Ring Introduces Updated Video Doorbell With Improved Night Vision and Solar Charger Accessory, but No HomeKit

I’m a huge Apple fan and a huge smart home fan. I can’t understand why not having HomeKit support is such a deal breaker for people. Is it because you want all your items in 1 app? I mean I see appeal over the the convince, but to be a deal breaker on what otherwise are some great products...Mind blowing. ?

It’s the privacy and data control that makes HomeKit devices better. Ring cameras will never be HomeKit compatible because then Amazon couldn’t share your camera’s video with others.
You may want to ask why those other devices aren’t willing to get on board the HomeKit train.

Who wants "home kit". What is needed is an industry STANDARD. I'll buy this kind of stuff when they all interoperate.

Considering Apple is the only one that doesn't make you the product any standard would be worthless from a privacy standpoint. This is also why a standard won't happen no company wants to share in the wealth of the data you provide.

I’m a huge Apple fan and a huge smart home fan. I can’t understand why not having HomeKit support is such a deal breaker for people. Is it because you want all your items in 1 app? I mean I see appeal over the the convince, but to be a deal breaker on what otherwise are some great products...Mind blowing. ?

As others have said, its all of it. For one opening an app for each accessory is a pain

But the bigger issue is have you not seen the numerous Ring data breaches in the past year or 2? How long, if not already, before Amazon owned Ring is sending your data to humans to verify AI" like Alexa devices, etc? Do you want your house video feed send to strangers?

Additionally, subscriptions. The Homekit compatible lets you store the video on iCloud with no monthly/yearly fee. There are also cameras/doorbells like Eufy that do it locally that you can access via Homekit. I believe Abode system also doesnt require a paid plan (you can for pro monitoring).

The cameras are so cheap because they are getting you monthly for as long as you own them. You get ZERO features in a free Ring plan https://shop.ring.com/pages/protect-plans You can view live video and talk with the person over the camera. Zero recording which defeats the whole purpose until you pay $30/year. Sounds small but after 3 years that $100 doorbell price doubled to $200. And that is just 1 doorbell no other devices. Mine as well buy a better camera up front with no plans.

Mine as well just get a Facebook Portal if you are going to let Amazon in your house. Not a ton of difference giving away your data or who knows seeing it.

Im not a conspiracy theorist or privacy nut, but considering what they did with Echo, I would not want video of my home (or when Im home or not) going to some random contractor for "verification" who can sell that to criminals or use it for blackmail purposes. There is no accountability for those contractors. It was bad enough with your voice but your video tells a ton more about you.

I haven't seen a homekit compatible thermometer that looks as nice as the Nest for my personal tastes, and I still like staying informed of products like this new Ring doorbell, but I am still going to save my dollars for homekit compatibility.

Ecobee is pretty nice and Homekit. The Honeywell Lyric Round is Homekit too and very similar to a Nest.

I wish someone were to make a HomeKit door bell that doesn't scream "smart door bell". These all look like a tech product with little regards for architectural aesthetics.

I bought a Ring Pro a while back (just before the Amazon buyout I think) because I really needed something when going out of town, but I sure as heck wouldn't touch any of their products now. They outright lied about future HomeKit support for the Pro, they had egregious security flaws discovered, I don't trust Amazon even slightly, and frankly the thing doesn't work all that well anyway. The app-based video viewer is bandwidth-intensive and unusable on a slow internet connection (like, you know, a cell connection when you'll want it), they go out of their way to encourage slightly-creepy crowdsourced data sharing, and the integration with my physical doorbell is terrible.

That last one is the deal-breaker. I have it hardwired with power, but if you press the doorbell the dang phone will ring before the physical bell does. There's like a 3-5 second delay before the bell rings, minimum. As far as I can tell, it doesn't ring the bell until it can check in with the servers, which if you're at home is just stupid. It might be nice for the 10% of the time someone comes to the door when I'm away, but the other 90% of the time when I'm at home the experience is embarrassingly bad.

Apple... PRETTY PLEASE, buy SimpliSafe or come up with your own DIY alarm!

If they're going to buy anyone I sure would hope it's not them. I put one of their systems in the rental unit I own and it was crude, basic, and a bit hard to set up. Could be they've improved, but it was a bad first impression. If they're going to buy anyone I'd vote for Abode--I've had extremely good experiences with the company, and their hardware is very "Apple-like" in both design and simplicity. For the most part it also "just works" which means a lot.

Ironically the one problem I had with Abode's hardware was a somewhat Apple-like one--they upgraded the hardware in both the base station and the motion-detector with still camera that comes with it along the line, and the newer camera is only compatible with the newer base station. Which is fine, except for the fact they look identical, the product name didn't change, and the only indication is a slightly different model number, so I was really confused when I ended up with an extra camera from a newer system and couldn't get it to pair to my older base station.

I’m a huge Apple fan and a huge smart home fan. I can’t understand why not having HomeKit support is such a deal breaker for people. Is it because you want all your items in 1 app? I mean I see appeal over the the convince, but to be a deal breaker on what otherwise are some great products...Mind blowing. ?

I consider myself an early adopter of tech, and it was pretty much necessary to have an individual app for each thing in past years. I've never minded that, as I just put all of my smart home items in one folder on my iPhone. But tech is maturing now, standards are being created, and while I still have a few things on different apps, I am still trying to move everything to homekit. It's just preference.

For one, yes having one app makes things more simple, and more 'wife approved'. Secondly, there are some benefits to things like cameras with homekit, since they will store footage securely if I have an iCloud data plan, and not count against my storage. Lastly, I have a Nest thermostat and Blink cameras, but I would love to move away from the Google and Amazon model (I understand the privacy aspect is important to some, and nonsense to others).

I haven't seen a homekit compatible thermometer that looks as nice as the Nest for my personal tastes, and I still like staying informed of products like this new Ring doorbell, but I am still going to save my dollars for homekit compatibility.