I always enjoy your videos. I must say, your reviews have stopped me from buying two products based on some of the shortfalls you mentioned that I didn't know about. Thanks for doing these.

Ring has been flawless for me and I love that the sensors can be used for home automation. Now I wish they would improve their cameras, as I have not made that jump yet.

You really ought to make a video detailing the problems you've encountered with Abode.

I’ve used the Honeywell Lyric alarm system for several years and it’s been fantastic. It supports HomeKit natively in a traditional type alarm system and with the wired to wireless adapter I was able to pull in all my legacy hardwired window and door contact sensors from the previous alarm system. The smoke and carbon monoxide sensors present to homekit too. While they sell their own totalconnect smart app for a monthly fee you don’t have to use it. I manage everything for free in homekit.

It’s worth noting that you can still use your own wifi network with the ring alarm pro version. Ring has a support page on this, but to be able to use all the integrated ring features that you get out of most ring plans, such as ring edge, you need to use the double nat method that ring goes over in their page. Also, I noticed you mentioned that you don’t get HKSV with ring cameras. While that’s true with the Homebridge plug-in, Scrypted has a plug-in for ring that supports HKSV, and you can use both Scrypted and Homebridge ring plugins together without any compatibility issues.

First of all, glad you’re back! Recently looked at your Ring security video and I’m contemplating a purchase. Noticed that Hoobs is coming out with a Pro model to include matter and more. This seems to be a great solution for connecting to Homekit. Hope you will review it when it becomes available in March.

Ring isn’t perfect but it’s selection of cameras that work very well with the alarm system which seems to not only be the best but most affordable diy alarm system makes it the best option in my opinion.

In 2024 are you still using ring? If so what problems have you encountered? Maybe a follow up video shows different automations?

Man for a second there I thought Ring was HomeKit compatible! Lol yeah I have Ring and I love it. Like you Eric, I’m a big HomeKit fan, but I can’t commit to a company who can’t even commit to their own smart home products. Let’s see what the future brings.

Awesome video. I have a similar setup as you and was wanting to determine whether to get the Pro or regular Ring.

Eric, this is exactly what I did myself. In all actually, I did a bit of research before buying my Ring Alarm system but didn't dig deep enough to learn that Amazon had acquired Ring. If I had known that prior to my purchase, I probably wouldn't have went with Ring. But I didn't so I bought it and I'm glad I did. I think it works quite well and one bit of info I can lend to you is on the keypad. With mine, it replaced a really old system so I was able to use a 12v dc to 5 v dc buck converter to use the old alarm system wiring to hookup the keypad with the wiring inside the wall for that clean install look. And integration into homebridge/hoobs was a breeze with an rpi I had laying around doing nothing. I have heard that possibly Scrypted can get the Ring Cameras working with HKSV but I haven't tried that yet. Keep up the awesome work with your videos!!

Hello. Thanks for the great video. Finally getting rid of ADT. I have a question please . I'm gonna have three different pads in three different floors. I need the pad upstairs not to chirp at all when any sensor is opened or closed. And I need the one in the middle and Basement floors to only chirp when certain sensors are opened and closed. Are these options customizable? Thanks so much.

Hey Eric, Do you know how to remove the "light" accessories that represent the base station / keypad in HomeKit?

@EricWelander Thanks for this video. However my issue with RING is that the "HOME" button is no longer working as it should once I connect to the Apple HomeKit App. I am running Homebridge on my IMAC and I have my system setup with switches for RING and MYQ so that it works based on my location of entering and leaving. I have not figured out how to get the HOME alarm to work as this is the setting for sleeping at night. Now the switches are set up for Disarmed and Away but I have no way to set HOME so I tried another switch to use for just the HOME alarm and that failed because Ring sees the Alarm such that if it is disarmed then the switch is off but if it is on It thinks it should be ARMED and AWAY. I do not use HOOBS so do you know of another way to get around this and so I can make it an automation again? I can make it go into the HOME alarm at night but I can only do it through RING and I have to do it twice.. the first press goes into HOME then into AWAY mode. THOUGHTS/HELP please.

Eric - curious if you are still using Ring with Hoobs to integrate into HomeKit and if you are using any automations with any of the ring sensors? I have been utilizing Ring sensors for automations but they just seem stop working after a few months for some reason, didn’t know if you had experienced the same. Is this just what you can expect from non HomeKit certified accessories?

Do you recommend it over abode alarm? What kind of prob did you get with abode ?

I’m also looking into this, I’ll wait for apple’s thread announcement this wwdc though.

What was the problem with Abode? I’ve had no problems.

I had an issue with the motion sensor in my ring alarm system so it looks to be buggy at times.

Do you need to use the EERO? Can you skip that router ?

Interesting most of the tech KZfaqrs go w Ring

I wonder if they will do continuous recording ever.

Eric watched your video on ring security system with Apple where you say you need a bridge and looked at hoobs 250 dollars is alot

Did you use Hoobs to Integrate your Unifi protect cameras? If so I would love to see a video on that. Keep up the great work!!

I have the ring doorbell and it’s so slow. Most of the time I can’t answer in time before the visitor gives up. However, the nail in the coffin for me is the recent announcement that in July my yearly cost for cloud services is about to almost double. Wtf £24.99 to £34.99.

Would have appreciated an explanation for abandoning Abode.

Why not use Ubiquiti’s? I feel like there should be a section of this video dedicated to Ring’s anti-consumerism and anti-privacy aspects..

Wait.. You had me sold on Abode and just built out a system ($678.00) but have not pulled the trigger yet. I've used Ring Flood Light as our front door camera and its always done a good job. What was wrong with Abode??? While it seems to be a bit more expensive, it seems like its a much better product. I'm running (or will be at our new house) a very similar network as you, all Unifi equipment along with their cameras, APs and Talk. I feel like adding a middle man piece like the HomeKit hub that runs another middle man addon would lead to a higher point of failure vs a system that natively talks to HomeKit. I'd be really interested in the reason you moved from Abode, unless it was purely for a change on your channel format.

Dubious of ring alarm pro because Amazon forced it to be your primary gateway router - rather not have them be my internet portal harvesting internet data. If it’s a secondary router, they disable cellular fail safe backup connection and local sd card storage of recordings

I use Aqara instead

I’m trying to get away from Ring and go all HomeKit with no monthly monitoring. I want as few companies products as possible to keep my set up and maintenance as simple as possible

Why didn’t you get Aqara?

Funny that Amazon would allow Eero to support Homekit and Fire TV sets support Homekit, but not Ring? Sheesh! But anyway...Ring uses Z-Wave which seems to be near a deadend compared to Thread. And so... anyway... Until Ring supports Matter and Thread with their hub, with seamless Matter integration between Google Home, SmartThings and Homekit? Pass!

I must be the only one whose never had an issue with their abode system. Knock on wood it continues that way

I’m too OCD to mix ecosystems.

When AWS goes down (it’s happened before) that system is useless.

Video title is a little misleading. If you have that many Amazon / Ring devices already, then it's not really an "Apple Home." You're just adding one more Ring device to the many Amazon devices you already have. Not a big deal.

I wouldn’t buy no ring. Government its piping on all ring camaras worldwide. Stay away