Remobell vs Ring: Feature Face-Off

Let’s first look at the features both of these smart doorbells have in common. First, we will discuss the specifics of each feature for both of the products, and then we’ll announce a winner for each feature.

Smart Home Compatibility

The RemoBell S is compatible with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and IFTTT. This means that you can easily integrate it into your smart home if you have Google Nest smart home products or Amazon Alexa. IFTTT allows you to connect different smart devices and easily program the behavior of those devices based on conditions. Using IFTTT, you can automate the video doorbell and other devices in your home to do whatever you want. For example, you can automate your doorbell and your light bulbs such that as soon as the doorbell detects motion, the light gets brightened. With IFTTT, the only limit is your imagination.

The Ring Video Doorbell is also compatible with the Ring Alarm as well as Amazon Alexa. The Ring Pro has built-in Alexa greetings for when you’re not home. If you subscribe to Ring Protect Plan, the doorbell can speak to visitors when you’re away. Alexa asks the purpose of the visit and directs the visitors accordingly. For example, if delivery persons approach your door, Alexa will first ask the purpose of their visit and then tell them where to put the delivery. 

Winner: RemoBell S

The RemoBell S is compatible with Alexa, Google, and IFTTT, making the RemoBell S superior to the Ring Pro at least in this category. 

Night Vision

Both the RemoBell S and Ring Pro have infrared night vision. Infrared light is invisible to humans. This means that the cameras in these smart doorbells can see in the dark without turning on a light.

However, this is where the contrast begins (literally). Infrared night vision is usually dichromatic. It’s not even black, and while it’s quite different from anything you can capture with a normal camera. This is because infrared light is absorbed and reflected off if surfaces differently than visible light. Hence, night-vision footage from a normal smart doorbell does not look like normal video footage. That’s where the Ring Pro comes in. The camera in the Ring Pro has color night vision and HDR, which allows it to capture colorful and sharply contrasted footage even in the dark. HDR also has the added benefit of improving the contrast of the footage during the day, making the footage look more aesthetic. If you are looking for a camera that has night vision feature, you may check this guide to the best night vision security cameras.

Winner: Ring Pro

The Ring Pro easily wins this round since it has color night vision with HDR.

Field of View

Field of view is one of the most important factors to consider while choosing a doorbell. A wider field of view allows you to see more of the front door and leave less space out of sight. The ideal field of view of a doorbell is 180 degrees. A doorbell with a 180 degrees field of view horizontally shows you everything from left to right, while a 180-degree field of view vertically shows you everything from top to bottom. A field of view lower than 180 degrees leaves some range out of sight.

The RemoBell has the most impressive field of view possible in a doorbell. The camera has 180 degrees field of view both horizontally and vertically. This means that you can see virtually everything in front of your door. If a delivery person places a parcel in the bottom left corner right next to the wall, you’ll be able to see it. 

The Ring Pro, however, has a field of view of 160 degrees horizontally and 90 degrees vertically. This is quite adequate for a doorbell; this limited vertical field shouldn’t stop you from choosing the Ring Pro. Nonetheless, this makes the Ring Pro less than ideal in this regard.

Winner: RemoBell

With its 180 degrees horizontal and vertical field of view, the RemoBell leaves nothing unseen. This gives the RemoBell a perfect score in this category.

Video Quality

The camera quality is a major factor to consider while choosing a smart doorbell. A high-resolution camera will allow you to recognize distant faces and number plates in the recorded footage. A high-resolution camera will also allow you to zoom in on the recorded footage without decreasing the display quality. However, as we will see, the resolution is not the whole story.

The Ring pro offers a 1080p resolution. This is pretty good as this resolution would easily allow you to read the number plates of vehicles parked across the street.

The RemoBell captures footage with a resolution of 1536 x 1536 pixels. In terms of the number of pixels, the RemoBell has a higher resolution than the Ring Pro. However, since the RemoBell has a wider field of view, these pixels have to capture a much larger area. Since the same number of pixels have to cover a larger area, the resolution of a given object is decreased. Here’s an example to make more sense of this. If a person stands 4 feet away from your door, the Ring Pro will only capture their face down to their chest. Hence you won’t even need to zoom in to see what’s written on their shirt. However, if you have a RemoBell S doorbell, the camera will capture footage from the person’s feet to the ceiling. To see what’s written on the person’s shirt, you will have to zoom in. But, zooming in reduces picture quality regardless of the field of view. You will lose some quality zooming in and won’t see a person’s shirt in the same detail.

Hence, although the RemoBell has a higher resolution in theory, in practice, Ring Pro gives you higher quality footage. the Ring Pro also has HDR, which makes its picture quality quite decent.

Winner: Ring Pro

Even though the RemoBell has a higher resolution, the Ring Pro has a higher pixel density resulting in higher quality footage.

Cloud Storage and Other Services 

When you first purchase the RemoBell, you get premium services for free for the first 30 days. Once this trial period is over, you can either choose a free plan or a subscription plan.

The free plan offers free cloud storage for 3 previous days. This makes RemoBell pretty attractive to people who don’t want to pay for cloud service every month. The free plan also has other smart services. Instant alerts let you know instantly via notifications on your phone when a visitor approaches your door. Two-way communication allows you to converse remotely with anyone at your doorstep, while live-view allows you to see what’s going on in front of your door. The RemoBell provides you with these features from anywhere through their servers. (1, 2)

However, if you subscribe to their standard plan, you will get all the free features plus 30 days of cloud storage. The standard plan costs about 3USD monthly or 30USD yearly, which is pretty inexpensive compared to competitors.

The free plan offered by the Ring Pro has all the basic features on a smart bell, such as two-way audio, live-view, and instant notification. Ring Pro also has theft protection and a 1-year warranty. What the Ring pro doesn’t offer for free is cloud-based storage.

If you want your footage to be accessible from anywhere, you will need to upgrade to one of Ring’s subscriptions. Ring has two packages, namely, Protect Basic and Protect Plus. Subscribing to either of these packages will give you 60 days of cloud storage. Ring alarm coverage is also included in the Protect Plus package. Protect basic will cost you about 3USD per month or about 30USD per year, whereas Protect Plus will cost you about 10 USD per month or 100USD per year.

Winner: Ring Pro

Although the Ring Pro does not offer free cloud storage, it has superior paid features.

Cost

Even though the two doorbells are pretty competitive in terms of features, the RemoBell S costs less. RemoBell also offers free cloud storage, so you don’t have to pay every month unless you want more storage. However, if you want more storage than 3 days, the Ring Pro would be a better choice since it provides 60 days of cloud storage for the same price as the RemoBell S provides 30 days of cloud storage. 

Winner: RemoBell

RemoBell wins this round for having a lower cost and providing cloud storage without monthly charges.

Amazon.com price as of 10/08/2021 at 3:14 p.m. (MT). Read full disclaimer. Offers and availability subject to change.

Remobell vs Ring: Stand Out Features

Advanced Motion Sensing

Motion sensors allow the camera to tell when someone approaches the door. However, the motion sensor may also get triggered when nothing is interesting insight. For example, the motion sensor field is too wide, and the motion of leaves due to wind can trigger the motion sensor.

This is where advanced motion sensors come in. Advanced motion sensors allow the user to define areas of interest. The sensors only trigger the camera or notify the user when they detect motion inside these zones and ignore any motion outside them.

While both the Ring Pro and the RemoBell S offer adjustable motion sensors, Ring Pro is substantially superior since the motion sensor on RemoBell often detects motion outside the defined zones. If you’re serious about this feature, we would recommend the Ring Pro.

Existing Chime Compatibility

If you already have a doorbell chime that you want to keep, you can make it work with your new smart doorbell. the Ring Pro claims to be compatible with all doorbell chimes once hardwired. The power budget Ring Pro is more than enough to afford most, if not all, doorbell chimes.

Dewarping

If you have seen footage your GoPro or some other wide-angle cameras, you might have noticed that the footage captured from these cameras is quite disoriented. This is mostly unavoidable with wide-angle cameras. But the RemoBell S uses dewarping to make the footage look normal and intelligible. The footage would look abnormal without this feature since the camera shows everything from top to bottom and from far left to far right. 

Interchangeable Faceplates

The Ring Pro comes with a Satin Nickle, which can be removed and changed, which is great because the doorbell also comes with a coupon for an extra faceplate. This means you can easily renew the appearance of the doorbell if it gets scratched or old. (3)

Other Products: Remobell vs Ring

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References

(1) cloud storage – https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-cloud-storage-and-file-sharing-services
(2) servers – https://www.britannica.com/technology/server
(3) faceplate – https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3066/faceplate