Video Doorbell 4 test: Ring’s connected doorbell struggles to renew itself

Ring has equipped its Video Doorbell 4 with a 2MP main sensor that produces recordings of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The wide-angle optic that accompanies it allows to have a field of vision of 180 ° diagonally, but only 84 ° vertically because of the 16/9 ratio used. As a result, a visitor must be at least 5 feet from the doorbell to see them from head to toe, and it will be difficult to monitor a package left by a delivery person on the doorstep. Other models do better on this point, such as Google’s Nest Doorbell (battery) with its ¾ ratio or Arlo’s Video Doorbell with its 1/1 ratio. Ring also offers infrared vision for the night as well as an HDR mode intended to compensate for backlighting. However, it did not seem very effective to us.

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By day

We decided to compare the images of the Ring doorbell with those of Google’s Nest Doorbell (battery), since it is the highest rated model in our comparison. However, it is more to its advanced features than to its image quality that the latest Nest doorbell owes its high marks. Its 720p definition clearly does not allow it to compete with the 1080p images of the Video Doorbell 4, which also offers excellent exposure. It captures a very good level of detail and our test scene appears without any blocked or burnt areas.

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By night

The Video Doorbell 4’s infrared vision performed very well in our test scene. The level of detail remains rather good and the exposure once again makes it possible to avoid blocked areas, at the cost of overexposure, which hinders the readability of the elements in the center of our test scene. In comparison, the image of the Nest Doorbell (battery) is less well defined and much darker, but more balanced.

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Unfortunately, our real-world testing confirmed the tendency for the Video Doorbell 4 to overexpose in the dark. Faces may appear burnt, so we were unable to recognize someone over five feet in their images. This is still sufficient for a doorbell, but Google’s still does better despite its lower definition. For her, we have estimated this distance to be just over 2 meters.

The Nest Doorbell (battery) is also a little more efficient also in motion detection since we measured a distance of about 5.50 meters, against 4 meters for the Video Doorbell 4, which is still very good for a doorbell. Finally, the activation of infrared vision is also a little slower at Ring: 2 seconds, against only 1 s at Google.