Ring Battery Doorbell Plus Review: a practical doorbell cam that’s good, but not cheap

I’ve been using the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus at my front door for a few weeks, and I’ll be straight: it does what it says on the box. You see people clearly, you see packages on the ground, and your phone buzzes every time something moves in front of the house. If you’ve had an older Ring or a basic wired doorbell cam before, the main thing you notice here is the taller video. You actually see the doormat and the delivery boxes instead of just people’s shoulders.

Day to day, it’s basically become my extra peephole. I don’t really ring-check every single alert, but when a package is supposed to arrive or I’m not home, it’s handy to quickly open the app and see what’s going on. The motion alerts are a bit chatty at the start, but once you tweak the zones, it calms down. I had to spend a couple of evenings adjusting sensitivity so it didn’t trigger on every car going past.

It’s not perfect though. The big catch is the subscription. Without paying, you only get live view and basic alerts. No video history, no package-specific alerts, nothing stored. So if something happens while you’re away and you don’t have the subscription, you basically miss the evidence. That’s the part that annoyed me the most, because the hardware itself isn’t cheap to begin with.

Overall, I’d say it’s a pretty solid doorbell camera for everyday home security, especially if you already live in the Amazon/Ring/Alexa world. But you need to go in knowing you’re basically signing up for a monthly fee if you want the doorbell to be fully useful. If you’re allergic to subscriptions, this will probably bother you quite a bit, no matter how good the video looks.

This is where things get a bit mixed. The hardware itself feels fairly priced for what it does: good video quality, wide field of view, solid app, and decent battery system. If it was just a one-time purchase and that’s it, I’d say it’s good value for money for someone who wants a reliable doorbell cam. The problem is that a big chunk of what makes it attractive is locked behind the Ring subscription. No subscription means no video history and no smart alerts for people and packages, which are kind of the whole point of a smart doorbell.

So in reality, you’re not just buying the doorbell. You’re buying the doorbell plus a monthly or yearly fee if you want the full feature set. Over a couple of years, that adds up. If you’re already paying for other Ring devices, adding this one on top might feel fine because it’s just another camera in the same ecosystem. But if this is your first Ring and you’re trying to avoid subscriptions, you’ll probably feel a bit annoyed once you realize how limited it is without the plan.

There are cheaper doorbells out there that offer local storage or limited cloud storage without a subscription. Some of them are rougher around the edges in terms of app quality and motion detection, but financially, they can make more sense if you hate recurring costs. With Ring, you’re basically paying for a smoother experience and tighter integration with things like Alexa and Echo Show. Whether that’s worth it depends on your priorities.

Personally, I think the value is decent if: you want an easy setup, you care about a reliable app, and you’re okay paying for a subscription. If you’re on a tight budget or you only need occasional monitoring, there are better financial choices. The doorbell itself is good; the ongoing cost is the part you really need to think about before hitting “buy”.

Design-wise, the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus is pretty standard Ring style: a two-tone rectangle with a big round button and a camera on top. It’s not exactly pretty, but it looks clean and modern enough on the wall. The dimensions are 5.1 x 2.4 x 1.1 inches, so it’s not tiny. On a narrow door frame, it does look a bit chunky, but not ridiculous. On my brick wall next to the door, it blends in fine after a couple of days; I stopped noticing it.

The satin nickel faceplate is simple and neutral. It doesn’t scream “tech gadget” from the street, which I like. The ring around the button lights up when someone presses it or when it’s active, so visitors understand it’s a doorbell, not just a camera. At night, that light makes it easier for people to find the button, especially if your porch isn’t well lit. If you care about matching your hardware exactly, you might want to buy extra faceplates, but out of the box, it’s good enough for a normal house.

One thing I do like is how the battery slides out from the bottom. You don’t have to take the whole unit off the wall to recharge it. There’s a small security screw to lock it in, so someone can’t just walk up and yank the battery. It’s not Fort Knox, but it’s fine for a normal residential area. The included corner kit is also handy if your door is at an angle and you want the camera pointed more towards the walkway instead of straight out.

Overall, the design is practical. It feels like they prioritized function over style, which in this case I’m okay with. It doesn’t feel cheap, the button has a solid click, and nothing rattles. If you want a super discrete, tiny doorbell, this isn’t it. But if you’re okay with a visible device that clearly looks like a smart doorbell, the design gets the job done and doesn’t get in the way.

The doorbell runs on a removable Quick-Release Battery Pack, and this is one area where I was pleasantly surprised. In my case, with medium traffic (a few deliveries a week, some foot traffic, and motion zones tuned properly), the battery lasted a few weeks without needing a charge. If you live on a busy street and crank up motion sensitivity, expect it to drain faster. There’s no magic here: more recordings and more live views mean less battery life.

Recharging is fairly painless. You press a little tab, slide the battery out, and plug it into the included USB cable. I usually leave it overnight; by the next morning it’s full. The doorbell is offline while the battery is out unless you have a spare battery to swap in. That’s one thing to consider: if you hate downtime, buying a second battery is almost mandatory, which adds to the overall cost. Personally, I just picked a time I knew I’d be home and didn’t stress about the few hours of no coverage.

You can also hardwire it to an existing 8–24 VAC doorbell transformer for trickle charging. I tested it on battery only first, then wired it later. Once wired, the battery percentage basically just sits there and slowly tops off. It’s not a full power-over-wire system; it’s more like the wiring just keeps the battery from draining too quickly. If you’re comfortable turning off the breaker and dealing with two wires, it’s not a complicated job, but if you’re not handy, you might just stick to battery mode.

Overall, I’d call the battery situation pretty solid but not magical. It’s good enough that you don’t feel like you’re constantly charging, but you do need to pay attention to your motion settings. If you go in expecting it to last months on a busy street with max sensitivity, you’ll be disappointed. If you tune it a bit and accept an occasional charge or buy a second battery, it’s perfectly manageable for everyday use.

In terms of build, the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus feels solid enough in the hand. The plastic doesn’t feel flimsy, and once it’s mounted, there’s no wobble or creaking when you press the button. It’s rated to handle -5°F to 122°F (-20.5°C to 50°C). I haven’t tested it in extreme cold yet, but it’s been through rain, wind, and a couple of pretty hot afternoons without any issues so far. No fogging on the lens, no weird condensation under the cover.

The front lens area seems to resist minor dust and splashes pretty well. After a few rainy days, I only had a few water spots that wiped off easily with a cloth. You’ll want to clean it every now and then if you live in a dusty or rainy area, but that’s normal for any outdoor camera. The button light still works fine after several storms, and there’s been no sign of water getting inside the housing.

The mounting bracket and included screws grab onto my brick wall well. Once it’s on, you have to deliberately unscrew it to get it off; it doesn’t feel like something that will fall off on its own. There is a security screw at the bottom to lock the battery in and make casual theft harder. If someone really wants it and shows up with tools, they could probably still take it, but for normal use it’s enough to discourage random messing around.

So far, I’d say durability is good for standard home use. It feels like something you can install and then not baby. I wouldn’t mount it where it gets direct sprinkler hits all day or constant abuse, but for a normal front porch with some rain, sun, and dust, it holds up. There’s also a one-year limited warranty, which is not amazing but standard for this type of device. Just don’t expect it to be indestructible; it’s solid, but it’s still consumer electronics sitting outside.

On the performance side, the video quality is genuinely good. The 1536p HD+ feed is sharp enough that you can clearly see faces, logos on packages, and license plates if the car is close enough and not moving too fast. The head-to-toe view is the standout part for me; I can see the doormat and any boxes left there without the usual guessing. Compared to older 1080p doorbells I’ve used, the vertical coverage is the big step up, not just the sharpness.

Motion detection is pretty responsive. When someone walks up the path, I get an alert within a couple of seconds. Out of the box, it was too sensitive and was triggering on cars passing in the street. After playing with the custom motion zones and lowering sensitivity, I got it to a point where it mostly only fires when someone is actually approaching the house or on the porch. This part takes a bit of trial and error, so don’t expect it to be perfect on day one.

Night performance is decent. The color night vision kicks in when there’s some ambient light; otherwise, it looks more like a standard security cam at night with boosted brightness. Faces are still recognizable at normal door distance. If you have a porch light, turn it on with a schedule and the image looks a lot better. Without any light at all, it’s usable but not pretty. For basic security and checking who’s at the door after dark, it does the job.

The Ring app is generally responsive. Live view loads in a few seconds on my Wi‑Fi (roughly 200 Mbps down / 10 Mbps up). When the Wi‑Fi signal at the door is weaker, you feel it: the image can take longer to load or drop in quality. Ring recommends at least 1 Mbps upload, but realistically you want closer to their 2.5 Mbps suggestion and a decent router. Overall, the performance is solid enough that I trust it to show me what’s going on, but it’s still dependent on your home network being decent.

Out of the box, you get the doorbell itself, a removable battery, a satin nickel faceplate, a corner wedge, charging cable, and a little bag of screws and tools. So you don’t need to run to the hardware store unless your wall is weird. The doorbell is fully wireless out of the gate, and you can hardwire it later if you want trickle charging. I ran it just on the battery first to see how annoying the recharging would be.

On the feature side, the big marketing thing is the 1536p Head-to-Toe HD+ video with a 150° x 150° field of view. In practice, that means you can see from someone’s shoes up to above their head in one frame, which is actually useful for package deliveries. The app lets you set motion zones, privacy zones, and you get two-way audio so you can talk to whoever’s there. Color night vision is also in the mix, and it does a decent job as long as you’ve got at least some ambient light from the street or a porch light.

Now, all the “smart” stuff that sounds cool in the bullet points mostly sits behind the subscription. Things like person and package alerts, video history up to 180 days, and being able to go back and rewatch events all need a Ring subscription. Without it, you just get live view and instant alerts, but nothing is stored long term. That’s fine if you only care about checking who’s at the door in the moment, but not great if you want evidence after the fact.

Compared to cheaper doorbells I’ve tried, the Ring feels more polished and the app is more stable. But you’re clearly paying for the ecosystem and the brand. If you already have other Ring cameras or an Echo Show, it fits in nicely: you can see the doorbell on the Echo screen, answer by voice, that sort of thing. If this is your first smart camera and you hate the idea of a recurring cost, the whole package is less attractive once you realize how much is locked behind the paywall.