So, who is this for? If you have an existing Ring Alarm setup, it’s a good upgrade. Everything ran smoothly - confirming my theory that this could be the perfect smart home hub for a lot of people, just not for me. The Ring Alarm sensors I had already connected to the Ring Alarm Pro also transferred over with no hiccups. This setup went smoothly, and I easily reconnected the Ring cameras I was testing to this new network and a second Eero 6 extender to it for more coverage. While you can add an Eero Pro 6 to a Ring Alarm Pro setup - the Ring Alarm has to be the gateway device, it can’t be an extender, or you won’t get the 24/7 backup features for your whole network.Įxtras you may need with your Ring Alarm Pro include an additional Eero extender ($89), a Ring Power Pack ($130) and a microSD card.
I have over 100 devices connected to my network, and it needs a tri-band router like Eero’s Pro 6 to handle the traffic. “If a customer wants Zigbee Smart Home Hub or Thread support today, they can add an Eero 6 router or any Eero Pro 6 device to their network.” “We may enable Zigbee on Ring Alarm Pro in the future,” Nick Weaver, CEO of Eero, told me. Ring also opted not to include Thread in its base station, despite it being in almost every other Eero device. This seems like poor planning on Ring’s part, as surely the idea is to get people to buy more Ring and Ring-compatible devices. The Eero 6, which is capable of speeds up to 900Mbps over 1,500 square feet, is just fine for most people, but if you have gigabit internet service or a significant number of devices on your network - based on my experience, anything over 50 - it’s not going to be able to handle them. The Ring Alarm Pro has the option of a Power Pack (bottom left) that provides an additional 8 hours of battery back-up.īut instead, the Ring Alarm Pro is slightly less than pro. If only Ring had put an Eero Pro 6 router in the Ring Alarm Pro (it’s even in the name!), this would have been the perfect device, albeit a significantly more expensive one. This makes me sad, as I want all these things. This means I have to forgo local storage of Ring videos, 24/7 whole-home internet backup, and 30-plus hours of continuous power to keep my cameras, security system, heck, even Netflix online when the power goes out. That’s mainly because the Ring Alarm Pro has to be the gateway device for your home Wi-Fi, and for some setups (including my own), the included Eero 6 dual-band router is just not powerful enough. If you already have a capable mesh Wi-Fi setup and a substantial number of smart home devices - this is not the hub for you. The inclusion of an Eero 6 router makes the Ring Alarm an excellent solution for homeowners who want a security system with cameras and are still using their ISP-supplied combined router and modem. The chief complaint I hear about Ring is the poor connectivity of its cameras and video doorbells - something often solved by adding better Wi-Fi in the home. It makes a lot of sense for Amazon to marry its leading smart security hardware brand with its excellent consumer-level mesh Wi-Fi company. But it has one significant flaw that means if you already have a substantial smart home setup, you’ll want to give it a pass.īuy for $299.00 from Best Buy Buy for $299.00 from Amazon The Ring Alarm Pro is the next level of smart home security, a near-perfect marriage of everything you need to set up a smart home and then some, all for under $300. But they still haven’t turned on that Zigbee radio. This is the ultimate smart home hub: in addition to the security capabilities of the previous model, there’s now a built-in Eero mesh router for better Wi-Fi in your home, an LTE radio for whole-home internet backup, USB type-C connections for external battery backup, a Ring Lighting bridge to connect your smart lighting, and a microSD card slot for local storage and processing of video. With the Ring Alarm Pro ($249 for the base station, $299 for a starter kit) the company has done just that. So, I’ve been watching the evolution of this product with interest over the last few years, waiting for the moment Ring finally united its smart home and home security offerings in this powerful piece of tech. I also admire Ring Alarm for leading the charge in disrupting the tired, expensive home security industry, thanks to its rock bottom prices, good hardware, and lack of long-term contracts. Since the first generation of the product launched in 2018, it’s been packed with useful smart home radios, including Bluetooth, RF, cellular, Zigbee, and Z-Wave, some of which are capable of connecting to a nice selection of smart home and security devices. Mainly because the inexpensive, easy-to-use security system is an excellent smart home hub in disguise.
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