I wasted years buying Ring cameras, here’s why I finally switched to Reolink

My first smart cameras were Ring cameras and I used them for several years. Rising subscription costs and worrying privacy concerns ultimately pushed me to switch to Reolink, and I wish I had made the move much sooner.

Related

Why and how I switch to local storage for my security camera setup

I’m done renting space in the sky.

Why I Bought Ring Cameras in the First Place

Low cost and easy integration

Credit: Ring

When I started looking for smart cameras, I already owned Amazon Echo smart displays. Like smart displays, Ring cameras were reasonably priced, especially during Amazon Prime events, since Amazon owns the Ring brand.

The cameras also work well with Alexa. For example, if someone rings a Ring video doorbell, the doorbell’s camera feed can automatically be displayed on your Echo Show devices so you can see who’s at the door. This simple integration appealed, so choosing Ring cameras seemed like the right choice.

A subscription was required to use some camera features. I needed a subscription to access video history and receive notifications for things like people detection. I only had to pay a few dollars a month, so it didn’t seem too horrible.

Problems become harder to ignore

Price hikes and privacy concerns

Credit: Ring

Unfortunately, what started as a modest subscription continued to grow over time. The cost of subscriptions increased, and as I added more cameras, I needed to upgrade to a higher tier covering more devices. Before I knew it, I was paying around $10 a month to be able to use some of the most useful features on my smart cameras.

Rising costs weren’t the only problem. I became more and more concerned about privacy; As my camera recordings were stored in the cloud, this meant that video from home ended up on third-party servers, which was unsuitable. Amazon has never had the best privacy record.

Many Ring owners felt the same way after the recent Super Bowl commercial. The ad showed a Ring feature called Search Party, which used Ring cameras in a neighborhood to locate a missing dog. Reaction to the advert was not positive, with people understandably concerned that the same technology could be used to track people as well as animals.

The worst part is that the feature was enabled by default. Many Ring users were concerned that their cameras were being used to monitor their neighborhood without their explicit prior consent.

Why I switched to Reolink

Local storage and no subscription

I eventually decided that the increasing costs and privacy concerns with Ring cameras had become too much. It was time to replace them with something else.

I knew I wanted two things that Ring cameras couldn’t give me. I wanted local video storage, so I didn’t have to send all the video from my cameras to the cloud. I also wanted products that allowed access to key features without having to pay a subscription.

After a lot of research, I finally chose Reolink as the brand that seemed to best suit my needs. Many Reolink cameras let you use microSD cards up to 512GB in size, which can store weeks of motion-triggered video clips.

You can also purchase products such as the Reolink Home Hub which can store video from all your cameras in a centralized location, supporting a microSD card up to 1TB.

Using local storage means I no longer have to pay subscription fees to access video recordings from my cameras or video doorbell. Instead of paying Ring to store my recordings in the cloud and allow me to view them on demand, all my recordings are saved locally and I can view them easily on my local network. I can even access recordings remotely without a subscription via the Reolink app.

Reolink also offers much better privacy. Since my recordings are stored locally rather than in the cloud, I don’t have to worry about them living on third-party servers where anything could happen to them. Local cameras keep recordings off of Reolink’s servers, so they are unlikely to be used for surveillance without your consent, unlike Ring’s Search Party feature.

Convenience often comes at a price

You don’t have to pay for privacy

Credit: Michael Bizzaco / How-To Geek

Ring cameras seemed like a great choice to me at the time because they offered a lot of convenience. They worked perfectly with my Echo displays, which made them much more useful. This convenience came at a price. Not just the price of my subscription but also the cost of my privacy.

When these costs became too high, it was time for a change. Since Reolink cameras work great with Home Assistant, I was able to recreate the Ring features I loved without having to pay for them. My cameras are now local and private, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

There are many local private cameras

If you want to say goodbye to your Ring cameras, there are plenty of options you can use locally without having to pay for cloud storage. Reolink is a popular choice, but it’s not the only option available.