Digital Peephole

Late last year, I chronicled my transition to a smarter home with the addition of a Ring Intercom, which gave me the ability to buzz people into the building even when I wasn’t present (see Ringing the Changes). At the time, I said that I was a big fan of the design, and I found it really useful over the months that followed: on several occasions, I was able to let a delivery driver into the building to pop something on the doorstep when I was out, or turn a delivery away if I wasn’t comfortable with it being left out.

Still, I had continued to look on enviously at the connected doorbell. As good as the Ring Intercom is, I felt that the experience would benefit from a camera allowing me to see as well as hear what’s happening at my front door.

I’m delighted to say that I got my wish thanks to the Ring Door View Cam, which I recently added to my smart home arsenal. This device looks very similar to the Ring Doorbell that many people will already be familiar with, but is once again designed with apartment living in mind. The Door View Cam is designed to slot into most doors that have peepholes and provides a high-definition video stream, meaning users can keep tabs on activity while they’re away.

It’s worth noting that although I’m writing from the perspective of an apartment dweller, the same design should work fine for someone living in a house who’d prefer a peephole installation rather than a doorbell mounted next to their door.

The Ring Intercom takes a bit of confidence to set up, particularly as you have to mess with the cables inside an intercom handset, but the Door View Cam is incredibly easy to work with straight out of the box. It’s a simple case of unscrewing the peephole from the door and slotting the device into the same slot, with the camera sitting outside the door and the rest of the device including the battery sitting within the home. Then, it’s just a matter of completing set-up and configuration through the Ring app to connect the device to Wi-Fi.

Once that’s done, the Door View Cam just gets to work, in a way that will be familiar to anyone who’s used such a device before. Pressing the button kicks off a video call just as it would do with any other Ring doorbell, and other smart features such as automatic person detection also carry over.

My favourite feature has been the seamlessness with which the Door View Cam works with my intercom system. Now, if someone rings my flat on the intercom, Door View Cam immediately starts recording, without any input from me, capturing the entire interaction. It means that if I buzz a delivery driver into the building to leave a package on the doorstep, I can check it’s made it to the right door, which is a nice touch. Anyone who’s also signed up to the Ring Protect subscription will also be able to watch replays of these events in case they can’t answer the call in real time.

As I noted in my article on the Ring Intercom, it’s great to see the needs of the millions of people around the world who live in flats and apartments being addressed by these products from Ring. On its own, the Door View Cam costs £119 — or $129 for the US equivalent Peephole Cam — but for £129 customers can get a bundle including a Chime speaker, which allows users to hear when there’s a visitor. Alternatively, people can opt for the Door View Cam and Intercom package, which comes in at £179.

It’s definitely a bit of an investment, but I’ve found the technology to be a valuable addition to the flat. Given that all the components are indoors as well — unlike traditional Ring doorbells, which are mounted outside, exposed to the elements — I’m expecting to get a good few years of use from the Ring Intercom and Door View Cam before needing to carry out any upgrades.

All told, the Door View Cam has neatly slotted into my smart home experience and really enhanced the value that I’m getting from Ring connectivity. It’s a neat product that I’d happily recommend to anyone looking to add a layer of security to their residence, and I applaud Ring for engineering a solution that works for apartments. And ultimately, taking a lead in this area, which was far from straightforward, unlocks a huge additional addressable market for Ring, particularly in Europe.