. So I just answered the door. I will check to see if there’s an option for persistent notifications rather than one that scrolls away. Over all it does record usually (I think it missed one delivery) when someone walks onto the porch. It does not notify me because I have the notifications set for 12am-5am. The app was clunky in that i could not figure out how to delete one day notification and had to set it to 1 minute and then a daily notification for 12:01am to 5am as it doesn’t allow overlap - I see no way to delete once you set up a notification.Out of the box def has a lot of bugs but better than having to pay subscription fees as soon as you figure out all the quirks. Overall I’m reasonably satisfied and even bought this with the mixed reviews.Update: the first model lasted a couple years & then something began to malfunction with ringing the interior bell. Couldn’t fix it so I bought a new one. Second one now has also lasted about 2 years. Even replacing after 2 years is much cheaper than a subscription! Despite a few app bugs (extra login despite using thumb print), I recommend this device.