One of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s rotary dial cell phones or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!
I have so many friends of mine who have doorbells by Ring, that it really annoys me that I just don’t really have an even remotely ideal way to install one of these on my house- My doorbell is on my weirdly narrow door frame, and my exterior walls surrounding my door are this uneven flagstone material that looks cool, but… Well, I guess whoever built my house in the 60’s didn’t have smart doorbells in mind. If you live in a normal house, with normal walls, I highly recommend checking out the Ring Video Doorbell 2 which is on sale today for 20% off, bringing its normal $200 price down to $160. The original Ring Video Doorbell has been hovering at around $100 for a while now, and although it’s functionally very similar, the second generation Ring is basically better in every way: 1080p vs 720p video, the video processing is better as well which assists with night vision and motion detecting. Also, if you can’t hardwire it, the Ring 2 has a removable battery pack which makes charging way easier.
Anyway, if this is the first you’ve heard of these newfangled smart doorbell things, the way they work is by basically combining the basic function of a doorbell with a security camera, two way intercom, and push alerts. I was 110% sold on these kind of products when I was out to lunch with a friend who had one, the postman rang their doorbell to get a signature on a package, and they were able to have a conversation via the Ring app about just bringing the package back the next day when he would be home. At my house, when that happens, I’m left with the annoying “Sorry we missed you!" post card and the exponentially more annoying subsequent trip to the post office.
YouTube is also filled with these kind of videos where these sorts of smart doorbells have been used to either deter or catch package thieves. If you order things from Amazon or other places on the regular, and are in an area with lots of foot traffic, that’s one more reason to get one of these. The only downside to these devices is that there’s a $3/mo subscription to use all the fancy cloud stuff that makes the doorbell and the app all work together. A low-cost subscription like that is fairly standard for all these different video security solutions however.
If I had an even remotely good way to install one of these Ring Video Doorbell 2s at my house, I’d already have one. I’m super jealous of friends of mine who have had these things for years, and, today you’re able to save 20%.
Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at [email protected] and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day" in the subject.
