If your product doesn’t support these kinds of configurations you should make it very clear as consumers will spend a lot of time wrestling with your product set up to no avail and hate you for wasting their time. Let me digress for a moment and complain about the rash of Wi-Fi-enabled products I’ve been seeing recently that only support 2.4GHz and get confused by mesh Wi-Fi system like the Eero. The SkyBell support b, g, and n wireless network formats but only on 2.4GHz I use an Eero Wii-Fi system and while I’ve had problems with other Wi-Fi-enabled products that don’t like Wi-Fi systems that use the same SSID for both 2.5GHz and 5GHz bands, for some reason the SkyBell HD didn’t have a problem.
![ring pro vs skybell hd ring pro vs skybell hd](https://img.techentice.com/media/2020/09/nest-ring-skybell.jpg)
Ring pro vs skybell hd install#
Setting up the SkyBell HD smartphone software follows the usual pattern: Install the smartphone app (iOS and Android are available), create an account, connect to the product’s Wi-Fi in the smartphone settings, return to the app, provide regular Wi-Fi credentials, return to house Wi-Fi, etc. The SkyBell HD sits on a relatively small wall mount that’s screwed to the wall and it’s tricky to level it on stucco so that the camera is horizontally level (a rubber gasket between the frame and the wall would to make it easier to ensure it’s horizontal). At just 2.8 inches in diameter, it’s a simple replacement for many traditional door bell buttons. Unlike the Ring, it doesn’t have a battery so it has to be hardwired into the bell power supply. In common with the Ring, the SkyBell HD, priced at $199, is fairly easy to install. Indeed, one of the things I found really wrong with the Ring Doorbell was that the video quality shown on the web site was far better than the actual video quality I observed.Īnyway, given that experience, I was interested to get my hands on a product that competes with the Ring doorbell, the SkyBell HD from SkyBell Technologies, Inc.
![ring pro vs skybell hd ring pro vs skybell hd](https://wirelessdoorbellreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/slide1.jpg)
So when a vendor is selling something that they have to know is inadequate, it’s hard to feel even slightly sorry for them. I know that most companies want to do the right thing and are trying to produce quality products but good intentions don’t make up for over-paying for something that doesn’t work as claimed.
Ring pro vs skybell hd upgrade#
In the Stick Up Cam review I also discussed that my Ring doorbell had been “bricked” by a firmware upgrade that couldn't be fixed without physical interaction with the product (this would be rather tricky if the device was on your holiday home several hundred miles away) and that the product support was very poor … all of which lead me to downgrade the original Gearhead score of 3.5 out of 5 to a 2 out of 5.Īs an aside, let me note that a reader asked me whether I felt bad when I give a product a bad rating and the answer is, yes, I sometimes do.
![ring pro vs skybell hd ring pro vs skybell hd](https://thehousetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Skybell-HD-Review.jpg)
Some time ago I wrote about the Ring doorbell and concluded, as I wrote in a subsequent review of the company’s Stick Up Cam, that “While I liked the product conceptually, the startup lag (the time between detecting movement and when recording begins, usually a delay of a few seconds) is long enough that fast moving people like the Fedex guy can come and go before the device starts recording” and I lamented the so-so video quality.