Ring Alarm 8-piece kit (2nd Gen) – home security system

Easy setup, fine user control, extremely thoughtful design!I was using smartthings with a mix of smartthings, wink, and other z wave products for my alarm.This alarm is better in my opinion than anything you can buy professionally or diy.DesignFirst off, everything just looks nice and clean. The sensors are slightly wider and taller than my old sensors, but are way thinner which makes them stick out less. I really the design language of everything for the 2nd generation products.Setup is really fast and easy. I appreciate this because z wave can be super duper finicky and hard/time consuming to setup. The thoughtfulness of design of everything is just bar none better than anything else. For example, starting with the base station, backup battery, cellular free, wifi and ethernet options, and cable management! Both the base station and keypads have cable management which gives options in setup to really make everything look nice! The keypad also can be operated wired or by rechargeable battery which again, awesome. On top of that, the base station comes with a great wall mounting solution that can be used permanent or semi permanent with the charging cable and not have to go through walls. The cable even has a notch to make it easier to pull out!The sensors are amazing as well. Installation is easy with double sided tape and also the option to hard mount with screws. The detection distance is very good which helps for non aligned installations due to door trim and such. What I really appreciate is they use CR2032 batteries which I can buy almost anywhere. Too much of my other z wave equipment used rare batteries that were not stocked by walmart/target/etc. Also the batteries are easy to change and that is also something that really matters down the line.Control and IntegrationThe amount of control has been just amazing as well. There are still improvements to be made, however with Ring they have been constantly improving and i feel like that is a huge benefit to this alarm in that the software will keep maturing.I use multiple ring outdoor and indoor cameras with a doorbell pro, and schlage smart deadbolts. Together with this alarm, I have been very satisfied with how well you can sync everything up. First off my deadbolts synced up on first try which did not ever happen with smartthings. It is truly wonderful to be able to both arm and disarm my alarm from my deadbolt TouchPad. The ability to set one deadbolt to arm and disarm the ALARM with codes while the 2nd deadbolt doesn't is great. The amount of user control is great, but what makes this really stand out is I don't have to look online for custom schedulers or run iftt to get things to work how they should. You can easily make any single door sensor alert on open or close with a few different sounds. They can be separately configured or be turned all off/on based on alarm mode which is again great.I already had Ring premium or whatever it is called due to my doorbell and multiple cameras, so this cost me no more than I was already paying. Paying $100 a year for camera and alarm service with cloud storage is a steal. Please don't ever change that.Overall this has been everything I could have asked for and more. By far the easiest install. What was surprising was how well everything is designed and how well you can control everything to your liking.I am hoping that my door sensors do not have the issues down the line that I had with other zwave devices. On the plus side, replacing a sensor is again just such a great design. You can just replace the sensor without having to undo any tape or screws due to the design of the sensor mount. Please, whoever designed these, give them a raise!

Hands-down love this system!!! I’m a 69 year old senior woman who’s pretty handy with house projects, and this was, by far, one of the simplest things I’ve done around the house.I’d had a local company system for over 20 years. Upgrades to cell service (i.e., 5g) was forcing system upgrades. My “discounted” price for all new required units with my local company was over $800! And monitoring going up to $35/mo. All of that was a non-starter!I’d had my Ring video doorbells since the first year they came out and have loved them. Great customer service, too. So I decided this was the time to switch out everything. I disconnected all components of my previous system and recycled, and bought this Ring Security system along with 2 extra keypads. I watched several YouTube videos on unboxing and installing, which was very helpful to have that awareness ahead of time. Installation is super easy. It’s connected to my Linksys Velop mesh system without problems. And the extra beauty is being able to manage it through my smartphone via the Ring app. The app prompts you through everything during installation.One awareness is that each component has a number on it that is on each component box and the item itself (for example, each contact sensor has its own unique 5-digit number that you’ll need to be aware of as you set them up.) Ring support also awesome.I highly recommend! Loving it. Also the real time monitoring is much cheaper and very professional. The keypad has 3 emergency buttons for police fire and help. Ring will manage the permit with your county on your behalf (if a permit is required by your county, which mine is) and it’s easy to download and send a certificate to your homeowner’s insurance company for getting any discounts.Highly recommend!

I bought this system hoping that it would give me a peace of mind when I was out, and it does! My road is a beautiful street and there are no issues, but the surrounding streets in town are horrible. If you are contemplating if you should get this, you should. It was also very simple to set up.