That time we talked about the ring doorbell

This is episode number 5 of The Homeowners Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams. Hello, hello, hello, hello. Welcome to The Homeowners Show. Whether you are watching on YouTube, listening on iTunes, and now Officially available Stitcher because we've hit the magical five episode number. Yeah, so you gotta have five episodes to be a Stitcher person. Yeah, we are too legit to quit. I don't know about that, but we have five episodes. That's something. Stitcher says that's something. The, uh, the Stitcher demigods out there. Yeah. Well, so, um, do you feel like a seasoned caster? It feels like a fisherman term. Yeah. I

promise you I'm not a seasoned caster. That's a fisherman term. Uh, no, I don't know. I mean, I, I think, uh, hopefully we'll get better and better and better with this, trying to figure out all the editing of podcasting and all of that kind of great stuff. But I'm really hoping you get better too. Yeah, one of these days. Who knows? Well, hey, this, this week's gonna be a little bit different in that we're going to do a product review. And we've got a new product we want to review tonight. So what are we gonna be talking about, Craig? Yeah, I'm actually excited about this one, mostly because it's a piece of technology that I know something about a little bit more than you know something about. How about that? I get to be a little more geeky

than Kevin this week. So. That's really hard to do. You know, what are you going to do? I rolled out the pocket protector and just decided, actually, I can't on this shirt because I'm— if you guys on YouTube can see, we got, we got some new materials on our persons. So yeah. If you want a cool homeowner's show, Kevin's got a— what are you sporting here? Is it the silver? Yeah, it's a silver, you know, light gray color. Yeah. So kind of a black logo. The Majestic Blue. Well, that's the name of the color. Yes, it is once I put it on. I don't know about that. Well, Yeah. So anyway, you can get these on Amazon. It's just a way to help

support the show. If you'd like to get a t-shirt and just tell your friends about how awesome The Homeowner Show is. And we even appreciate if you lie about that. So it doesn't really matter as long as, as long as you're promoting us, right? Yeah, absolutely. That's all that matters. We don't care. We don't care. Lie it up. Yeah, no, yeah. So we're gonna— this week we're gonna be talking about the Ring doorbell, which a lot of people seem to have now. Yeah, I, I see them more often whenever I go to people's houses. And it's one of those things, whenever we were talking about last week with digital security and the Internet of Things, it's one of those things that more and more people seem to find comfort in

knowing That anytime someone comes to my house, I can see who's there. I don't necessarily have to get up and answer the door if I don't want to. It's just another convenience option. Yeah. And so if you're interested in one of these, and by the end of this episode, and you've become convinced that you need one of these doorbells, but you want to be scared out of getting one, you probably need to go back and listen to episode number 4 and hear Micah tell you why you don't need one of Well, it's like anything, right? I mean, it really depends on, on who you're trying to be. Are you trying to be the person that's most connected in your home, or are you trying to be the person

who is trying not to be— at least have the option for other people to hack into your system, get into your things? And ultimately, I think episode did— episode 4 did a good job of kind of helping us understand what those risks are, but also maybe some, some options of how to protect yourself against those threats. Yeah. And it actually has been one of our more popular episodes thus far. Yeah. So it's pretty interesting. Yeah. It seems like something people are interested in. But this, this is actually a product that offers some people a lot of peace of mind and security in some regards. And in other ways, you expose yourself like we talked about in episode 4. Um, but one of the big reasons I, I really wanted to do this episode is because of a

news story that actually made national news right around the corner from you and me. Yeah, it's like in our backyard. Uh, there's a neighborhood, um, just not far from us at all that was having a— having an issue, um, with, uh, with someone who was lost. Or lost? That's not really— No, she wasn't lost. I mean, she was— I mean, she was looking for help, basically what was going on. And so this was like in the middle of the night. this, this lady starts going around and ringing people's doorbells, and one of these Ring devices actually caught her on video. And the reason it made national news is because it looked like she had escaped from being in restraints. Right. And it comes to find out that she

was. She had been in restraints and escaped. She had a boyfriend that was threatening to kill himself, and he kind of tied her up. And because of privacy reasons, they You know, they ended up locating her and, um, and she, she was okay considering, um, the situation. But because she'd been the victim of domestic violence, uh, and abuse, they decided not to release her identity. But they did find her, and part of the reason they were able to find her is because they had a good image of her that was captured on one of these Ring devices. She was going around door to door ringing doors saying, can somebody help me? Can somebody help me? Um, and you know, it was like 2 in the morning, so people weren't answering the door, right? But those people were

able to take those images, send them to the police, and they had a better chest of tools to go and find this person. Yeah, I actually got a, um, a notification on my phone. Oh really? From an app that, that I have installed on my phone called Nextdoor. Yeah, that, you know, there's a lot of things that Nextdoor app does, but one of the things that it that it's able to do is in times of crisis, they'll send out an alert and then they'll push it through Nextdoor at times. And I actually saw pictures of this woman on my phone pushed through the app. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's kind of, kind of interesting. So, so in those, those moments, this, this

device that we're talking about tonight, it really probably had potentially saved her life, right? And I think I've heard of that, like, where people use the Ring through other apps like Nextdoor. And I think I've even seen one where it's like, have you— do you know this person? You know, and people will post like a video or a picture of someone that came to their door that looked— maybe looked kind of suspicious, right? You know, and with what they were doing. Yeah, you're like, what is this person up— and they weren't home, but you know, because they had these, you know, quote-unquote smart doorbells, They were able to like capture some video. Yeah, I think that's one of the things that for me, uh, and my family, one of the things that, that is a little

scary at times is the fact that we live in an age where home delivery of items is very common. And so whether it's Amazon Prime or, you know, another online, uh, distributor of some sort, you buy these things and people drive by and maybe they see 1, 2, 4, 5 boxes sitting in front of your home, especially during Christmas time. And we see it all the time where people are robbing, uh, people's Christmas gifts because they know it's Christmas time, people are buying expensive things. So they'll drive around, go up to people's homes and take the boxes. And, uh, this device has proven to be able to catch some of those those thieves who are out there robbing people from just their everyday

delivery items. Yeah, so I mean, it would probably be a good idea to just kind of talk about the basic function, because this item is intended to replace the traditional doorbell. I mean, you've got the, you know, the button and the chime on the inside, and you push the button, it rings and lets somebody who's at home know that somebody's at the front door. This sort of eliminates the need to go to the door in order to answer the door. What's really cool about this is if, you know, like, like in my house, if you're, if you're up on the 3rd floor and someone comes to the front door and rings the doorbell, you can answer the doorbell on your cell phone via the

Ring app. And, you know, if it requires you to physically go down there, well, then you know, well, I need to go down there. But if it doesn't, you can actually have that conversation via your cell phone. Right there, whether it's leave the package. Hey, good to see you, but I'm kind of tied up with something right now. Could you come back later? Yeah, Jehovah's Witness, I'm really not interested in having that debate right now. Yeah, although if it's me, I'm probably gonna go down and have that debate. Yeah, I live for those moments. It's an opportunity. I want that free Bible. You never know. I have a collection. Man, you got a lot of people coming to your house. I'm a popular guy. But yeah, it gives you the option

to say, yes, I'm going to go answer my door, no, I'm not. Or from what I'm hearing you say, I can talk directly to the person, find out what they need without unlocking the door, which is honestly, in, in a day and age where you just don't know, it's really nice to have that option. Yeah, absolutely. And it, and it comes with some other features too that we could— we're gonna get into a little bit. I actually have a, a story from when I was on vacation last week and, and the way that I actually ended up using it, um, when I was out of state. Uh, it was really, really helpful. Um, but basically, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak from, from my perspective because I, I have the first generation of one of these,

um, which feels weird that my, my house has like the first generation of anything. Um, But it does. And, and one of the big reasons I ended up with the one that I did is because yet again, my house is unique, um, and didn't have a doorbell. And this provided an option to get me a doorbell without having to run any wires. Okay. So it's, so it's wireless. Mine is, mine is. Now it requires me taking it down every once in a while to recharge it. Yeah, but I don't mind that because I didn't have to run any wires. Yeah, that's, that's a definite convenience. And I'm counting on someone not coming to my house between the hours of 9:00 and 5:00 AM, and so I can charge it then. Okay, now

how often do you have to charge it? I— the way that I use it, I really only have to charge it like once every 2 months. So it's kind of— it's not bad at all. Yeah, no. Well, I mean, it doesn't get a whole lot of use. Sure. I mean, we, I mean, even though we have a lot of packages dropped off at the house, we have a good relationship with the person that has to drive all the way out to our house. Um, and they just, they just know to sort of leave things on the porch. They don't have to ring the doorbell. Sure. Um, so we don't, it doesn't get a whole lot of use,

honestly. Yeah. Um, most of its use comes from me accessing it when I'm not home. Okay, so how do you do that? So there is a very intuitive app that Ring has put together, and that, that is really the, the hub and the brains of everything that they have and do and provide for you as a customer. Most of what you're gonna use this thing for is via the app on a smartphone. So if you don't have a smartphone, a smart doorbell like this is really not gonna be helpful to you. I mean, if you're still rocking the Razr, It's just not going to be your bag. There's a few people out there still rocking the Razr. I mean,

yeah, I think they're actually fixing to come out with a new one. I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty cool. Yeah. But I mean, but if, so like, say you didn't have like an iPhone or an Android or a Google, what is it? What is it? Google phone? I don't know. I don't know. There's like a, yeah. Yeah. I don't know all the names. I don't either. One of them. One of those. So if you don't have one of those, I mean, you could still operate this thing if you have like a tablet. There's also a web portal that you can use these things with. Now, I haven't used the web portal, but from what I understand, it's

not as user-friendly. Okay. And I think that's because they've spent most of their money developing the app. Sure. And we can get into that a little bit more later on too. But basically it allows you to have video of your front door. And if there's someone there that you need to talk to, you can have that conversation and you don't even have to be physically present at the home in order to have that conversation. As long as you have Wi-Fi or even a good cell signal, you can access that doorbell pretty much from wherever you're at. Wow. That's a, that's a really big selling point to me because, uh, you know, I think one of the biggest concerns that I've got. I know that whenever I do go on vacation, or if I'm gone for business

purposes or whatever, I always like to have a neighbor looking after things, or, you know, just a friend or someone, just because you never know what goes on at your house whenever you're gone. And it is kind of scary to leave your house and for a week or longer and not know who's coming up to your house. And so this sounds like it just gives you another layer of comfort knowing, hey, I've, I've got something that if someone comes to my house, I'm not there, I can still have a little bit of control over that. Absolutely. Yeah. And, uh, I will tell you, there are services that you end up paying for month to month with this device. You don't have to have those in order to

use the doorbell, and the doorbell will still function without those subscription services. That being said, you really won't get the full use of that doorbell without the subscription services. And basically what the subscription services provide you is an online hard drive to save video, because otherwise you can't save video. Now, why would I want to save video? So, you know, it— there's different ways that you can even set the doorbell up. So you can set it up To where it's going to record video regardless of if anyone rings the doorbell. It's got a motion sensor on it, and so anytime it picks up motion, it'll record a short snippet of video to see what's going on at your front door.

Because you know a lot of guys have figured out, oh hey, there's a ring. If I don't ring it, they can't see me. Well, if you're paying for the subscription services, that motion detector is going to. engage and go, hey, there's something going on at the front door, even though the doorbell hadn't been rung. I'm gonna go ahead and start recording video. And then it takes that video and uploads it to the server so that you have access to that video later on. How long does it save that for? That depends on your level of subscription. Okay. So some subs— I think the lowest tier saves it for like 5 days. Okay. And so you, you can And there's even like a free trial period of like a month, I

think, where you get like the high— you can sign up for like the highest level of service for free for like a month just to see what it's like. And I gotta tell you, it's pretty impressive. Mm-hmm. I mean, because at the highest level, I mean, you can kind of go back like a month and go, oh, what's going on over here? And you can tick through and go, okay, there was motion here, motion here. Well, that's a weird time to have motion. What's going on right there? Um, for someone like me, I've really gotta sort of pare down Um, what's going on because, you know, because I'm on property, I have dogs that sort of, you know, roam the property and they like to hang out by the front

door because they know that's where I come out and that's where the treats come from. That's right. So, um, so they, they would set it off quite a bit, but I mean, like depending on your level of your account, you know, it may not matter because if you have unlimited storage and unlimited videos and all those kinds of things, you, I mean, you, you know, you may have to go through quite a few, but for everyday Joe that lives in a normal neighborhood, that is not me, be really, really helpful. Yeah. Because I mean, like you, you would immediately know, okay, like there's motion at my door, but no one rang the doorbell. What's going on here? What was that guy up to? What was that gal doing? Um, and you could look at it and see. So

what kind of, what kind of quality video am I getting? Well, so the newest ones have HDR with 1080p. Wow, that's really good. Yeah, and so there's, there's different, you know, it's, it's sort of like cell phones. I mean, as they've developed, the cameras have just gotten better and better and better and better. So I actually have the baseline model, and there's a reason I have the baseline model. It's because the 2 So like there's the Ring and then the Ring 2, and the Ring 1 is really the only one that has the rechargeable battery pack. Okay, so, so that means that if I go past the Ring 1, the first generation, then it's got to be hardwired somehow. Well, the Ring 2 has a removable battery pack. Oh, okay.

And I haven't looked at the guts of that one, but I mean, like from what I'm reading about it, it looks like you can put batteries in it. Okay. Whereas just the original Ring One, which honestly the price has come down on that one since I got it. I think when I got it, it was like $150, and right now you can pick one up for $99. Okay. So really, I mean, like, I mean, as far as like a good piece of technology that's like an Internet of Things device for your home, not a bad price point. Sure. But, and is the only one with a rechargeable battery pack. And then you just basically plug it in like USB You know, maybe

charges for like 4 or 5 hours and it's good to go. Okay. The other one has— the second tier has a removable battery pack. After that, there's 2 more tiers— well, 3 more tiers because they have the brand new one, the Ring Hello. But the, the 2 after that, they have to be hardwired. Okay. And, and the, the third one has to be hardwired and you use a traditional doorbell. I said it's the Ring Pro. And the Ring Pro, you, um, there's a step-down device that you have to install on the actual Ring, like the, the chime inside the house. Okay. That lowers the voltage to the doorbell at the front so that you don't blow it up. Okay. Um, and then the

third, the fourth one is a PoE, um, device. So you, I mean, you basically power it over Ethernet. Okay. Um, which is Cat 5, Cat 6? Cat 6. Probably Cat 6. Yeah. So I mean, and that would just require completely rewiring of the whole doorbell system anyway. And that one's like a $500 doorbell. So I mean, you're going to be spending a chunk of change. Sure. Now you mentioned, uh, let me, let me just clarify something. You mentioned the Ring Hello. That's actually the Nest Hello, isn't it? It's a different product. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So it's a, it's a completely different It's a completely different model, but it does a similar thing. I think it even operates on the same app. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, which is, which is why it's kind of cool. Okay,

awesome. Um, and I may be wrong on that. I need to go double-check that. We'll, we'll click up some, some articles on that in the show notes. Okay. Um, so yeah, it's the Nest Hello, and the Nest Hello does some really, really cool stuff. And from most of it, most of the reviews that I've read about it, all of them are comparing it to the, the Ring Pro. Oh, wow. Um, and which is the highest model? Which is the highest model. And I, and I need to go through and look at the specs on the, on the Ring Elite to see if it even compares. Um, because it does some stuff, man, that just blows my mind. Like what? Um, well, like the biggest

one for me is facial recognition. Oh. And it doesn't— so like, say you come to my door and I have the Nest Hello, and I answer the door and I go, oh, that's Kevin. And so I tell the app, oh hey, that's Kevin. The next time you ring my doorbell, my phone's gonna tell me Kevin's at the door. Oh, wow. Yeah, and so it doesn't intuitively Go, okay, I know this person. So it's not like sort of creepy technology. You have to program it, and it's not, it's not communicating with other devices and going, oh, this is Kevin, you know, unless you have multiple Nest devices. Okay. That are all sort of talking together, which they do at that point. But

the Nest Hello is really the only one that goes, hey, that's Kevin. Kevin's at your door. Hmm. It also allows you some automated responses. So, um, you know, say you're doing something, the, the app itself will actually provide you some automated responses like, hey, I can't come to the door right now. So you just press a— click a— click an icon or a button. And the doorbell talks to them. Okay. And, or like, hey, you can leave the package right there. That'd be great. And like, it'll just do that for you. So, and the other thing was, is, um, one of the issues that they're running into with some of these doorbells is backlighting. Most people—

well, not most people, but like a lot of people tend to have like a front porch or an awning or something like that. Sure. And if it's in the middle of the day, there tends to be like really bright light behind people and really dim light where the doorbell is. And so when people engage that camera, that backlight really causes there to be like a shadow cast over the image, and it's difficult to see the person in daylight. The Nest Hello has really adjusted the camera to take that into account and make the image a lot clearer, a lot better. And that's not to say that the Ring does a bad job at all. I mean, at the lowest model, which is what I have, 720p, I really don't have any problem

seeing anybody. And I've got a full wraparound porch that someone has to come in like a good 6 feet. And I see them pretty good. Okay. And I can, I can always distinguish who it is. I've even used it a few times to freak my son out. That's just, that's just playful though. Well, let me ask you a question, and this may be going too far down the rabbit hole. But so one of the things that, that I've got on my house is I've got a smart lock, smart door lock on my home. So is it possible to set it up to where If, for instance, if I come to your house, you have a smart lock, I'm a trusted person, will it allow, based on facial

recognition, then to unlock the front door? If that's possible, it would— I would imagine it'd only be possible with the Nest Hello because that's the only one that does facial recognition. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Yeah. So, and even then, I don't know, like, how deep you would have to program them. I mean, that sounds like a, like a pretty sophisticated Applet. Yeah, I think that the reason I asked that question is because, again, going back to episode 4, it feels like it can get a little bit too bogged down, almost to the point where it's— it does too much. And there I can see instances where that might be good, especially if it's your family.

You walk up on your door, it notices you, and then it unlocks the door. That could be, that could be something that would be interesting. Um, but again, the, the last thing you'd want is to, oh, I accidentally noticed Craig, uh, on my— and somehow I programmed it accidentally where it unlocks the door whenever he shows up. That could be a bad thing. Yeah. So, and plus with the way that, I mean, and we have this big service that Amazon's offering now is the, the indoor camera with the smart locks to let the delivery guy in so that your packages don't get stolen. Right. Um, yeah, I just— I, I mean, like, for me, I, I haven't spent a whole

lot of time on that just because it'd be a weird problem for me to have. I mean, you've almost got to come 100 yards off the road to even get to my house. Sure. Um, and by then you've probably been bitten by a dog. Most likely. Yeah. She bit you, right? Not yet. Oh, gotta go back to school. Yeah, but she likes me. Oh. We'll work on that too. Yeah. So, um, so, so from what I'm hearing you say, uh, yours is the baseline model, 720p on the camera. Yes. Um, which is an early to mid-2000s television. Would be amazing in 2002. That's right. But like, uh, every, every version since then offers 1080p, which is much higher resolution. you're getting a better video quality out

of that. Absolutely. Yeah. And, but I mean, again, it just kind of depends on what you want out of it. I mean, like, you're, I mean, you're not shooting a television series out of these things. I mean, like, really what you want is like, who is that? Yeah. And to put that into perspective, so a lot of people are like, oh, I need the best resolution TV out there available. I got to get the, you know, the 1080p or whatever it is that the highest level. But the problem is, a lot of people don't realize is that TV shows, like your regular TV show that's coming on, your new episode, it is actually broadcasted in 720p. It's not broadcasted in 1080p. You have to get to movies

that are, that are on a DVD or Blu-ray before you get that 1080p quality. So if you're looking at your TV, and you're going, hey, this TV show looks really good, uh, that's a 720p broadcast, which means this 720p baseline model, that's good video quality. Yeah, yeah, no, it's really good video quality. I mean, I've never had a problem identifying someone on my front door. I mean, it's— I mean, it's been a little jumpy if I'm not real close by. Um, but even then, I mean, the audio comes through pretty clear. The video comes through pretty clear. I mean, like, it's not bouncing around too bad. Um, and I, I mean, like, and to be fair, my expectations were pretty low. I was like, this thing can't work that great. I mean, like, it— and so it exceeded those expectations.

Um, and then that may be just a, a good idea anyway, is to, you know, to approach a lot of new technology with low expectations. And usually these guys, by the time they put it out, they're going to be exceeding them. Yeah. Um, so I'll, I'll give you a big for instance as to how this works. Um, so we, we were out of town last week on vacation, uh, down in Florida, Florida, Florida. And, uh, we had my sister-in-law looking after the dogs, making sure they got fed. Not too much. We wanted to stay a little mean, like, you know, they got to chase the meat. Just enough. Just enough, just enough to make them miss us.

Yeah. Um, but anyway, So I was in Florida and I was like, you know what, I'm going to check on the house. So I brought up the Ring app, pulled up the camera and looked at the porch and it was nighttime. And sure enough, my porch lights were on. Um, and you didn't leave them on when you left? I did not leave them on when I left. Uh, so I immediately sent a message to my sister-in-law. I was like, hey, uh, just checking in, making sure all the dogs are doing okay. And by the way, next time you go by the house, could you turn the porch lights off? I didn't mean to, you know, maybe, maybe somebody turned them on. that I didn't know when we left or something like, I

don't know. Sure. It was pretty early when we left. Um, and so I sent her the message and I get one back. She goes, no problem. How'd you know the lights were on? Stalker. I was like, cause I got the smart doorbell. That's right. Yeah. So it was, I mean, like just, just in that instance, it was really, really helpful for me to have it. I was in, uh, the, the camera angle that I have and it offers you like a pretty wide angle. I think it's like 160 degrees that you can kind of see. Wow, what's going on around that doorbell? Um, and so at night it was really easy to tell like, hey, my porch lights are on and I

probably don't want to be running that power while I'm gone. That's wasteful and, and all that kind of good stuff. They just don't need to be on. Uh, so I, so I just, you know, had her turn them off and she was kind of freaked out that I knew what was going on. Well, but that's how— What else did you see me doing there, Craig? Yeah, so that's a, that's a great thing. So you brought up a point that, that is interesting to me. So at night, what type of video quality are you getting? Because a lot of times, you know, people don't have their, their porch light on at night. And I know some devices have found a way with, with certain lighting

techniques that can give a pretty clear image even at night. But how does, um, how, what kind of quality are you getting at night out of these things? Yeah, you get pretty good quality. I mean, and it's not, it's not like it is when they're during the daytime. And I don't even know what the technology is that you call it. Cause it's, I mean, like they, I think they essentially call it night vision, but it's not like when you put the goggles on and you get the green lit up, right? It's, it's mostly, I mean, it looks kind of black and white is what it looks like, but like with different monotones happening in there. But you can see what's going on. Okay. I mean, you and I, when we get

done here, I can— we can pull it up and look what it's like on the porch because we've got the lights off out there right now. Sure. And see what it looks like. But it's pretty good. Okay. I mean, we, you know, if we turn it on, we'll probably see one of the dogs sleeping on the porch or something. Most likely. Which is what they do. That's what they do. Yeah. Well, that's good to know because the last thing I would want to— I mean, the worst time to have someone come to your door is at night. And if I can't see them, then that's not helpful. So it's good to know that that's an option. Yeah, and again, I do wanna sort of

reiterate, I mean, this product really doesn't come to life unless you pay for the subscription. Sure. Because there's, I mean, unless somebody's figured out an end around, there's not a way to record the video that you have. So if you don't have the subscription services, Anything you have is live and you can't record live even. Yeah, so let me ask you a question about that. So, um, so, so there's different levels of subscription and different lengths of time that that video is saved to the server. Can you download that video and own it? Or, uh, so, so for instance, um, let's say someone came to your house that shouldn't be at your house and You find out that the authorities could actually use that video, is there a way that they can— you

can download that video, pass it off to the authorities, and they can then have it to use for evidence or, or something like that? Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly what happened in the story we talked about at the beginning. The whole reason I even want to talk about this is because, I mean, like, that's what you do is you can download that. I mean, you can put it on Facebook. Okay. And I've seen people do that where they're like, hey, this joker just Totally vandalized my front porch and I want to catch him. So if you know him, let me know who it is and I'll go pay him a visit. I mean, I've seen that kind of stuff. Okay. Um, and they've gotten connected.

Oh yeah. Yeah, no, that, that's, that's helpful because, um, I, I know there's lots of reasons to have this, but, but at the end of the day, um, if there's a reason for me to have one beyond being able to just know who's at my house, beyond being able to just talk to someone who comes to my house, even if I'm not home— hey, sorry I missed you, uh, come back later type of thing— um, to be able to know that I'm protected, like there's a way that this device can protect my family or someone else's family, you know, a neighbor's family, someone, um, in, in that is running around the neighborhood, you know, pulling on car

doors, making sure that, you know, that they're locked. And if not, I'm gonna loot it. You know, I'm gonna take whatever I can. Um, that, that protection's valuable. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it, it's not just the doorbell either. I mean, because like now they have like a whole suite of products that all sort of work together. Okay. Um, whether it be floodlights or even, I mean, like the, the Ring actually has a home security system that can integrate with the doorbells. You can put multiple doorbells on your house. I've been on some properties where, you know, they have multiple homes on the property, and you can integrate all the doorbells to each one of those homes into the same system

with all the floodlights. And really all they require is a Wi-Fi signal. So as long as you've got Wi-Fi signal, these things can be connected to one another. And so like you can have a front door doorbell, you can have a back door doorbell, and those doorbells, as they have activity on them, The videos will be designated as such. So it'd be like, this one was recorded on the front doorbell. This one was recorded on the rear doorbell. Oh, hey, someone just rang the rear doorbell of the house or the side doorbell. I've been on some houses where they have 4 of these things. Okay. Because that's how many doors that they have to the house. And they just don't want to

have any vulnerability points where they don't have video and recordings and access for people to get ahold of them if they need to. Yeah, so, so in some way it is its own security device, only it's a little bit different, but it has security built into it based on just what it is. Yeah, and when we say security, I want to, I want to be really clear. I mean, like, this thing is not going to call the police, right? I mean, like, it's not gonna be like, hey, something violent's happening and I need to make a phone call. It's not that intelligent, right? I mean, really, at best, what it's gonna have is a recording of the incident that occurred. Um, but again, not if you

don't have the subscription service. Yeah. Um, and then, I mean, without that, really what it is is a video doorbell. Yeah. That has Wi-Fi capability. Yeah. And, and that's— well, while some people may find that valuable, uh, it's really not reaching its potential at all. No. I mean, it's still way better than a traditional doorbell, don't get me wrong. It's I mean, it's nice. Yeah, really, really nice. You can still answer the door without going to the door. So it, I mean, it provides a lot more features than that button that was there before. Sure. Unless you're at my house, in which case you didn't have one. Yeah. Yeah. To have anything was an upgrade. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's, it's also

important to note that when it comes to installing these devices, Um, there are a lot of these new devices are, are made for you to be able to install on your own fairly easily. Oh yeah. But there are going to be instances that that's not as easy as you want it to be. For— I've got a, a cousin who, uh, has a Ring doorbell. He moved homes. He decided, I'm taking my Ring with me, this thing is awesome. He gets to the new home And for whatever reason, his doorbell doesn't have power to it. And so the one that he has is a hardwired device. It's not the one— it's not one of the earlier generations that uses a battery. And so he's having a hard time

without rewiring back to the doorbell, back to the front door using his device. Well, that may require professional installation. Yeah. So I think one of the things that I would encourage any listener who's thinking about going and getting one of these things is just kind of take an evaluation of what you have. Mm-hmm. And try to figure out, okay, which generation am I looking for? And will my house currently, the way it is currently set up, will it accept it? If not, I just need to understand I may have to have a professional come out here, maybe rewire this thing. And depending on the house, depending on what you have or don't have, that could be an inexpensive thing or it could be an expensive thing. So just something to kind of keep

in mind. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you have any other questions about this thing, man? No, I think, uh, I think we've, we've covered it, uh, for the most part. Yeah. So are you gonna go buy one now? I don't know. I— they're, they're really intriguing to me and, and it's something that Um, that, that I think I could benefit from. Mm-hmm. Uh, it's, it's, it's one more thing. I mean, I've got so many devices in my house. I just really have a lot. Um, and it's, it's one more thing. Um, but I, I like the idea of it. Yeah. And I think, I think it could, could be something that, that I could sufficiently convince my wife that we could

use and, uh, that, that we could benefit from. So Uh, maybe I'm just trying to make you safer. That's all right. So yeah, I think it's definitely something that I'm interested in. And, uh, right now it'll just be when I choose to spend the money on it. Yeah. That's kind of the way it is. Yeah. It seems like the prices continue to come down on these things. So yeah, it might be worthwhile to wait, but I mean, like $99, that ain't bad. It's not bad at all. So not bad at all. Yeah. Um, so we'll, I guess we'll have some links up in the, uh, the show notes. to where you can price check this thing. Make sure our info is good as of 2018. That's all we promise.

Beyond that, who knows? Find it yourself. But yeah, so if you have any questions about any of these things, you can always email us at info@homeownershow.com. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, um, and any other podcast listening platform out there, including Stitcher. Including Stitcher. We came for you, Stitcher. We found you. We also have a website, www.homeownersshow.com, and there is stuff on that website. Yeah, go check it out. Just see what's up, including a link to buy these fancy t-shirts. Fancy. Yeah. So anything else we got going on, Kev? Any other special announcements? No, I think that pretty much covers it. I want to thank everyone for tuning in and listening today and have a great week. See ya.