Ring Smart Lighting Review: Easy setup for a network of outdoor lights [Video]

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Holding the Ring Floodlight Battery

Ring has been a growing name in home security recently. Their emphasis on easy to install and use devices, like their video doorbells, has made them a popular choice for those looking to keep a closer watch on their property. To work hand separately or hand in hand their popular video doorbells, Ring recently came out with a full line of Smart Lighting products. Ranging from floodlights to path lights, Ring has a complete line to light up those dark corners of your yard. Check out the video below.

Easy addition to your system

A primary focus of Ring was to make this lighting system as easy to set up as possible. While they can work by themselves, if you want to group lights and receive notifications when something is triggered, the Bridge is required. This acts as the hub that all lights connect to and communicate through. With the hub, you can command some lights to turn on when others are triggered and even connect to a Ring doorbell or Camera to start recording when motion is triggered. More on that later.

Line Up

I didn’t get to try the whole range of Smart Lighting from Ring, but I did get to try a few of them. Setting everything up was very easy – first was the Bridge. Just download the Ring app and make an account, plug in the Bridge and connect to it to get connected to Wi-Fi. For optimal coverage, make sure that the Bridge is located in a central location for your lighting. Everything will need to be within signal range of the Bridge.

Spotlight

The first light I set up was the Spotlight. At $40 for a single light, the spot is effortless to get up and going – be sure to also pick up some batteries for it. Ring has made setting up new devices straightforward with the QR code located on each piece. When you want to get a new device paired to your system, scan the code and the app with recognize it and calibrate it. Then, mounting the light itself is pretty straight forward. I did pre-drill the holes and then used the included driver to tighten the screws. For the mount. Then attach the base and the spotlight, adjust to your area, and tighten down.

Ring Smart Lighting: Video

Flood Light Battery

Getting the $50 Floodlight Battery up and running was just as simple. It’s quite a bit larger than the spot since it has two adjustable lights and the adjustable motion sensor, but operates very similarly. Insert batteries into the light, go to add device in the app and scan the QR code found on the floodlight. The app will download the latest firmware and calibrate the brightness.

Mounting is similar to the spot as well. Get the base mounted with the included hardware, and then install the light. Adjust the lights and sensors as needed.

Video Doorbell 2

Since the Smart Lighting also communicates with Ring’s video doorbells, I also installed a Video Doorbell 2. The beautiful thing about the Video Doorbell 2 as opposed to the Eufy Video Doorbell we installed a little while ago is that it can run on battery or be connected to an existing doorbell wiring system to keep the battery boosted. It works well in all situations. I replaced my old doorbell and used the wires, so hopefully I won’t need to recharge the batteries often, if ever.

Ring App

Once everything is installed, controlling it all in the Ring app is just as straight forward as installation. On all of the lights, there is a motion sensor level control. You can adjust how sensitive the light is to motion and try to dial in how often it is triggered. I ended up putting both the spot and floodlight on the lowest setting to avoid frequent triggers.

Then, if you want to make groups that talk to each other when one device is triggered, it’s as simple as linking devices in the app. Once accepting the warning that it will drain batteries faster, you can designate a time that lights can trigger other lights from motion. With this link, you can have movement in your backyard trigger all of your outdoor lights to turn on, if you’d like. Having a group of path lights or step lights all turn on together when motion is detected at the beginning of the path or staircase, for example, would be a great use of the Smart Lighting linked device feature.

Wrapping up

Overall, just like the Video Doorbells, Ring has made an effortless way to get lighting installed around your house. Because most of it is battery powered and connected through the Bridge, you don’t need to worry about running wired to everything. The Ring app lets you easily customize and set up groups to suit your property. And, the Ring app also has their neighborhood feature, which allows users report crimes, generates a neighborhood crime report and lets users upload any suspicious behavior their Ring products have recorded.

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