Ring Stick Up Cam Battery
VerifiedMPN: 8SC1S9-WAU016 reviews
"Easy to set up and use" Three months after setting these up (original review follows), and having other people ask me about setting some up, I have a few more thoughts. My "starter" recommendation for anyone that asks is 1 battery doorbell with chime and a 4-pack of Outdoor Cameras (formerly Stickup Cam) with solar panels. Right now (Black… Read more
Friday) that totals up to $524 shipped. Get the black cameras, they are less obvious than the white ones, even on a white house (because the "white" camera has a black rectangle on the face that visually sticks out like a sore thumb).
You can add more, but my experience is that it takes a while to optimize camera placement. It's easy to add too many in fact. So my "starter" suggestion is to get the doorbell and 4-pack, maybe a second doorbell, and figure out where best to put them. You can add more or different types later.
I have the 4-pack positioned like this: two pointing at the front corners of the house, which cover the whole front of the house and gives a view down the sides, one pointing at the back of the house, and one inside in the hallway. This way, you see the whole of the house from the outside. If anyone did manage to cover up the outside cameras and get inside somehow, the hallway camera will catch them. The outside cameras are mounted on an adjacent building, a fence, and in a tree. There's always a way!
I also tried the Outdoor Camera Plus, which has "2k" vision. The main practical difference however is that it has a wider angle of view (140 vs 110 degrees horizontal). I found the narrower angle of the regular Outdoor Camera more useful most of the time. Think about it: if you put the camera in a corner, that's only 90 horizontal degrees that you need. If you want to put the camera on a wall facing outwards from the house, then with the wide lens in the Plus you're only covering 140 of that 180 degrees anyway. And with the cameras pointing at the house, the Plus had stuff on the edges I just don't need to see (fences, foliage, ...).
The solar panels are worth getting in the 4-pack. If any outdoor cameras have foliage in the view, when it's windy the CPU in the cameras will constantly be trying to figure out if the motion is a person or vehicle, and the battery runs down quickly. If the camera is inside, however, the battery lasts forever (months), and so I think these are better at being an indoor camera than the Ring indoor cameras that need a power cord connected to them. The extra cost of 4 solar panels in the 4-pack is less than buying two panels individually.
Of the people who asked me about them, no-one was bothered by the subscription fee. One person has an installation of cameras powered over Ethernet and a recorder. They had to pay a lot for an electrician to install everything. Now the recorder has failed, and replacing just that alone would be a good bit more than the set of cameras I suggested above.
--- Original review follows ---
I bought 4 of these (3rd gen, now renamed the "Outdoor Camera") to use at my parents' house. I don't have experience with other similar products but I am a bit surprised by the negative reviews here. I found it easy to set up with the app and in my opinion it mostly has a "just right" feature set. Specifically, it waits to detect motion and then captures a minute of video and sends you an alert. You can also go to the app or website and view the camera live. You can set it to take a photo every few minutes or hour. You can also turn on a "siren" (which is a bit of a joke, it's not very loud) and talk through the camera.
In our case, this is perfect. I don't want constant video feed, I just need to know if something happens. I want to keep bandwidth usage down because this might end up being on a mobile broadband with somewhat limited data. So the way these work seems perfect to me.
A lot of reviews complain about the subscription. I guess I'm not sure how anyone could not know about that, but yes, it's an ongoing monthly or yearly fee. I'm still on the trial but will just sign up for the $150/year plan. Like anything, factor it in before making a purchasing decision. I decided the convenience was worth the cost, ymmv.
Some reviewers complain about motion detection - the settings are quite adjustable here, you can tell it where in the field of view to check for motion, and whether it looks only for a person, person or vehicle, or any movement. There's also a sensitivity setting. The only one I've had to adjust so far is the doorbell, which is not the item in this review anyway. There's a slight delay before the captured video starts but I think it's still effective.
As others reviewers note, you can't mount it on a ceiling or under an eave with the included hardware. In the one case where I needed to mount on the ceiling, I just made an L-shaped wooden bracket. The more expensive "Outdoor Camera Plus" can be ceiling mounted with the included hardware.
The cameras don't record locally, which is fine with me, I don't want to muck around with SD cards or a local server/recorder. However, it does mean they are useless if the internet connection is down, so the internet modem/router is going to need a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) in case the power is out.
Initially I thought it wasn't possible to just disable and re-enable all cameras easily i.e. single click. It turns out that it is, but you have to specifically turn on "Modes" in the app. I'm not sure why this isn't on by default, but anyway, the feature is there and it works great once you figure it out.
Thing is, right now a 4-pack of these is $249 or $62.50 each, so even after you factor in the subscription, this seems like pretty good value to me, without having to muck about with cables, SD cards or a local server or whatever. If I had more time to fully investigate everything, "maybe" I'd get something else but if you want to buy something that works and is all set up in a day, then I think this is a good option.
Make sure you add their official email to your safe sender list so you don’t lose important communications into your spam folder because if your subscription ends and your payment fails they will delete all your old footage. They say they don’t have the footage but the app shows that clearly they do. I recently changed my credit card and didn’t… Read more
realise my yearly subscription ended. Was able to review my footage until a few days ago. Zero notification on the app that I use regularly to say the subscription was overdue.
Spoke to them via the online chat only to get repeated scripted responses telling me that I had plenty of time to address it so tough luck. Too bad they only rely on email and expect customers to regularly log in online because they have no backup approach for emails nit getting through. Pretty unimpressive.
Although I have spent a lot on cameras from them, will be finding cameras without outrageous ongoing subscription costs.
I purchased several stick-up cameras as we were going away on long service leave and wanted to monitor our property for peace of mind while away. On the whole I have been happy with the cameras as they were relatively easy to setup, provided notifications of movement at the property and allowed us to check the property on a daily basis. We paid… Read more
for a basic subscription for the year. Recently we have had reason to require 24/7 monitoring (for reasons I will not go into), and that is where the Ring system falls down a bit in my opinion. To set up a camera for 24/7 you cannot just use the battery but need to plug in a power supply. While I understand the battery will run out within a day (or so) in this mode, it would be nice to have the option and swap out the battery with a spare ready charged battery (which I have). I bought a compatible 5V power supply. There are other setup restrictions, for instance after connecting the power supply, I had to remove the battery to get the 24-hour timeline to show in the ring.com dashboard. The video download feature is also rather limited, in that you cannot download more than 10 minutes of footage at a time. Furthermore, the downloaded video does not have a timestamp facility where the date and time is superimposed on the footage (although you can review up to 14 days of video using the Ring.com dashboard which does show the date and time). In actual fact, only 14 days retention time for recorded video is a real limitation for my current requirements. The premium subscription for 24/7 recording is not cheap at $AUD 30 per month. I will be purchasing additional competitor products that allow recording to a local microSD card and allows for timestamping. I can archive the microSD card every 2 weeks, be in direct control of the full footage, and eliminate the need for a premium Ring subscription. The money saved in subscriptions will pay for the new products fairly quickly at $30 a month.
Waste of money – Two weeks old. Doesn’t detect anyone walking past it, even if you stand in front of it, if motion is detected you can’t view what is there, as it keeps giving a loading message. Go through the entire reset process walk past it, works once, that’s it. Even on away mode. The device is located right next to the Router but it can’t find the network. … Read more
For it to work you have to rip the battery out, reset and start again. The battery is at 86% capacity. No way would I pay for a plan for something that has to be reinstalled all the time. Had another go at recharging, restarting 6 days later, clearly faulty product it won’t even turn on
Very Annoyed and disappointed – Purchased Ring Stick Up Cam $179.00 from JB Hi Fi. Found the instructions very confusing and could not set up App or download full manual. Camera worked briefly then nothing. Tried everything. Nothing worked. Do not waste your money or time on this CCTV Cam Show details
Expensive and limited vision – Too expensive - $99 for two camera's on a yearly subscription and they capture very limited range and often miss picking up at all - my monitored alarm at work for a 2 story factory is cheaper. Show details
Read the reviews! Dishonest advertising – On the recommendation for RING products from a friend, I bought the Ring Stick Up Duo pack, one to use outside, one in. Advertising states you dont need a subscription but this is misleading to say the least. You may not need a sub for the camera to turn on, but video captures are not viewable without the subscription. You can get an alert that… Read more
the camera has picked up a person on the property but that's all you get without a subscription. It doesn't capture it so you can't see it. You get a 30 day 'free' trial subscription for both cameras which shows you the benefit of having the subscription. After my trial ended, I paid for a subscription that I assumed, given I bought ONE product, a twin pack of two cameras, that the subscription covered both. It doesn't. I wasn't going to pay over $80 a yr (or get PREMIUM cover for $140 a year) for two subscriptions as the video capture & alert system failures aren't worth it. Like others have said, you get the alert that someone is there, click on the alert instantly then watch for ages as the app shakes itself awake by which time, whoever is gone. The video quality is pixelated generally despite having a very strong signal strength literally on the other side of the door from it. Got a booster, paying more $, which made minimal difference. Sound is garbled so even if the person stays, like a delivery driver, they can't understand what I'm saying as the first part of each sentence is incoherent. The information says you can sit it on a windowsill inside and it will capture through the glass. It doesn't. It can't recognise a person unless they're literally face to face with the window. You can 'stick it up' on the ceiling or under the eaves outside but wherever you put it, you still have to get up there to get the battery out to charge it. (Not a complaint, more a headsup) but the footage does come out upside down. The sales pitches are full of bending truths...It just feels like a company model that aims to get maximum $ for minimum delivery. My friend who recommended Ring has the wired in door bell camera. Maybe they'd be better suited for anyone hoping to get more out of their camera than I did out of these. But if you rent & can't hard wire, skip it.
False Advertising – The Camera is sold as a Stick Up Cam but that is false if you want to install cameras to Ceilings you need to purchase the mounting brackets at a cost of around $30 dollars per camera and no where on the cover of the box does it state these cameras are only for free standing or wall mount, I even asked the sales person if the cameras can be… Read more
installed on the ceiling and after reading over all aspects of the cover on the box told me yes you can, its not until you setup camera to ceiling you find out that the camera records upside down and therefore the information or lack of on the cover of the box that you find out they are m misleading customers by stating these as Stick Up Cams which they are not Buyers Beware Do Not Purchase if intending to install them on the ceiling.
DO NOT BUY unless you are happy to keep paying forever - Requires Contract Lock in – The Ring website states that "Ring devices don’t require a Ring Protect subscription plan." THIS IS A LIE - or at the best "twisted truth" Without a subscription plan (AUD4/month) you can't see any event that triggered an alarm - even seconds later. Yes. You can, AFTER whatever triggered the alarm is long gone, still get live video via the app on… Read more
your phone, but without the last 30 seconds or so of video, the system is really useless. Other companies can sell cameras without requiring a subscription (Arlo, Abode) and I've even seen Ring listed in reviews of cameras that don't require a subscription (no doubt based on the marketing material). Oh - of course when you first set it up it works - it's not until the free trial ends (just under 1 month) that you realise what a lemon you bought. I'll be returning this unit after reporting the misleading marketing to Fair Trading. I must also add that even on maximum sensitivity, we found that people often had walked past the camera before it began recording.
Absolute CON – Firstly after your initial purchase you must purchase a plan. If you do not buy a plan you cannot view your device. I purchased a basic plan only to have device constantly drop out... You cannot download to your computer or any other device. Totally Useless Show details
No use at all – I bought one from Harvey Norman for $179. It worked ok during the trial month but stopped recording any motion even I was testing it by walking in front of it. I called the help line and did everything with the person on the phone. It still didn’t work. He eventually gave up by muting the phone on his side. What a waste of money. After one day,… Read more
the camera started to record motions, becoming more normal. I don’t know how long this will last. The camera is unpredictable and has its own mind. It will record if it feels like. Some days, it recorded a lot of event but not the event you walked in front of it, which means it must have missed a lot of important events too. Some days, it didn’t record for hours. In conclusion, it is not reliable, not much use at all.
Overall OK but expensive in the long term – Purchased several cameras to monitor our home when we're not there. They were easy to connect and initially they worked very well at detecting movement. Over time I have found that certain cameras don't detect movement as well as they initially did. There have been several instances where a separate camera shows someone parked right in front of… Read more
our garage, but the garage camera hasn't detected the movement so therefore hasn't recorded anything. Audio recording isn't fantastic, although the ability to speak through the camera is useful. The blue light which turns on every time the camera records is super annoying as it shows the location of the camera at night.
Ongoing subscription costs are significant ($15/month or $150/year for multiple cameras) in order to be able to access saved footage. Otherwise, you can only access live view for footage which isn't much use.
Good camera but with ongoing costs – Provides good clear picture. Installation is fairly easy. App is fairly easy to use. These is a slight delay before recording kicks in. Biggest downside is that the system is fairly useless unless you are prepared to pay the monthly ($4) or annual fee ($40) for the videos to be recorded/retained. Otherwise you get no access after the 30 day trial and can only use the Live View if you want to retain this open on your phone or device. Show details
Find out how Ring Stick Up Cam Battery compares to other Wireless Surveillance Systems
Know better, choose better.
Waste of money – If using outdoors this camera is a total waste of money. I spent hours on the helpline with Ring and they could not solve the problem. I had all notifications turned off but it still sent messages to my phone every 10 minutes or thereabout, 99 % of the time there was no activity outside. We adjusted the settings as per their recommendation and… Read more
that was of no value. The help desk said that the camera had a range of 10 meters but every time a car drove past which was 20 to 30 meters away it activated the camera yet when I made an approach to the camera on some occasions it would not activate even after following the recommended settings from the staff on the Ring helpline. I have returned the device and get a full refund.
Great product – I have installed this camera at the back of our detached garage so it overlooks the entire front of our house. Motion detection is excellent, as is picture quality. The reason I didn't give it a 5 star rating is because of the connectivity - the modem would be approximately 10 metres away from the camera, and in a room which is facing the camera,… Read more
but the connection was awful until I bought a wi-fi extender and chime pro. I paid for the cloud storage with Ring, which is only $40 per device a year (or you can pay $199 for unlimited devices if you have a few cameras installed around the home). The fact that it is battery operated made installation super-easy, and removing the battery to charge it is simple. I charge the battery every 4 weeks or so. Overall I am very happy with this product.
Brilliant....but not perfect – Bought one of the "new generation" Ring Stick Up Cam Battery devices to oversee my front driveway. Available in two colours (white or black), I bought a white one. Installation was fairly easy with more time being spent to choose a suitable location than the actual physical install. Best location was (unfortunately) up and behind a fountain but… Read more
the constant sound of running water interfered with the clarity of two way voice communication so I had to move it. Ring supplies masonry plugs (for installation into brickwork etc) and even includes a suitable masonry drill to do this. There are a couple of spare screws included (presumably for when you drop and lose them during the install) and there are also spare security screws...one to secure the battery compartment and one to secure the plate covering the wall fixing. The cam is also suitable for internal use and the wall mounting bracket used externally also doubles as a neat stand if you simply decide to use the cam inside your house (ie placed on a bookshelf) and maybe move it around as needed
Before physically installing the cam, you need to connect it to your WiFi system. The cam has no physical connection and uses a (supplied) internal battery for power and WiFi to transmit audio/video to and from your smart phone (or similar device). Naturally (being a Ring device) you are able to reach this connection when away from home and using a smart phone 4G connection. Setting up was simple (use of an app downloaded onto your phone...Apple/Android) being wizard driven and it took less than ten minutes to do....including time spent downloading an installing an automated firmware update. Once this is completed, you can physically install it. As I noted previously, there are security screws using a torx head and Ring includes a suitable combination screwdriver (torx and phillips head) to secure this.
There are a considerable number of options available in the app regarding how you want the cam to detect and notify you. Be aware, virtually every option you turn on will be accompanied with a disclaimer about how this will impact the battery life. However, having them all turned off limits the usefulness of this piece of tech.
Battery Life Ring claims between 6 to 12 months before needing to be recharged. In reality (with admittedly most of its functionality turned on) I'm finding battery capacity is dropping at up to 3% per day. Variations are caused by the number of detections it makes. Every time it detects, it records around 30 seconds of video/sound. Place it in a high notification area and you will see a greater drop. Mine is positioned at the end of a fairly quiet cul-de-sac and is picking up passing cars as well as my driveway traffic. Maybe when the novelty runs out a little, I will reduce its sensitivity to the driveway only. With around 3% drop per day, you can see it will only give about a solid month. That's fine for me but Ring should really be more upfront with "real life" figures rather than fanciful ones that seem to more correctly reflect a best case scenario. Battery has a quick release method (unless you install the anti-theft screw) and is capable of being removed and reinserted in less than a minute. However, be aware that the battery takes around 10 hours to fully recharge (USB cable included). If you dont want to have your cam off-line for this length of time you need to factor in the cost of a spare battery ($49 RRP) which is kept charged on standby. Alternatively, Ring does have an optional solar panel that can be attached and will keep the cam charged with only two hours of direct sunshine per day.
Detection Too many options to go into here but basically there are three detection zones (on or off as required) along with sensitivity. All settings are on the phone app. Recording video can be turned off when needed ( ie having a family party in the detection area) but needs to be turned on and off manually while notifications can be scheduled for a variety of on/off times. After taking some time to tweak the settings to what I want, I have found the Ring cam to work as well as I would expect. When the cam is recording video, there is a blue light visible on the front. At night, it is accompanied by two red lights. These are clearly visible and should help deter intruders. The 1080p HD image is very clear and able to be zoomed with a two finger pinch. Notifications pop up visually on your phone accompanied by a distinctive "Ring chime sound". There are a number of options in the settings to vary the sound.
Storage Be aware, there is no way to direct stored videos/audio to any other means than the Ring Cloud. You therefore have to factor the ongoing cost of a Ring subscription into your purchase. While you can use the cam without this subscription, you will lose any ability to store the video/audio and will reduce functionality of the cam to "Live view" only. After a one month free trial, subscription costs $4 per month per cam with cheaper rates for an annual subscription or multiple cams. Ring will store all your recordings for 60 days before deletion. Recordings can be easily retrieved on your phone and shared by a variety of means if needed.
Functionality The device has two way audio so as well as seeing anyone in its detection range, you can speak to them. The microphone is sharp and clear and is good at picking up somewhat distant sounds. The inbuilt speaker not quite so as I find it a little soft and you need to be communicating in a reasonably quiet area. There is also an inbuilt siren that you can manually activate remotely to help scare off trespassers although this is also not particularly loud (no doubt the small speaker again) but should be more than adequate in the quiet of night.
When you are notified of movement, you should switch straight to live view. Depending on your connection speed, this will take about 3 to 4 seconds. The cam will instantly record 30 seconds after the detection but the video is not available for you to view for around 30 seconds as it requires time to "process". All in all, it probably works somewhat better than I have seen in reviews for the Ring DoorCam.
The Ring Stick Up Cam Battery is equipped with night vision (greyscale only) but works well with a good range. The cam is weatherproof thus increasing the number of outdoor locations and features 1080p HD video. The materials (plastic/metal) appear to be of a good quality and it feels solid in your hand. Bracket connections are firm and dont move easily.
As well as working with Apple/Android devices, it also works with Alexa. As I dont use Alexa, I cant comment on how well it does.
Things to watch. You need both a good internet connection (I would recommend at least 5Mbps up and down) and a strong WiFi connection. Placing the cam outside onto "signal blocking brick walls" can be problematic. It does monitor signal strength and shows you if there is a poor connection liable to affect operation. My WiFi modem is at the front of the house so it has not been an issue for me. However, if yours is towards the centre (or further) of your home, you may strike connectivity issues. The need to subscribe to the Ring Cloud storage is somewhat hidden on the box. It is located on the back lower right corner where it alludes to requiring a plan but gives no indication of costing (see photo). Warranty is only one year
Overall, the product works well for my needs and I will now be purchasing more of these to cover other areas of my home.
ProductReview.com.au has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence our content moderation policies in any way, though ProductReview.com.au may earn commissions for products/services purchased via affiliate links.
I have 4 stick-up Ring cameras but have found them limiting and expensive (premium subscription)… Read more (+1 reply)