Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm a professional AV / Networking / Home Automation installer in the Chicagoland area. I've done a number of jobs where the question of a video doorbell has been raised. I never had a good answer that didn't cost upwards of > $1000 until last year. Last year two new products came on the marker, the Doorbot and the Skybell WiFi Doorbells. I followed both closely through development and release stages and waited for reviews to begin trickling in. First, Skybell was first to set a release date, which they missed by a mile. Then Doorbot hit the market. It seemed that although Skybell offered more features.... none of them worked (based on early customer reviews). Doorbot seemed to be pulling ahead in reviews, which is when I started to offer the product to my customers. July or August of 2014 I installed my first Doorbot for a customer. The home was a new construction so I was able to put in a mechanical doorbell chime (a requirement of both Doorbot, and the new model, Ring doorbells). I can't speak to the hassles of making this product work with a electronic door chime. I installed the Doorbot and had it up and running, with minimal tinkering, within an hour. As with other reviewers, there were issues including push notifications not working unless the app was open, and no audio to or from the device. As Doorbot transitioned to Ring, I continued to work with support over a 6 month period to rectify the issues with the Doorbot. Eventually support threw in the towel and provided a Ring doorbell as a replacement. I was unhappy with the length of time needed to rectify the issue but was at the mercy of the Ring release cycle. I went by my customer's house last week, February 2015, and installed the Ring. The holes I had drilled in the brick didn't match up, which was unfortunate, but there was never any expectation that they would. Oh well. The Ring, being wider, covered the holes I had drilled for the Doorbot. The Ring App (Android) was easy to install and walked through the setup steps. One advantage to the Ring over the Doorbot was that is worked in WiFi N standard (802.11N) instead of B only. Who has a Wireless B network anymore? I had to install a Wireless B access point just to get the Doorbot working on the initial install. Now the Ring doorbell works on Wireless N. Thank you! The setup process seemed to continuously fail when connecting the Ring to the network. It never gave a SUCCESS message. After 20min of retrying I gave up and just pressed the doorbell's button. Amazingly, it worked! The phone rang, the video was clear, and the audio worked... despite the setup in the app never giving a completion/success message. I finished mounting the doorbell and headed out for the day. It's been a week and I've heard no complaints from the client. I'll begin notifying my other customers that we're ready to start installing this product. Doug Buchan Buchan Consulting LLC