Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Many people have the Ring. Its the number one doorbell right? Well I don't think it should be. The Amcrest has so many advantages over Ring its impossible to list them all here. The initial install I would rate a skill level necessary of a 4 out of 5 if you have lap siding on your house. Since this door bell is longer and it has a camera in it that need to be level, you will need to find a way to get it level so its not pointing up. I ended up having to make a wedge out of wood with a hole in the middle to allow the wires to pass though. I then had to use drywall anchors into the siding then screw the wood into those. I then was able to screw the doorbell bracket into the wood. After this initial hurdle, the install level is a 3 out of 5. #1 Thing is to make sure you have a good WiFi signal near by. The problem I had was it would connect with the wizard on the Amcrest Smart home app then work perfectly fine. Then I would go into the app and look at the setting and all of a sudden it lost connection. I couldn't get it back even after a number of factory resets and unhooking from power. It would go through and find the wireless and successfully connect, but just keep blinking blue and never connect. That's when I figured out there was something wrong with my Wifi and it just wasn't getting enough signal. Once that was resolved it connected and has stayed connected. Another thing is it uses DHCP, Warning!! DON'T change the IP, it doesn't like that. I wanted a static IP and it wouldn't connect with that, So I had to reserve a DHCP address instead. MAJOR PROS 1. With the Amcrest is it will hook up flawlessly to any Amcrest DVR and record just like any other doorbell. 2. Micro SD card built in and record to instead of the Cloud. I can get alerts and watch them whenever without subscribing to the cloud. 3. The alerts are literately Instantaneous unlike the really slow RING brand. 4. Unlike Ring, you can now mask the motion sensing area instead of a radius or distance. This prevents A LOT of false alerts. 5. Did I mention you can get and watch alerts and ALL activity WITHOUT the cloud subscription!!! After all the kinks I went through I will DEFINITELY buy one again. I'm thinking one on the back porch. RING Brand has a lot to learn from what Amcrest is doing. My entire Security system is slowly turning to 100% Amcrest.